"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant."
Robert Louis Stevenson




Friday, August 8, 2014

August Tomato Update 2014 and Plans for the Winter Garden



I spent most of yesterday morning pulling up the tomatoes along the driveway.  With the heat, wind and drought this year I didn't get the production off these plants that I had hoped for.  The tomatoes at my community plot also had low production.  We had a total of  23 plants plus 4 cherry tomato varieties between the two locations.  Oh, we had plenty to eat, but I was expecting a mother load from all these plants!

For some reason the 5 plants, plus the 4 cherry tomato plants I have growing in the grove are still doing very well, with no signs of blight.  They reached the top of the 8 foot cages in July, began growing over and towards the navel orange tree which grows behind their bed on the east side.  I will leave these in and continue to feed and water them.  We may still be picking from these 5 plants well into December.  Not sure how long the cherry tomatoes will produce with the sun moving more towards the southwest side of the house, and that may be a problem.  I don't think it will shine on them for more then 4-5 hours.  We will just wait and see what kind of weather we get moving towards fall.  Soon, I will need the raised bed space that these tomatoes are using for my winter garden.

I read on a local garden site that many gardeners had the same problem with their tomatoes; probably due to late season blight.



I did harvest enough tomatoes to freeze 6 quarts of whole, oven roasted tomatoes, some sauce and a few jars of salsa, but that was it.  I still have enough green tomatoes on the counter that will continue to ripen from what I picked off the vines yesterday.

Moving on: I am now planning my winter garden and have started planting in my seed starter trays already this morning. The moon is almost full and a perfect time to start more seeds.

I ordered these seeds from Botanical Interests Seeds, I have a link to their site on the right side of my blog.

I still need to order from Kitazawa Seeds,  I like the Asian greens varieties they have. Plus, they are out of CA which is nice, the order will come quickly.

 Do you save all of your old catalogs?  I do, I actually order online but I love to browse through the pages and I also cut out photos of what I am growing each season and paste them in my journal.  Yes, even though I blog I still keep a garden journal.  I keep it with me when I am out in the beds so I can make notes on what I am planting and what is doing well or not.  Also I am getting old and forgetful so this helps me when checking back from year to year.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Carla. Thank you for stopping by my page and telling me about your bread recipe. How lucky are you to have a mom who's a baker. It's been very busy so I'm now finally catching up on reading my favorite blogs! You have plenty of seed packets like me. Most of my tomatoes are still green, not sure what the problem is. I was hopping to can tomato sauce.

    That's great you keep a garden journal. I have one and I should be using it. I want to start planning next year's garden already! Since we moved to our new home, I'm learning with the space I have what to plant more or less of next season. I look forward to reading about your winter garden!

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    Replies
    1. Hi Priscilla, I hope you give the recipe a try, it always turns out for me.

      I will be over soon to see what you are up to.

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Thank you for taking time to visit my blog, I love hearing from you, stay as long as you like, Carla