Putting the 2013 Tomato Crop Behind Us

For the Labor Day weekend, my goal is to get in the garden and get things ready for putting the Fall garden in.  It is so very dry.  Benjamin, Russ and I began to pull weeds out by hand.  The weeds are largely nut sedge and Bermuda grass.  We pulled bunches of it and threw it over the fence where the cows and chickens quickly gobbled it all down.

Looking southward

As I walk south, about the only green thing left in the garden that hasn't burned up in the hot drought we are in is peppers and basil.

Basil and some pepper plants

Walking even farther south we see a sad sight.  Here are the drooping remnants of the 2013 Tomato crop. The dry weather, coupled with stink bugs and worms, created a perfect storm, reducing yield and making the season disappointing.  We did blanch and freeze a pretty good amount of tomatoes as well as can some chopped tomatoes, but not the quantity that you would expect from the amount of plants we had in the ground.

Let's look at a positive that we can take out of the tomato crop:  I think the Florida weave method of trellising tomatoes is a success.  Throughout most of the growing season, it kept our indeterminate tomatoes from falling over and becoming a mess.  The only change I'd make is to get taller T-posts or extend the T-posts with some re-bar.

Russ and I began cutting the tomatoes down, rolling up twine and pulling up T-posts and stakes as we need this space when we start planting the Fall crops.

The Before shot: A sad sight indeed.

After we cleaned up the tomato rows, things look a lot nicer in the garden.

The after shot:  It looks a lot nicer!

We stacked the old tomato vines by the fence and I'll chop them up with a shovel and incorporate into the compost pile.  Of course the chickens and Nelly, the goat, came by and ate any of the leaves and greenery that was still on the tomato vines.

Tomato vines stacked by the fence

I read a quote somewhere that said something to the effect of "There's nothing as hopeful or optimistic as next year's garden."  I think that's true.  While the hot, dry, muggy, sultry summer drags on and the garden seems an unpleasant place almost entirely void of anything green, we can look expectantly to cooler weather, refreshing rains, and the green sprouts of our Fall Garden.

Next up: Planning our Fall garden, taking inventory of our seed bank of Fall crops, and making an order to fill in the gaps.  Stay tuned.