I love homegrown tomatoes. Who doesn’t? And we’re going to try our hand at growing and roasting green chilis. And I thought bell peppers, jalapenos, and pole beans would also be nice additions to the homegrown tomato initiative 🙂
By the way, please forgive our ugly background dirt. It will be transformed a little at a time.
Here’s the beginning of the veggie garden, after major weed pulling/forking.
I tried growing tomatoes in pots on our south-facing balcony at our old apartment. They got scorched from too much heat. That, and *maybe* Hubby forgot to water them? or water them enough? while I was gone for a few days? He thinks he might be the culprit, but probably it just got way too hot.
This year, I’m planting cherry tomatoes, and lots of ‘em! Because I’m impatient and they’re ready sooner.
And hopefully being out in the open yard and not on a 3-sided balcony, they won’t scorch to death.
I finally got my hands on some “wall of waters” so I can get things planted and they’ll be protected from any cold nights still to come.
(Image borrowed from Burpee’s website.)
The raised bed is 12 feet by 4 feet. Since tomatoes need 24 inch spacing, I stuck with one plant every 2 feet or so all the way down the bed, and I’ll plant the marigolds and nasturtiums in between.
Here’s the plan:
Red bell pepper Tomato Tomato Pole Beans Anaheim chili pepper Jalapeno
Red bell pepper Tomato Tomato Pole Beans Anaheim chili pepper Jalapeno
And I got it going this weekend 🙂
I visited a new nursery and got some HUGE tomato plants and my pepper plants. I think I was quite the sight driving home with a veritable forest in my passenger seat! I also picked up two huge tomato cages since the three I already had were small and flimsy. Two of the flimsy ones are still employed, but we’ll see how they do.
The tomatoes are a little droopy still. They had to be finagled into those tomato cages, so there was a lot of poking, pulling, and prodding going on. I’m sure they didn’t like it much.
Beans (seeds) and the jalapenos (seeded inside) are still to be planted. I also need to figure out what kind of trellis support I’m going to use for the beans. Details 🙂 The jalapenos will go to the right of these wall of waters.
See the new baby rhubarb planted in the upper right corner? 🙂
I know some folks have HUGE veggie gardens. I’m going to stick with just our raised bed this year. This is partly because it’s already got nice dirt in it, and it’s partly because the other areas we *could* plant, need a lot of cleaning up, weeding, etc. (as you can see in the pictures – eek) Plus, it’s my first season growing veggies in a real yard for a while, so I just kind of need to see how they do.
However, I did plant the rhubarb in the “big bed” and I just mixed some compost in with his dirt, so hopefully that will be enough to keep him happy. He lived outside at the nursery all winter, can you believe that? Apparently they really like the cold?
This bell pepper plant is pretty happy in there.
Now just for the remaining plants/seeds (only one of my jalapenos has come up so far inside), getting the irrigation hose hooked up, throwing some mulch on top of that ugly weed mat, and the veggie garden will be all ready to GROW!
And I think it might get over 60 today for the first time in a week or so! 🙂
Have a great day!
Burbs & Blooms 