What did you do in the garden today?

[pennyJo1960]

Why did this shouts up for me now 9 years after this thread was posted?

Welcome to the Gardeners thread

 

[igorsMistress]

Why did this shouts up for me now 9 years after this thread was posted?

Welcome to the gardeners thread!

 

[Sueby]

@Sueby congratulations on closing on your house!! We signed our wills today. We've been saying for many years now that we need to make them. Finally got around to it!
We close on our house on Monday, January 11, except we are buying, not selling.
Back to the chiropractor tomorrow. Today was the best I have felt since I hurt it, so hopefully I'm on my way to a full recovery!
I still have gravel that needs to be moved ( using my garden wagon) so I can't start my garden wagon greenhouse yet.

Exciting! Good luck!

 

[Sally PB]

House closings! Exciting! We've been in our house about 26 years now (we're the "oldbies" on the road), and I can't imagine living anywhere else.

I'd post pictures of my gardens, but they're all white now.

To whomever was looking for San Marzano tomatoes, tomatofest.com has them. Bakercreek (rareseeds.com is their website) probably does and they have free shipping, but they've taken down their site because they're so backlogged. It said it should be back up Thursday, which I assume means tomorrow.

I ordered all my tomato seed from tomatofest last fall. This was my first order and the turnaround time was very fast, so I am pleased with them so far! I won't be planting anything for a few months yet. Once I do, I'm sure I will talk about nothing else.

Get me talking about gardens, guns, or chickens, and I won't shut up.

 

[Artichoke Lover]

Where did you find the San Marzano? Was it at a store? If I add another tomato, that would be it.

I found it at Walmart it was in the Display from Burpee. They also have it on their website. It was definitely my most productive tomato last year and the last one to succumb to disease.

 

[Sally PB]

I have 6 tomato varieties to plant next year, plus two cherry tomatoes. My goal is to be able to can 50-60 quarts of my own tomatoes. (The cherry toms are for snacking.) I'm trying 5 new kinds, plus my standby of Amish Paste. I have one garden up on a hill that gets lots of light, and another that is in a bit of a valley that gets less light, and also gets "pools" of cooler air. I have a shorter season down there, due to later frosts in the spring.

I'm going with determinate kinds this year (except for the Amish Paste), to see if I can get better amounts to can, since they tend to ripen all at once. Three of them are very short season, so I can grow them in the downhill garden, and have realistic expectations of them ripening.

I'd really like to hear everyone's choices and reasons for what types of tomatoes they're planning to grow.

 

[littledog]

Welcome to the Gardeners thread our small town double dips in my view also pay for what we use then they charge for what goes down the drain at a higher rate

Same here, I'm on city water in my town in the same state - they charge us x amount for the water we use, plus 2x for sewer because they assume we run it all down the drain. The best thing we ever did to keep water costs down, is collect rainwater and use that for the garden, chickens, and washing vehicles and other outside stuff. We definitely aren't short of rain around here!

 

[Artichoke Lover]

I have 6 tomato varieties to plant next year, plus two cherry tomatoes. My goal is to be able to can 50-60 quarts of my own tomatoes. (The cherry toms are for snacking.) I'm trying 5 new kinds, plus my standby of Amish Paste. I have one garden up on a hill that gets lots of light, and another that is in a bit of a valley that gets less light, and also gets "pools" of cooler air. I have a shorter season down there, due to later frosts in the spring.

I'm going with determinate kinds this year (except for the Amish Paste), to see if I can get better amounts to can, since they tend to ripen all at once. Three of them are very short season, so I can grow them in the downhill garden, and have realistic expectations of them ripening.

I'd really like to hear everyone's choices and reasons for what types of tomatoes they're planning to grow.

I grow Jelly bean, Beef Master and San Marzano as my old reliables.
Black Cherry, Yellow Pear and Matt’s wild cherry I’m growing because they look interesting.
Long Keeper and Early Treat are my season extenders.
Early Pick, Big Daddy, Cloudy Day and Homestead 24 were picked for disease resistance.
Beefsteak, Roma VF and Honeycomb are experiments. I tried Roma a few years ago and it was a miserable failure. But I’m giving it another try. And Honey comb is the first hybrid Cherry I’ve tried.
Out of all of those the new ones for this year are:
Roma VF
HoneyComb
Homestead 24
Yellow Pear
Matt’s Wild Cherry
Cloudy Day
Big Daddy
Early Pick
Beefsteak
Long Keeper
And Early Treat

 

[Sally PB]

I hope everyone reports on their outcomes -- both positive and negative -- at the end of the season! It'll be hard to keep me quiet about whatever happens with my garden.

 

[littledog]

Hey Gardeners, can any of you recommend a reasonably-priced, healthy source for fruit trees? It's getting close to the right time to plant them here...we want a couple plum trees, a couple hardy apricots and maybe some apples (so we can cut down the annoying old one next to the house) and possibly some nut trees.
I got our Weeping Willow last year from Nature Hills Nursery, and can't say enough good things about them - the tree was healthy, packaged perfectly, arrived timely, took to being planted right away and is still growing great. But, $$$$$! It was a gift for Mr. Dog, so paying just this once was OK, but I hope to find a less expensive source for the fruit trees we hope to plant.