Growing tomatoes

Sometimes you want to have something to show for it all.

Two months of being good and staying put.

There is my neatly filled in police form that shows I left the house dutifully each day and only went out for an hour within one kilometre of the house:

But actually I wanted something more memorable than that.

So this year I actually paid attention to the internet and made a proper tomato staking system. For the first time.

Most years I would just shove in a thick stake beside each tomato plant. And end up with a jungle. This year I followed this idea (thank you The Art of Doing Stuff)

And made my approximate version. Using rods normally reserved for reinforcing concrete. It was all I had, as any carpentry work going on is strictly the big kid stuff.

So I present to you the string method of training tomatoes.

I can’t get in close enough to show you how every plant is supported by a tall string suspended on the horizontal support.

I’m quite excited as it gives me the illusion I’m on control and being neat.

And as these tomatoes are grown from seed and not grafted, they will grow at a more sedate rate. I probably won’t get fruit until September. But I have vowed to keep the comfrey feed closer at hand this year.

Well, it’s in a bucket right at the top of the farm so the stink doesn’t make me retch, but you get the idea.

Neater potager, neater projects, good intentions.

And with very deft cropping I can hide all the bits that aren’t quite there yet. Which reminds me; time to call and leave yet another message for the absent raised bed builder. Sunday night feels the appropriate time to beg and grovel for the last two raised beds to get scheduled on his busy agenda.