Tomatoes

Starting April 15th, we've been gradually getting our seedlings into the ground. It would be a faster process but our Army son surprised us last weekend by coming home for a visit......yay...before he ships out to Iraq...boo. I just don't want to spend time in the garden when he's here; it's such a precious time. Even when all he's doing is playing Mario brothers with his sister in the next room, I savor the moment.

Anyway, when he goes to hang out with friends, I rush out to the garden and put a few more plants in the ground. Here are some of the slicing tomatoes planted in our late carrot bed....hopefully we'll get some carrots harvested before they are completely shaded by the tomato plants.

Jubilee, Mortgage Lifter, White Queen, Jet Star, Copia and Gold Medal.

A second wave of slicing tomatoes went into the spinach bed.

Early Girl, Goldie Yellow, Thessalonika, and Consoluto Florentine are planted with the last of the calendulas and chrysanthemum. We'll continue to save and dry the calendula flowers to use to make teas and antiseptic salve.

We're leaving the kale in to save the seeds...it's one of the easiest to save and this one plant will provide all the seed we need for next years crop.

Our first bed of paste tomatoes....2 each of San Marzano, Roma, Consoluto Genovese and Goldmans.

Progress....slowly but surely.

Then.....

...and now.

Lovin' the old washer and dryer that used to sit by the back fence...

...not lovin' the cardboard, but if it kills the weeds we can live with it temporarily.

We were written up today in the local newspaper, The Foothill Sun-Gazette, and wanted to say thanks to Mo Montgomery for the very nice and comprehensive article (it was great Mo...and not just because we're in it:)

Rummaging thru old photos reminded me of how far we've come in the 2 years that we've been gardening in our wonderful neighbors yard.....and how much work is still left to be done ~

DG pathways (instead of cardboard:)

Take down the rickety shed and put in more raised beds.

Plant more fruit trees.

Build a proper compost bin.

Lots to do....good thing we like working in the dirt!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fruit trees are a new addition to Joyce's yard (upper left corner)....we'll be posting more on that process in the next couple of days (as well as the tomatillos that went in today). Potatoes and oregano are waiting harvest in the left bed, garlic in the one on the right.

Edit ~ I should point out to those just stopping by because of the article- this blog is a journal of our sharecropping adventure in our neighbors yard. We are entering our third year of gardening in this yard but we've been growing food in our own yard for over 20 years (seems like we'd be past making mistakes......not the case). My personal blog is where I write about our garden as well as canning, dehydrating, bread baking, soap making and other aspects of this cheap hippie lifestyle :)

Brrrrrrrrr

Our current weather situation may not impress the rest of the country, but this is cold for springtime in the valley....and it isn't doing the recently transplanted tomatoes much good.

So we have set up an improvised greenhouse on the dining room table for the overflow from the downstairs shelf. The plants will be spending the next couple of nights here....hopefully they can go out and play in the sun tomorrow.

They don't seem to mind it so far:)

More Tomato Transplants

The rest of the tomato plants needed to get out of their little cells and into the sunshine. These larger pots will give them enough space for their roots to expand in the next few weeks before they go into their permanent homes in the garden.

Our very kind neighbor, who happens to work in agriculture, gave us several flats of these 3inch pots. Not as big as the first ones we transplanted, but much easier to move around

(and less tippy).

120 more tomatoes! Hopefully we will find the space for most of these to get planted....if not, there's always Freecycle:)