It’s been pouring this morning and I’ve noticed that some of the tomatoes are leaning and needed support. As I mentioned in my last tomato post, I planed to use an old t-shirt to tie them.
I like using them coz they’re chunky and soft, they won’t cut into the stem. Their stretchy nature will let the plant grow freely. Also, they’re free and can be used more than once.
11-Jul-2023
Everyone told me to abuse that tomato plant last year that just grew up??? By itself???? Out of rocks??? In my backyard??? That tomatoes LOVE being called shitty plants and deprived of love and care, they are masochists that thrive when told their mother doesn't like them.
And so, I did nothing when winter came. I did not snip, I did not prep, I did not cover, and the brutal lake effect winter soon crushed it into the ground. Browned, burned by frost, and - I assumed - dead. Unfortunate.
I WAS WRONG, THIS FUCKER IS BACK, WHAT THE FUCK, GREEN LEAVES AND VINES ARE GROWING OUT OF THE DEAD VINES, THIS PLANT TAKES MORE SUFFERING THAN MATT FUCKING MURDOCK, HOW IS IT ALIVE, I HAVE DONE NOTHING TO THIS PLANT AND IT JUST DOES THIS???
Our backyard garden is a mix of warm & cool season plantings:
That green mass is one tomato plant, a bell pepper plant, a habanero plant & two eggplants. Plant spacing rules are like the pirate's code... they're more guidelines than actual rules:
Seen on another walk:
In our experience, beautiful rose blossoms occur when you step back & let nature do its shit:
This week my dad would have turned 86 years old if he hadn't been killed in 2020. This post is dedicated to his memory. My heartfelt wish is he found the peace & contentment in the next life that he deserved in this one:
Some of my Cucumber, Morning Glory, and Marigold containers:
My tomatoes were planted the same day as everything else, but none have even broke the surface yet. I really want to grow some of those zebra and black krims. Fingers crossed they are just slow to germinate.
Here are my Jalapeno, Serrano Chili, and Mixed Pepper plants (all planted the same day as everything else pictured):
Eggplant and Hollyhock plants:
I started getting my outdoor space cleaned up from a rough winter. It was incredibly windy in Wyoming this year. It's destroyed my greenhouse and most of the progress I made last year, but I got a nice head start on the cleanup on this set of days off.
I'm pretty proud of myself for being so far ahead on the indoor gardening season.
If you were wanting an update about that plant in my new backyard that I thought was a weed but was in actuality some random huge fucking TOMATO PLANT, it has been less than a month since I discovered it was a tomato bush and now it is large enough to devour a grown ass adult.
It has gone through 2 frosts. It swore at God, and continued to grow.
I have not watered it. It curled a vine into the shape of a middle finger, and continued to grow.
It is growing out of fucking ROCKS.
There is no stopping it. There are hundreds of green tomatoes on it. It is set on devouring the backyard. It will be here after I die. It will be here after you die. It will be here after we all die. It will be here after the earth dies, waiting for a new planet to form, and it will be there until the cold death of the universe freezes it into place.
New sunflower patch, I'm only doing a small patch here as It's to tide over till I get some more scaping/zoning planned up. These are from 4th gen mix seeds (I got them from some friends and classmates)
Same row, I purchased some jalapeno starts as the peppers I seed started are still super small currently.
Same tows, some super late starting spinach. I'm letting it grow to see if I can see what seeding for spinach is like and share that with you all :)
In the white line/square is a wild seeded chamomile plant. I pulled it and gave it to the chickens as a treat.
Further up is the remaining carrots and some tomato starts we purchased, now interplanted with them. There's 2 slicer types and a grape variety. I don't remember offhand if they are determinate or indeterminate. Unfortunately the ones I seed started died off once they were returned outside.
:( thankfully we've all agreed to go light on tomatoes this year due to that.
In ground some direct seeded squash, these are a patty pan/Starburst variety and a couple zuchinni. With luck this year we avoid the squash bugs!
The direct seeded nasturtium in the back and front is careless wildseeded chamomile (I swear it's the best way to grow it and will be sowing another patch like this)
The few eggplants I've left for now have flowers, pointed to by the white arrows.
And the broccoli currently, the seeds aren't ready quite yet, but I pulled a pod the birds got to to check them, still pretty green but the seeds are of good size. Still lots of lovely flowers for the various pollinators of the area. Unlike carrot flowers, broccoli seems to attract mostly bees (the honeybees) I haven't seen too many butterflies, moths, flies or otherwise.
Just a bee enjoying some broccoli pollen~
For pest report,
So far I've seen flies and stink bugs.
No ants, aphids and thankfully no squash bugs so far.
Beneficial bug report,
I did see some ladybird gators while doing maintenence cleanup. Some small soil roachs in a few of the beds earthworms while trimming off roots to old sunflower stems.
Mixed bugs:
What I believe to be praying mantis egg cases, I don't know how old or how new they are though.
Pillbugs in some of the beds.
Our parrot visitors have stopped coming by, unfortunatly we no longer have any sunflower heads available for them. When more sunflowers come in I hope they will visit again, or perhaps even when the hollyhocks start seeding. Plenty of the smaller birds of the area still visiting though. I find the thought they might get broccoli seed and wild seed it elsewhere very funny.
This week I plan to work on getting a water line in and some more deep beds set up for growing more sweet potato vines/spuds. As well as getting some melon seeds direct seeded if I can (I may need more soil first to refill the bed).
Started some new spuds to vine for the sweet potato's and ordered some sunchoke tubers and seeds to start out some new herbs/spices and teas.