When tomatoes last in the dooryard bloomed
Where, oh, where is Spring?
Why isn't it here?
Because it's February, dear.
Why isn't it here?
Because it's February, dear.
Happy 4th Everyone
July Slump
Waiting for the red to come
Waiting for the red to come
Typically, the month of July is just a waiting game. All the real work is done, except for watering and watching, all we can do is wait.
Bush Early Girl Puts Out
NOT ONLY EARLY, BUT OFTEN, TOO!
BANNER YEAR PREDICTED
With a performance like the one she's giving right now, Bush Early Girl has earned a permanent spot in the garden. This little determinate variety is busting with tomatoes just half-way through June. It's hard to see, but there are upwards of a dozen tomatoes on the plant, while the indeterminate Early Girl and the two Better Boys are just now setting fruit.
You go, girl!
You go, girl!
Mörderkatze!
VARMINTS BEWARE
The resident police chief ever vigilant at the post. One locust the only confirmed kill so far, but that can only be improved upon.
Record First Tomato!
"From small things, mama,
Big things one day come."
Big things one day come."
Look to your left and see what will surely be the first ripe Chicago backyard tomato. This shot was taken the last week of May, a record first tomato for the Neenah Street Tomato Growers Association, and, we are sure, a record for the whole of Chicago. This, of course excludes hothouse cheaters and those unscrupulous louts who buy from nurseries those two-foot tall potted tomato plants already bearing fruit. They'll get their just rewards when they have to eat those tasteless foul fruits.
You will also notice the latest in organic pest control. Gone are the messy leg traps. No more covered pits that just seemed to attract neighborhood children. Here at last is an answer for those meddling old ladies so enamored of their "darling little bunnies." Have you ever seen what those little darlings can do to a garden? Well, you should see what the orca terra can do to a little bunny!
“Looks like a grave,” came a voice from the alley, interrupting my digging.
I looked up to see a man leaning over the fence. Ordinarily, I would welcome the opportunity to put down a shovel and exchange pleasantries, but not this time.
“It is a grave,” I answered and went back to work, hoping he’d take the hint and move along.
I was finally going to have a proper raised bed for my tomatoes, but after I started, a terrible thought crossed my mind. With the bed this close to the alley anyone passing by could easily…. The fact that I, as a young boy in this very Chicago neighborhood, was guilty of raiding gardens at night and making off with ripe tomatoes, not to eat but to throw at buses, made me apprehensive. Karma and all that. I felt like I was asking for trouble. What goes around comes around, and I definitely didn’t want what was coming to me. But I was too far into it now to move it, and besides this was the best spot for the sunlight.
“Somebody die?” he asked.
“Not yet,” I answered, “but stick around, you might be surprised.” I gave him my best lizard grin went back to work, singing “The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, they crawl all over your chin and mouth.”
He went on his way.
After removing about 15 inches of soil from the eight by two and a half foot plot, I loosened the soil for about another foot deeper and then began mixing in amendments and backfilling. When capped off with a frame the bed took a whopping twelve 40lb. bags of compost/manure. A bed like this, based on good black Illinois prairie soil will need only three tomato plants to produce what for me will be a bumper crop.
The three are two Better Boys and one Early girl. These are hybrid plants, genetically designed to resist disease and increase production, qualities not to be dismissed when you only have room for three or four plants. Some “heirloom” tomatoes are said to be more flavorful, but less productive and subject to diseases that can wipe out a tomato,thereby producing nothing.. I can’t take that chance with only three plants. The Early Girl will also produce a ripe tomato about a month before a lot of the popular heirlooms. In our small space and short season, heirlooms are out and hybrids are in.
The official safe last-chance-for-frost date in Chicago is May l5th, so here we go. Stay tuned.
I looked up to see a man leaning over the fence. Ordinarily, I would welcome the opportunity to put down a shovel and exchange pleasantries, but not this time.
“It is a grave,” I answered and went back to work, hoping he’d take the hint and move along.
I was finally going to have a proper raised bed for my tomatoes, but after I started, a terrible thought crossed my mind. With the bed this close to the alley anyone passing by could easily…. The fact that I, as a young boy in this very Chicago neighborhood, was guilty of raiding gardens at night and making off with ripe tomatoes, not to eat but to throw at buses, made me apprehensive. Karma and all that. I felt like I was asking for trouble. What goes around comes around, and I definitely didn’t want what was coming to me. But I was too far into it now to move it, and besides this was the best spot for the sunlight.
“Somebody die?” he asked.
“Not yet,” I answered, “but stick around, you might be surprised.” I gave him my best lizard grin went back to work, singing “The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, they crawl all over your chin and mouth.”
He went on his way.
After removing about 15 inches of soil from the eight by two and a half foot plot, I loosened the soil for about another foot deeper and then began mixing in amendments and backfilling. When capped off with a frame the bed took a whopping twelve 40lb. bags of compost/manure. A bed like this, based on good black Illinois prairie soil will need only three tomato plants to produce what for me will be a bumper crop.
The three are two Better Boys and one Early girl. These are hybrid plants, genetically designed to resist disease and increase production, qualities not to be dismissed when you only have room for three or four plants. Some “heirloom” tomatoes are said to be more flavorful, but less productive and subject to diseases that can wipe out a tomato,thereby producing nothing.. I can’t take that chance with only three plants. The Early Girl will also produce a ripe tomato about a month before a lot of the popular heirlooms. In our small space and short season, heirlooms are out and hybrids are in.
The official safe last-chance-for-frost date in Chicago is May l5th, so here we go. Stay tuned.
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