greenhouse: following the sun

It has been a quiet winter in the backyard. However, I've noticed that the winter sun shines primarily on the original plot and much less on the raised bed. That leads me to believe that as the sun changes position in the sky from winter to summer, the sunny part of the garden shifts from the original plot to the raised bed. To maximize the sunshine, I am now considering building a small greenhouse on the original plot. That way, I can grow seeds in a warmer environment where the sun is currently shining, and then as the sun shifts, I can transplant the starts into the raised bed. I mocked up a design for a hoop house using PVC piping.

Here are a few models I've been referencing:

http://westsidegardener.com/howto/hoophouse.html

http://www.laspilitas.com/garden/howto/greenhouse.html

ripping it up

It was ugly, but someone had to do it... the recent rain, subsequent mold and overall nastiness had to go:


Incredible how long the tomato plants grew, more than 20 feet long:

happy halloween

My favorite two things about Halloween: carving pumpkins and candy. This year, I was compelled to show my support:


No, I did not grow the pumpkin in my backyard. But next year I will. It's certainly a sustainable endeavor, carving pumpkins that is...and quite time consuming (design thanks to yeswecarve.com). We also couldn't resist baking Halloween cupcakes, with sprinkles and frosting. The contrast between the natural and artificial was striking:


And finally, we made good use of the pumpkin seeds. Just added some oil and salt, and toasted them in the oven for about 20 minutes:

green zebra salsa

Another week has gone by, and another batch of tomatoes are ready for harvesting:


We decided to grill the Green Zebras and then blend them with some hot peppers from the CSA. After chilling in the refrigerator, the green salsa is really, really good!

tomato sauce

The tomatoes are finally ripening. We have some red Early Girls, some Green Zebras and a ton of small, orange Sweet Millions and Wings of Night.





We made a delicious batch of tomato sauce with the cherry tomatoes.


Not sure yet what to do with the Green Zebras...

first ripe tomato

Tonight I harvested the first ripe, red tomato. I had to pull back some branches and dig through the foliage a bit, but there she was. RIPE!


I hope the other tomatoes will follow her lead. I've been soaking the bed once a week. We'll see if that's enough water for the tomato plants.

tomato sacrifice: yellow flowers gotta go

I planted my raised bed on June 11th. That was roughly 103 days ago. The tag on the early girl tomato starts said that it would take about 60 days to bear fruit. So either I completely misread the tag, or something is seriously wrong. Yes, there are tomatoes, lots of tomatoes. Maybe too many tomatoes. But they are not ripe. The plants are still putting out shoots, leaves and lots of new yellow flowers. Why not devote more energy to the existing tomatoes? There are plenty, no need to create more. Let's just grow and ripen the ones that exist now. I'm getting concerned that as we get into the fall, the temperature may drop to the point that the existing tomatoes may never ripen. So I decided to make a sacrifice. For the sake of the existing green tomotoes, I cut off as many yellow flowers as I could find. Here's a bowl full of them. I probably cut twice this many. They smell like tomatoes...


Now hopefully the plants will dedicate their energy to ripen the bounty of tomatoes hanging from their branches! It is really cool to see the developmental process in a single branch. Here you can see the yellow flower, then the mini-green tomato emerging.


One more pic of the green tomatoes...