Planted tomatoes today

James and I spent our one day of the week off working in the garden. It was a beautiful day to be outside, although the sun was intense. Here is a view of the garden.

Our garden in early spring

We have coming up: radishes (I thinned out 4 small ones today and ate them for lunch), lettuce, kale, turnips, onions, potatoes, peas, chard and spinach. The turnips are getting eaten by caterpillars and the parsnips and beets are not coming up very well. This is not a problem for me as I do not like beets and the parsnips were a whim. The pinto beans I sowed last week have sprouted, but no sign of the sweet corn yet.

Plant tomatoes deeply

Some of the plants we got were already tall so I stripped off the bottom leaves and planted them about a foot deep. Tomatoes and basil will root on their stems so you can plant them very deep to develop a large root system.

I like to leave a well around the base of the tomato plants to collect water. We have such dry weather, it helps hold water to ensure they get enough.

water well around tomato plant

We planted 16 tomatoes today. Did one of each variety except Viva Italia, a plum tomato, because I think we will make spaghetti sauce this summer to can, so we need a lot of those.

Here are the other varieties we planted:
Lemon Boy- new to us. Big, yellow fruit
Cherokee Purple - an heirloom with great flavor we have had good luck with in the past
Sweet Million - the only cherry tomato we are growing
Money Maker - New to us, an heirloom that is supposed to be a good producer like:
Mortgage Lifter - another heirloom that should produce for a long time
Aunt Ruby's German Green - a very tasty green heirloom we enjoyed a couple of years ago
Park's Whopper - a modern hybrid that one of my customers swears by
Celebrity - a determinate variety that is one of the most popular in our area
Chadwick - I know nothing about this one. James got it from Jim in Ben Wheeler
Paul Robeson - another heirloom with large, tasty red fruit


I don't remember the other varieties, but I will keep you posted on our results - how they did, which tasted the best. 


After I planted all the little tomatoes, they we very wilted. James thought they needed some protection from the sun and wind so he built these teepees with stakes and covered them with feed sacks. If it gets cold, we can pull the sacks down to the ground for protection.

Protecting newly planted tomatoes