I thought I’d give a little vegetable garden update today since it’s been a couple months since I talked about our little garden. I doubt I’ll do another garden update this year, so if you hate vegetable gardens, or vegetables in general, you can rejoice.
HOLY SMOKES, you guys. Our tomatoes are out of control. I’m going to start keeping some in the trunk of my car and giving them away to strangers in parking lots. That’s not weird, right? You’d totally take tomatoes from a nice, super pregnant lady, wouldn’t you?
Look at these monsters. See. I wasn’t kidding. Beasts!
In case you’re wondering, the lettuce plants had run their course so we removed them from the garden. But we plan to plant fall lettuce.
Brad and I think it was the fertilizer he put down last fall that created these behemoths. The weather this summer probably has something to do with it too. We’ve had a significant amount of rain and cooler temperatures.
In case you’re wondering, Brad put down 12-12-12 fertilizer and then tilled the soil when he put the garden to bed last fall. Then, this spring he tilled the garden again before we planted the tomatoes and lettuce. We put down the fertilizer in the fall so it would have time to work itself into the soil and not be as powerful. I can only imagine what the plants would look like if we fertilized this spring.
So if you plan on starting a garden next year, I highly recommend fertilizing in the fall, tilling the soil, and then tilling the soil again in the spring.
We have two Juliet Roma tomato plants, which are sweet and crack resistant. They’re great for salads and salsa. I guess I should find a salsa recipe and make some because we have plenty of these tomatoes.
We also have one regular cherry tomato plant. I use these in salads, like my summer couscous salad, pasta salad, and basic garden salads.
And then there’s our sun gold tomatoes. I use them in various salads as well.
If you’re growing tomato plants this year, how are they doing?
Have an easy salsa recipe you’d care to share?
I saw on Pinterest about putting sugar and Epsom salt in the wholes before putting the plant in. Supposedly it would make the plants much bigger and produce more fruit. I figured my entire garden was going to do really well or die off. Well lets say that I can no longer find the rows between my plants and they’ve gotten so tall they are falling over the cages and need to be re-staked. Pretty sure I’m gonna have to take up canning this year. Now if only they’d ripen, I’m dying for a yellow tomato!
My tomato plants are monsters this year! Most of my garden has done very, very well. We’ve been adding ground up egg shells to our garden this year about every 2 weeks.
We planted romas and early girls this year. We’ve had quite a few, but they are all tiny. We think half of the reason for this is that the ground does need fertilizer, but also we didn’t water enough consistently at the beginning. We’ll be investing in timers for next year. Don’t have a salsa recipe for you, but you can actually freeze tomatoes and use later in lasagna, pasta, stews, etc later. Just slice in half and place one layer in a freezer zip lock. The de-thawing process is like stewing/boiling them so the skins slide right off. We’re going to also play around with dehydrating some tomatoes (think sun-dried-type), and even the skins for tomato powder. I read tomato powder is good for making your own paste and acts as a thickner.
Your tomatoes look fantastic! Home grown produce is always more satisfying and tasty in my opinion!
I think its the year of the bumper crop. I know lots of people whose vegetables are out of control this year. My flower beds have been nuts as well. It’s a good problem to have!
Wow your tomato plants are HUGE! That is awesome! I have one tomato plant in a pot, with several tomatoes on it, but I feel like they are never going to turn red haha
I found this website for salsa recipes yesterday.
http://www.countryliving.com/cooking/about-food/homemade-salsa-recipes-cosmo?crlt.pid=camp.9UF8JWmLG4M2
I wish our tomatoes were doing as good as yours. We just haven’t had a lot of sun. 🙁
I would totally take fresh tomatoes from a pregnant stranger in a parking lot. TOTALLY.
Our tomatoes have been awesome this year too!! Would love to see some recipes you use for them. Love popping those cherry tomatoes right off the plant! 🙂 Yum!
Wow! I’m wildly jealous. We’re in the Indy area and our tomatoes are going like gangbusters…but only the cherries are ripening. The Romas and regular tomatoes just aren’t setting. We assumed it was because of cool summer we’ve had. But maybe it’s something else…