Plant Chat

I just made the loveliest dinner. Stir fried chicken  and tomatoes flavored with garlic and oregano along side garlic and parsley flavored pasta. The tomatoes came from my garden! Tada! Productivity!

And the were good too. Yay! I am very proud.

I have been bonding with my tomato plants lately because I just didn't feel very close to them. In years past I have had a very good relationship with my plants but this year I just don't feel the love. I'm out there visiting with the green beans but I don't know why I don't feel as close to the garden this year, its weird. Its feeling very auto pilot for some reason. I think I've been spending too much time with my flowers. So I have been trying to spend more time with my vegetables and its good that I have been paying more attention because I might have missed an entire tomato limb falling over! I could have lost and entire limb! I mean how awful. I blame this on the tomato friendly heat and humidity that we have been experiencing. My tomato plants have morphed into tomato trees.

I have actually run out of green garden tape! I've never run out of garden tape before. I have been tying up plants like a crazy person, a crazy person with tomatoes that are growing at insane rates and growing, growing, growing out and around their little houses.  They are taking over. Last year I did more pruning but the growth has happened so suddenly I didn't have time to do it this year, I mean one day they were spindly little plantings and the next day  they had escaped their cages entirely.

The limb was the biggest problem yet. It has four fruits on it and it must have just gotten too heavy but thus far the fruits are not all that big or even close to being ripe. I ended up having to tie it to the fence.  The Experimental Tomato is also growing fruits like a crazy thing but it is much more shrubby in appearance and oddly, has more fruits further along in development. The  exact same variety is also the back yard but are taller than I am and oddly, the leaves look different. The Experimental plant is way shorter than I am, has darker leaves and fewer branches and I haven't had to do any tying of it at all, which is good because I ran out of tape. It has a total of  six or seven fruits on it with two large and coming to ripeness, the other plant doesn't have nearly as many fruits  and they are all small and nowhere near ripeness.

If I was a better gardener I would under stand this. E.T gets more light but less water and is in a container. The garden plants are on a timed soaker hose and get exactly the same amount of water twice a day and the benefits of plastic mulch to keep the ground damp and warm and of course, are planted in the ground with all the benefits that accords. I dump water on the ET twice a day, sometimes more  water sometimes less and at  various times. I have fertilized the ET but only after heavy rains - I don't do this with the garden because the garden I would think would suffer less after a heavy rain?

Regardless, it looks better than its in-ground brethren.

Speaking of my container garden. I gave everything a through soaking with the hose today. I try to limit my watering to what I get out of the rain barrel but its been so hot and dry lately that I decided to give everything I good refreshing bath to keep them happy and hydrated. I water them twice a day with the watering can but it's not enough to really keep them as wet as they probably want. I've noticed some of my Not Queen Annes Lace getting a little toasty and one of my vines was looking a little peaky. I fixed that.

PS, the volunteer pumpkin plants look very happy.