Tomato Garden August 2022

 I realized that I've yet to do a post that is solely about my tomato garden area. This was the first year that I've grown tomato from seed. If you haven't done that, I highly encourage people to try it out. It's not as hard as I had made it out to be. They are rather forgiving. Anyhow, I seeded them all in on April 1st and I got them all potted out in mid-June due to wacky weather. We had a super wet June here and most of my warm weather crops are a month behind. No matter. This is the most tomatoes that I've ever grown in a summer and we're already figuring out how to double this amount next year.

These are the tomatoes that are in the first row. I give 1 foot of space for each variety and I have them planted out in 5 gallon grow bags. We have 2 10-foot long, 6-foot high chain length fence panels secured on t-posts and I use plastic clips to secure the plants to the fence.

My first tomatoes are starting to blush. These are Isis Candy Cherry.

Yes, my plants are in various stages of yellow. Due to growing in fabric bags, we have to water more often. Since I have beds/gardens spread out all over the place, it would take hours to walk around to everything and water it. We opted to use sprinklers. It's not the most conducive way to get water to tomato plants as they don't like to have their leaves wet. We have found out that if we water at night, we get less burned leaves. So that's what we do. We put the sprinkler on them for about 30 minutes nightly.

These are Purple Russian tomatoes. They are a plum shaped black variety. The black tomato flavor profile has always been my favorite.

These are the Black Krims and the Red Dumplin Winner Pinks. 
Black Krims are, hands down, my favorite tomato as far as taste goes. I've yet to find another tomato that can beat the taste of a Krim.

Here's a closer look at the Red Dumplin Winner Pink tomatoes. This variety came from Tomato Jim Wyant.

Here's another shot of those Purple Russian tomatoes. They will sure look pretty once they start to blush.

These are baby Orange Jazz tomatoes. I have a particular fondness for orange tomato varieties. I love the flavor of them. Not the yellows so much, but the oranges.

Here's another variety that falls into the orange category that I'm anxious to try. This a Thorburn's Terra Cotta.

This is my group of the 5 tomatoes that I did not grow from seed. The Isis Candy Cherry is one that I bought and the 2 Black Krims, the Purple Russian and the Bonny Best are from my friend, Jean.

Here is Bob's hand for size perspective on these Isis Candy Cherry tomatoes. Like I explained, I know exactly why we have such yellow leaves on there.

Bob's hand for perspective on one of the Black Krims.

Another pair of Black Krims. One can never have too many Black Krim tomatoes to enjoy.

This looking down the middle aisle of the tomato garden from the side that I'm growing Sart Roloise on. Those bigger ones are Bulls Heart Red.

I believe that every single plant has set fruit now. This is a baby Dark Galaxy.

Here's a cluster of Cream Sausage. These are a determinate white paste variety. I'm very anxious to try them and see what a white tomato tastes like. I've never had one.

Everywhere I turn the camera in there, I'm finding more and more tomatoes. These are Cascade Lava.

Here are some of the Opalkas. I have 5 Opalka plants. I'm happy that I was able to get that many! These are for processing.

These are Prairie Fire tomatoes. I purchased the seed for these from Baker Creek. I planted these out to can up. The description said that they are very sweet, so I'm hoping that when I make sauce, I won't need to add very much sugar by adding these in.

Another shot of an Opalka tomato. Opalkas, due to their sheer production, will always have a place in my garden from now on.

No tomato garden would be complete without a picture of our volunteer er...tomato. I had Bob stand in front of it to show how big it's gotten. I don't think it will produce squat but, it's a determined little bugger, so who am I to pull it up? I'll let it go and see what it does.

These Opalkas are odd shaped tomatoes and that's what makes them so easy to identify especially when the names have washed off the tags. Next time, I'll use a pencil.

These are Pink Fang. The seeds came from Baker Creek. These are another paste variety that I planted to grow out for canning up.

Here's my tomato garden oddity. This is a Reisetomate. I've been wanting to grow this particular variety for the past 10 years. I cannot wait to see this ripe. If I like it, I'll grow it again next year to save seeds from. These are also called "Traveler's Tomato".
They are cool to look at because they look like a deformed tomato.

This is my garden beauty this year. This is a Sart Roloise. Once fully ripe, these are white and blue. I can't wait to see this fully ripe. I have 2 of these plants out there on the fence.

Here's another shot of the Reisetomate. It's just really cool and I can't quit looking at it!

Another Sart Roloise. I'm beyond happy that I was able to get these to produce.

This is a Bulls  Heart Red. This is another variety that I planted out for canning.

Baby Prairie Fire tomatoes. I'm pretty pleased with their production. I can't wait to taste these guys.

Here's another shot of the Cascade Lava tomatoes. These are a Brad Gates variety. I grew these out because of the name. I live in the Cascade Mountain foothills and I live very near Mt. St. Helens, so the name means something to me.

And yet more baby Opalkas. What can I say? I have 32 tomato plants and 5 of those are Opalka.

I am also growing 4 tomatillo plants. I planted 2 of them from seed and 2 I bought from our local farmers market because I wasn't sure if I would get the tomatillos that I planted to maturity or not. As it stands right now, I couldn't tell which are the ones that I grew or which are the ones that I bought.

This is a shot from the center aisle of my tomato garden looking out toward our cat pen. It's amazing to me that everywhere I point the camera, there are tomatoes!

