…three tomato, four! I know that’s not the way the rhyme goes, but that’s the way I have felt in this Week Of Planting Tomatoes.
The tomato planting frenzy started Wednesday, when I planted 200 or so tomatoes in our Master Gardener food pantry garden. We also planted cantaloupes and watermelons that day, which means we pretty much have everything in the ground there except peppers. Fellow MG and project leader Grant got this photo of me with our historic cabin garden in the background. It was HOT that day, with afternoon temps around 85F. That’s definitely shorts weather! We worked about 2.5 hours getting all the plants in the ground.
planting tomatoes at the MG veggie garden
Yesterday I got the rest of our tomatoes in the ground at Happy Acres. I planted 7 paste tomatoes, which joined the 28 plants already planted. I also got the summer and winter squash planted. There was a chance of rain last night, and I wanted to get things in while the soil was reasonably dry. Thankfully the rain did not materialize. We’ve had enough for awhile.
Behind the greenhouse, the cherry tomatoes Sweet Baby Girl and Sun Gold have just started blooming, which should mean a few tomatoes in June. The first tomatoes of the season are always a welcome sight, even if they are small! I planted 6 varieties there on April 14th to take advantage of the warm microclimate, and they are loving it.
Sun Gold tomato blooming
And this morning, we planted about 100 tomatoes in our church food pantry garden. It’s still looking for an “official” name, so for now that description will have to do. We also planted about 35 pepper plants and 100 yellow squash and zucchinis. We are still trying to get our potatoes in the ground for this project. We’ve cut 150 pounds of seed potatoes, and we are anxious to get them going. We had to delay (again) because the Ohio river is flooding and the field is under water. We are lucky we didn’t get them planted earlier, because they would be floating down the river by now!
After the cold front went through last night, temps this morning were MUCH cooler – around 50F with north winds about 20MPH. That called for sweatshirts and jackets. I skipped my usual wide brim garden hat and opted for a ball cap. It wasn’t exactly shorts weather either! I’d much rather work in those conditions than in the heat we had earlier in the week. My wife got this photo of our lovely planting crew. We’ll have another planting session soon for the green beans and cucumbers. And once the flooded ground dries out we’ll plant lots of sweet corn there with a tractor. Southern Indiana is corn country, after all, and everyone loves sweet corn!
planting crew at the church veggie garden
Out of the almost 1000 tomatoes, peppers and eggplants I started from seed, only about 150 or so remain. I still have a few tomatoes to give to friends and neighbors, and a few I need to keep for spares in case we lose some of those already planted. I also need to get my own peppers and eggplants planted, which I hope to get done in the next couple of days. This is usually the time of year I breathe a big sigh of relief. There’s plenty of more work to be done in the various gardens, but for the rest of today I am going to take it easy!