tomato: the musical.

for the past three summer's i have taken it upon myself to grow tomatoes.
am i particularly fond of tomatoes? umm..i do like them but could do without them.
the thing is everyone seems to grow them so i said - why not me too!

the past two summers it was a big royal pain in the butt! the first year two out of my three plants grew. and last summer i got one plant and maybe one tomato.
bummer.
i had also done some pots last year with cherry tomatoes and got maybe a handful.

this summer i felt it was time to go back to the drawing board.
the one thing about me is...i am not a researcher.
i know, i know. terrible.
i'm the girl who thinks "if i want to do it, i can do it. i don't need any help."
clearly, in this case, that is not true.
it's not until i came across this post by elise that a few things clicked. {now i know you are going to go over there and she is going to reel you in with all her fabulous-ness but don't get too distracted!!}

this has been a labour of love!

this summer i was to concentrate on three new areas of the garden. converting the existing vegetable garden patch from raised beds to not raised {courtesy of the previous owners}, digging out the two beds that border the grass and the one bed along the house that are filled with river rock and replacing that with dirt and perennials.
i got to the beds and not the vegetable garden.
and i had already bought all these tomatoes!!!
so i put them along the house. all of them. too many of them.
i guess i was going off of past experience and hoping that just a couple might catch.
i also filled the soil with coffee grounds and egg shells. a new tip for me and a secret weapon i think.

they all "catched!" {caught?}

i am blown away.
amazing.

it got so out of control though that i put out a distress call on facebook {yes, here i am asking for help again! it's the new me!! ha!} that all my plants were falling over because they were too big and i learnt about two things - suckers and bamboo poles.
game changer!

after ruthlessly going after the suckers - i might have cut too many..... - and stringing them up with the poles, aren't they looking pretty?

and when we came back from our week away {i will share that with you soon!} i did my first harvest!
i can't believe how many i got. and look how much bigger the plants got!
again...
blown away!

for next year i have already planned things a little better - i'm going to double the poles and also string netting along the back. also i'm going to plant herbs along the bottom of the plants.
that way they will get sun but not too much sun {did you see my photo of my basil harvest?? love it!}

this is now my tomato garden forever!