I spent all day yesterday canning squash, 3 canner loads, 21 jars in all, and I also picked the green beans again. After all of that, and standing on my feet all day with the canning, I needed a day off. I wasn't going to do much today, but that didn't work out so well...
I did my usual walk around the garden with the coffee cup to start my day, and the overgrown tomato plants in the low raised bed just kept intruding on my peace of mind, so I finally decided that I needed to do something about it. Of course, I should have done it a couple of weeks ago before it got so overgrown, but you know the old saying...
"never put off until tomorrow what you can put off until next week..."
So, here's what the mess looked like. The tops of the plants are fallen over and you can't see anything in or under the plants. I rolled the flatcar down to the plants so I could sit on it to trim the leaves on the plants. I brought the handy-dandy foam kneeling pad for my bony butt to sit on.
A wider shot. You get a better view of the "Pink Lady" runner beans in this picture.
After trimming some of the leaves from under the 2 Roma plants, I decided to prop up all the tops of the plants so I could get to the bottom areas. I pounded in 2 steel T-post fence posts and tied a wood pole across them to hold up the upper part of the plants. That helps to hold up the heavy tomatoes, and gets them up and out of the way. You can really see the tomatoes on the Roma plants now. The plants are pretty well covered with tomatoes. When they get ripe, it's going to get crazy around here...
Here's a different view of how I put up the wood brace for the plants. I used the plastic baling twine that I get from straw bales to tie the pole to the fence posts.
After I got done trimming the under leaves, the plants had a lot more air under them. This helps to slow down some diseases that come from the plants being too damp under the lower leaves. It's also a lot easier to see the tomatoes, and trimming the leaves will push the plant to put more energy into developing the tomatoes already on the plant.
After I finished the side toward the garden, it was time to do the same thing to the side of the tomato plants facing the street. As I was cutting off the leaves, I was throwing them over the fence. It's easier to clean them up that way.
You can see the marigolds that I planted with the tomatoes a bit better here. The zucchini plants are missing leaves on the fence side because the deer eat anything they can reach, and they can get their nose through the upper wire pretty easily.
I decided to make a brace for the plants on this side of the bed also. That will help hold up the plants on the fence side, and also get them further away from the fence so that the deer won't be able to "trim" them so easily. I did the same thing as the other side, 2 fence posts and wood pole.
Here's a few pictures of my other tomato plants in the garden.
These are the Amana Orange plants. I see one of them is starting to get ripe, I didn't notice it until I looked at the pictures.
A couple of the Black Krim tomatoes are almost ripe now. These aren't as dark as I was expecting them to be, but it's ok, I'll still eat them.
The hybrid "Big Mama" paste tomatoes seem to be doing well so far. This is my first year growing them. They look like a keeper.
A few more garden pictures.
This is the first year that this plum tree has held on to it's plums long enough for them to start getting ripe.
These are a cross between a pie pumpkin and a Delecata squash. The seeds were from last year's squash that I cut up. They came up in the old compost pile this spring, so I transplanted a couple of the plants to the garden, not knowing at the time what they would be. They look like the cross-pollinated squash that I got last year. They won't turn orange. They have the shape of a pie pumpkin and the color of a Delicata squash. If they're like last year, they will have a light orange flesh and taste a lot like pumpkin. As you can see, the cross-pollinated squash vines are trying to take over the garden.
Speaking of squash, this is the compost pile. You can tell I've been canning squash. I always peel the zucchini when I can them. That little group of plants to the left of the squash peelings are cantalope plants from the seeds thrown out there last month. It's too late in the year for them to produce, but I'll let them grow anyway, just to see what happens.
The beans I picked yesterday while waiting for the canner to cool down between loads. The bean plants in the raised bed are producing really well right now, and the plants in the container garden are almost done producing.
That's all I have for this post. Lots of pictures this time!
Thanks for stopping by to check them out!
