Florida Backyard header image

All images © Daniel & Stacy Tabb and Boondock Studios

«   •   Home   •   »

An Embarrassment of Tomatoes

Feh, the grue has me.  I had grand plans for today…the starting of many more flower seeds, planting of more beans, new carrot beds, the potting up of the stratified bonsai tree seeds…  But the grue has me…the sneezing, the congestion, the running faucet that is my nose, all forced me to take a rather epic nap instead of digging in the dirt and getting nicely sunburnt.  Did manage to get human-like by around 4pm, which in these parts still leaves ample daylight for dirt digging….and PLANS.

I’ve decided, looking at the backyard gardens of others, that I am not maximizing my planting box space as I could be.  I like things orderly – a shock to any childhood friends (hell, post-college too!) reading this, I know – but I think that’s causing me to waste a great deal of space.  Peppers, for instance, do get rather bushy when mature, but really only at the crown, the foliage tapers to a few leaves about midway down the plant.  So there’s space under them for things like carrots, onions, chives.   The same is true for tomatoes, and even some bush beans.  So I’m revisiting the boxes, planting a few rows of carrots here and there, sowing a few onions.  These things we’re growing don’t have to be in straight orderly beds, they can be tucked in anywhere you have a little extra space, curved between two plants, zig zagged, whatever fits.  Nor do the crops have to be especially laaarge.  A few rows here and there will keep you in carrots and onions for weeks.

That said, can someone please explain to me why I have thought it necessary (with EIGHT tomato plants already blooming/fruiting, three more almost there, and six others just sprouted) to start yet another EIGHT MORE varieties, as well as FOUR MORE pots (2 seeds each sowed for all, and I DON’T thin, people) of the Campbell’s tomatoes??  Just where do I plan to grow all these things…on the frickin’ roof?

Would that I could, people.  Would that I could.

Here, have a pic I inadvertently left out of yesterday’s epic, of some really-needs-to-get-planted-soon Cosmos (shot with my beloved 105mm lens) while I contemplate where to put 24 more frickin’ tomato plants:

 

dsc_0033

Oh, and the very best part??  I’M THE ONLY ONE IN THIS FAMILY WHO FREAKING EATS TOMATOES.

*sigh*