Tomatoes have been Staked

Another breathtaking cloud on the march.

If my tomatoes were vampires they'd be so dead. I staked most of them up using the wire frames that my landlords left with the barn. I have 21 plants (or rather mounds--some contain more than one tomato plant) and I staked up the western 2/3rds of them with the wire and did my best with the boxelder branches I cut a few weeks ago. I will definitely need to keep monitoring the tomatoes and tying them up as they grow. A couple of plants were damaged by lodging and a couple were damaged as I staked them, but hopefully they will recover.

So far two of my tomatoes are infected with what seems to be bacterial wilt. One died completely and the other is wilting and looking like it's walking towards the light. If the second one dies I will try a diagnostic test in which you put the infected stem in water and see if it exudes a nasty slime. If it does, it died from bacterial wilt. One additional symptom is yellowing of the lower leaves, which I didn't see, so it could be a different problem altogether. See factsheet here.

At this point I think the most likely explanation is that the stems got fertilizer burn and the ones that had it the worst are the ones dying.

Water Management

This year I finally got the galvanized aluminum watering can I've always dreamed of. It's great for small amounts of watering, but time consuming if I want to water an entire mound. Now I have a series of hoses and a nozzle with 7 handy settings. I could try setting up the sprinkler, but I'm not sure that moving it around every hour or so is any less work than just standing out there with the hose for 20-30 minutes.

I shored up the edge of the mound with the peppers so that I wouldn't lose as much water to the walkways, and it seems to have helped quite a bit. The soil here is quite sticky so it maintains its shape well, even when battered by watering and heavy rain. Next year I definitely need to integrate this micro-irrigation technique into my mounds better. It's low tech, but I can already tell that the water stays in the depressions I've made a lot longer.

Next I need to measure all my watering approaches to see how long it takes to yield an inch of water.

More about my Field Layout

Since it was so late in the year and I needed to take quick action with planting, I didn't do much research before I carved up the garden. I just followed my instincts and the lessons I'd learned in the past. I wound up with wide, deep rows and evenly spaced plantings, instead of the more traditional narrow rows with crowded plantings. Of course, there's nothing new under the sun, and it turns out that this called 'wide row gardening' and 'block style layout'. Here are two publications that discuss it in more detail:

Wide Bed Gardening for Easier Gardening and Higher Yields (Cheyenne Botanic Gardens)
Block Style Layout in Raised Bed Vegetable Gardens (Colorado State University Extension)*

*This one has good information about planting distances for block layout, which can be hard to find.

It looks like I made some good choices with this garden layout, though I could have set things up better for water management by adding a lip at the edge of each mound. I think I will continue this approach next year. The landlord even said I could cut off some branches from the trees that are shading my plot, mostly volunteer white ash. I'm getting my compost pile going now, so hopefully I'll have some good stuff to add to the garden next year. Hopefully we won't be moving again (at least not until we're ready to buy a house--then my garden will be off da hook!).

Starting Out in 2008

Our house, with a vibrant sunset tinted by Canadian forest fires.

Well, Dan and I have moved out to a lovely country house in Zumbrota! It came with a fenced paddock in the backyard, which the landlord was keeping sled dogs in. It seemed like just the perfect place for a garden as it will deter the more lethargic deer and rabbits. Although it was so late in the year, mom and I have had good luck starting late gardens. From a weed ecology perspective it's a good idea, because all of the early weeds have done their thing by the time you start. Also, you're past the danger of late frosts.

This year has been strange for weather. The spring was very long and wet--planting was delayed all across the Midwest and then we were hit by relentless rain leading to flooding. That, plus a few hailstorms, means that most gardens and all the crops have been delayed. I even picked and canned strawberries on July 4th! In most years they would be long over by then.

So far I've bought many started plants from the garden mart at the grocery store. Another benefit to late planting is that the starts are dirt cheap! Only $0.25 apiece for vegetables (but the herbs were more dear at $3 each). Getting the garden started was more costly than I'd hoped, but as I've learned in the past, you can't truly do it to save money unless you're comparing the costs to buying upscale organic produce. Also, there are more costs the first year. Here's the breakdown of the annual expenses:

$25 + 5 - having the neighbor till the garden + 2 straw bales
$30 - herbs and vegetable starts
$75 - seeds from Johnny Seeds (yikes!)
$25 - 6 40-lb. bags of composted manure

The garden, freshly tilled. It's in a handy, fenced paddock. The barrels in the background are the doghouses from the landlord's sled dogs.

I also got some wonderful gardening tools from Lehman's. My favorites so far are the ass-kicking Wilcox gardening tools. Each one is made from a solid piece of stainless steel, so there's nothing to break, and I've broken more trowels and dibbles than I can count. The craftsmanship is excellent and they're even marked to measure planting depth. The customer service lady I talked to just raved about them--she's been gardening for 40 years and she says the only tools she needs is a Wilcox trowel, a pair of snipers, and a new pair of gloves each year.

I also got the metal watering can I've always dreamed of, a large spade, a couple of pairs of gloves, and a heavy-duty rake.

The neighbor, a farmer himself, did a great job of tilling the garden. The soil seemed so compacted I was worried, but he fluffed it up really well and made it perfectly level. Then (after dodging a few nasty storms) I dug it into raised mounds. They're about 25' long and about 3' wide and about 1' above the walkways.

The mounds, mostly finished and planted with solanaceae.

I got enough manure for one 40-lb. bag per row (or maybe a little extra, depending on if I plant all the rows). I'm not sure if this is enough, so I might add synthetic fertilizers. Since it's the first year, I have no idea of the underlying fertility of the soil and this may be a good bet, especially for the tomatoes (those greedy bastards!).

So far the main limitation has been working around the shady areas. There are a lot of trees here, so I'll probably have to go with some irregularly shaped plantings to avoid the dark spots. I think that since I'm planting so late and the days are getting shorter, finding enough sunlight will be essential.

At this point I think the only other thing I need is an extension to the hose and one of those gentle shower head type attachments. I've been doing pretty well with the watering can, but once the whole garden is planted it will be really time consuming to water the whole thing. The landlord left a sprinkler here, as well.

I also want to get some garlic to plant in the fall, but it is outrageously expensive. Gardening books warn you off of using what you find at the grocery store, but when the option is spending $12-21 for only 3 bulbs from a fancy catalog, I may take my chances with the grocery garlic. Next: planting!