First Fall Tomato Transplants

A month or so ago, I noticed some tomato seedlings coming up volunteer in the garden.  I have no idea what variety they are as we plant 9 or 10 varieties of heirloom tomatoes and it could have been any of those.  I carefully dug them up, potted them and have been taking care of them hoping to get a good head start for fall tomatoes. 

Fall tomatoes are a little tricky.  Plant them too soon in the heat of the summer and they won't fruit.  Plant them too late and an early freeze will wipe out any of your dreams of fall tomatoes.  But hit it just right and you've got terrific tomatoes - no pests or diseases to speak of and it is fun to garden in the cool temperatures.

The tomatoes (13 plants in all) were ready to go into the ground.  Some of them were a couple feet tall already.  I transplanted them on the first row south of the okra and put in the first strand of Florida Weave Trellis.

As you can see, we already have a bloom on one of the plants.  Will it make fruit?  Hard to tell.  We're still in the hot days of summer.  92 degrees today with a heat index of 101.  So far most of the transplanted fall tomatoes look really healthy.

Except for this one.  I know what you're thinking: Tomato hornworms!  Nope, would you believe me if I told you it was a male cardinal (red bird)?  We watched it fly down to where we had the tomatoes potted and snip off the leaves with his beak and fly off.  Tricia tried her best to scare him away.

I did notice there is some new growth coming from where the suckers grow.  Hopefully, since we've moved the tomatoes when we transplanted them, they'll be safe from the cardinal attacks.

I do have a problem with my garden labeling.  We have some heavy duty plastic signs and normally use a Sharpie to write the name of the plant on the label and then stick it in the ground by the plant.  Here's what's happened: the strong, blistering summer sun burns the Sharpie ink right off of the label.  By the time harvest time comes, you cannot read what variety you're harvesting, what variety did well, and what did not.

We're trying an experiment using the same plastic labels, but a different ink.  Rather than using a Sharpie, we're trying out a paint pen.  Will the sun cook the paint off the label?

That's the burning question.  We'll find out soon enough.

Homemade Garden Markers

Every spring and fall when I plant the garden, I keep records of what is planted, when it is planted and where it is planted.  I keep all this in a note pad that I can put in my back pocket and carry with me into the garden.  I am aware of software programs that allow you to map out your garden so that you know all that data, but you can't conveniently take it outside with you.

To confuse matters, sometimes I plant saved seed that might be a little old.  If the germination isn't good, I'll dig up the ones that did come up and move them so that I can use that row for a planting of something else.  When I do that, it REALLY messes up my system.  Especially cole crops all look the same for the first month or two.  It makes it hard to know what I have planted on each row.

We've tried garden markers, but they didn't work.  The combination of sun and rain faded them so that you couldn't read what was on the label.  By the end of the season, they fell apart.  I figured this year I would use a little redneck engineering and make my own.  The only thing you'll need is: A quart sized yogurt container, a Sharpie, and scissors.

I cut of the ring at the top of the container and then cut inch-wide strips all the way down.

Then, I cut a point on one side and use the Sharpie to label the crop planted along with the date a planted it.  The date is a little something I added later.  If you know your crop matures in 90 days, you can inspect each row and anticipate when you'll be harvesting.

In the row below, I have 3 separate crops on one row: Rainbow Swiss Chard, Brussels Sprouts, and Bok Choy (Chinese Cabbage).  The markers help show where one crop ends and the other begins.

No more guesswork in trying to figure out what is in row 7 between the carrots and the beets.  Our handy-dandy row markers clearly show us.

We're still in the middle of a hot summer; however, yesterday morning and this morning, it wasn't quite as humid and there was a slight breeze.  We look forward to fall and winter and look forward to all of the fall garden crops.  We'll talk about what we planted later this week.  Perhaps this year we won't have to deal with two hurricanes...