Everywhere I look, I've got these small, stunted, sturdy tomato plants producing. It's a marvel to me!

One of my last parting shots of the Sart Roloise. It's just a stunning looking tomato, no matter how you look at it. That's why I put these right at the end of the row, closest to my deck. I want to sit here and look out my dining room window, while I type out this blog post, and look at them.

I did the same thing with the Reisetomate. I put them right at the end of the row, right in my line of sight.

If anyone is curious as to just how big Opalkas get, there's Bob's hand for perspective. Bob is 6'1" and has some catcher's mitts for hands.

 
Here's a more clear shot of my tomatillos. Again, I don't know if I grew this one or not. I just know that all four bushes are producing and they love the hot weather.
I will hopefully not have to purchase supplemental tomatillos for green salsa and enchilada sauce, but if I do, I know that next year, I need to double the amount I grow and I'll put them in the greenhouse.

Oh, yes, before I forget. We ordered another greenhouse like the one we have up, but it's a 20 foot long one.

Tomatillo blossoms. We still need to put a few things in place, such as our fifth wheel hitch.

Here's my tomato garden. I will always grow them up using a chain length fence as a trellis. It's super easy to throw a tarp over the top to protect them if we're looking at getting a deluge of rain.
I also like how neat and tidy this looks. My plan is to get another 2-3 fence panels put up to grow tomatoes on. I just need to figure out where to put them.

I could possibly just continue off the back of these and have rows of 20 instead of 10. We'll have to wait and see.

By garden time next year, that pile of metal will be gone. That's for our canopy that goes over our trailer. As soon as Bob gets a free few days, he's going to pay someone to come up and help him get that thing up over the trailer. I told him he can do it whenever just as long as it's done by this winter.

A parting look at my tomato garden this morning. I love these foggy, overcast mornings, when the sun just starts to push the fog out and then the fog fights back and covers the sun again. It's soothing to me as I sit and look at my tomato garden out of my dining room window, drinking my coffee and writing this blog post.

Thanks for taking the tour with me.

Beginning of August Garden Update 2022

 I haven't posted a beginning of August garden update yet. By no means am I proud of every aspect of my garden. Quite to the contrary. There are parts of it that I'd rather just be done with, but the plants are alive and we will continue to care for them. I had some zucchini going, but the deer got them. I have a few little cucumbers. These are things that will be going into my new greenhouse next year. We just purchased a 20 foot long one. I'm more than doubling my greenhouse space. I have to. The critters got my cucurbits, my peppers, my corn and they would have my pole beans stripped if it weren't for Bob covering them with bird netting.
So this is what's going on now.

We have all sorts of tomatoes on the plants. None have ripened yet. I also included a photo of that volunteer er..tomato, too.

These are my rhubarb plants and my tomato bin.

The rhubarb are shaping up nicely. I've gotten around a quart or so from the 2 plants.

These are Scarlet Runner beans on the trellis. They are just starting to bloom.

Another shot of my rhubarb bushes. I want to add around 5 or so more.

This is a Cannellini bean. I'm growing these out for someone although I don't think I'm going to be able to send back the agreed amount of beans to that person this year. I may have to just save these and try again next year. That soil sure put me behind the 8-ball.

This is another bean variety that I'm growing for someone. These are called Senate Navy Soup beans. Again, horrible soil. 

My eggplant look completely and utterly pathetic. I bought these all as starter plants and planted them over where the carrots didn't come up. I have 4 plants and I have 3 eggplant between all 4. This is the Ichiban variety.

This is the Casper variety. I've never eaten a white eggplant before.

This is an eggplant bloom. This is on my Black Beauty eggplant.

We harvested the biggest cabbage. We're letting these go for a bit longer. These will get harvested soon. We are going to be going through our freezers and making up a care package of raw meat for a dog, so I'll have room to freeze these. One of them is going to my sister.

I'm letting a few of the Walla Walla Sweet onions go to seed. I don't know if any of you have priced seeds for this variety, but they are holy cow expensive, if you can even find them!

The broccoli is about done. I will be growing some more this fall, along with cauliflower.

 I bought 3 clematis bushes. 2 have survived.

I harvested all of the garlic. All of that poor, traumatized garlic that got uprooted and moved up here and replanted. I'm surprised that I even got any at all, if the truth be told.

I'm curing it in the greenhouse. It's a good place for it to do that. I ordered another half pound of seed garlic. It should arrive next month some time.

Baby cucamelons!! I think I just may see a little bit of a harvest on these!

These are my Tigger melon vines. They are loaded with blooms, but I don't know if I will be able to get them to fruit.

This is the row of pots that I have growing in the greenhouse. I can't wait to get that other one up here and put together. We're thinking about how we can really stabilize this one so that I can grow through the winter.

Another baby cucamelon. I really enjoyed the 4 I got last year when I grew them.

Baby okra starting out. I've harvest a dozen or so pods already. Okra will always have a place in my greenhouse from now on.
I ordered a couple of new varieties to try next year.

These Jing Orange okra are stunning looking plants.

This is an Okinawa Pink okra. I contemplated ordering these seeds from Baker Creek, but I ultimately decided not to. The Jing Orange had many more positive reviews and they weren't anywhere near as expensive.

This is my Siamese bitter melon. I ordered seeds so that I could grow this again next year. I obtained the seeds I planted this year from a trade.

I left the cups in the pots because they help me to keep the vines separated.

I hope you enjoyed the garden tour!