I must try trellising my tomatoes next year. Stakes just suck!

I must try trellising my tomatoes next year. Stakes just suck!

I agree wookie - my tomoatoes are are jungle of vines all laying on the ground. I did mulch with straw before they got too big so I managed to save most of the tomatoes but what a pain to pick!!

Gotta agree with everyone on this one...tomatoes did really well this year. In fact, I had so many that the weight pulled the plants down stakes and all. I put them back up and re staked with 1 x 3 lumber I had lying around. As soon as they get a pink tint on them I pick them and finish ripening in a window sill. This helps take some of the weight off the plants. I now have enough to start canning them on the next rainy day that comes along. Might make some into a pasta sauce with meat this year too.

Also doing well is the butternut and buttercup squash, green and yellow beans, and cucumber. Gotta get some pickles made soon. Almost everything coming out of the garden now is being canned as the freezer is already full!

Well, I can't say that my tomato's are doing well compared to where they should be, they are at about 40 percent production, they are around 2 to 3 feet tall, normally mine can get quite high as I do allow them keep growing upwards as I take from the bottom, having said that, the corn is doing well, the potato's are doing great, the beans, root veggies are good, the melons are good , the cucumbers are coming in now and the winter squash is coming but no where near the production that I would normally see. Still the fall garden has been planted out and I have high hope for it making up for some of this, the spring garden did well, the summer garden is ok, and I hope that the fall garden will do well.

I must try trellising my tomatoes next year. Stakes just suck!

This year I put tomato cages around my plants, and then made 4 corners around them with 4 bamboo stakes and tied the cage to those. Behind that I have a trellis for them to grow up. This has worked really well and my tomato plants are about 8 feet tall.

Hi!

I'm in a zone 2-1 area and have been struggling with growing in such a short season - 62 frost free days. I decided on building a green house and my question to all of you is has anyone here built one and if so what design did you use and what type of heat? I would like to use wood. I have a far amount of snow here so it has to be strong enough to handle the weight.

Typical daily take from the garden...
Our first two cobs of corn, more tomatoes, green and yellow beans, a zucchini, a cucumber, some salad greens, a green pepper, and some fresh herbs.

YUMMM!!

If we had to survive only on home produced food this year, we would starve, even our bumper crop of tomatoes will only take us till Christmas 🙁

because this was my first year with a real garden i played around with my tomatoes a little. some i stacked, some i caged, others i light vine along the ground. i also put a few in pots.

the big beefs were mostly caged, but the staked ones did just as well. the tiny tims were all just staked up with bamboo, some leaned over, but i'd put them back up with another piece of bamboo.

the bigest suprise was that the one on the ground grew so much. it was longer then other plants, and it had more flowered vines then the other. i won't get tomatoes off them all this late in the season.

one of the "sweet millions" that was caged, producted 12 vines that flowered, eact with between 6-10 flowers/spot. . . couldn't believe the output on that one. while my potted sweet millions did very well, not as much as the one in the garden.

caged potatoes (one cage so far) was a big failure. . . while my garden potatoes didn't do that great (great tasting just not very many)

beans were beans (don't like them that much) and my carrots were great. (but not that many) my lettuce was HUGE, spinach just as good. . . i'm going to try to cold frame as much as i can in the winter. . .while see how that works.

i'm going to try to dry some of the berry tomatoes today. . . never done it, we'll see how it goes.

Well, the days are getting shorter and the evenings are getting cooler. Today, we have a frost warning in effect for tonight, so although I will be covering it up, I went out and picked what I could just in case.
Here is a pic of my take out of the garden this morning.

This is by no means everything I had, there are still lots of green tomatoes, carrots, and squash growing. Also, the zuchinni, beans and cucumbers are showing no signs of slowing down. Not to mention that my second planting of peas is starting to flower now and will soon be producing...hopefully more than the first planting did.

I almost am relieved that my broccoli and cauliflour were complete failed crops this year...harvesting and putting up all this stuff is a lot of work...but soooooooooo worth it!

A very nice harvest!

Very nice Denob, everything looks great, we didn't get that "possable frost" at our place and things are still going strong at the moment, I know what you mean about harvesting being hard work, so much comes ready all at the same time, keeps you running that is for sure, and I had better get back to it, another batch of grape juice is going and waiting to be canned up.

Well, my garden did "produce" just not to the extent it could have. I will diffidently be revising WHAT I plant next year. I managed to harvest: green beans (and save some seeds), turnips greens (but no turnips), radishes and carrots. All in a small 4x2 foot garden. I also still have my six basil plants growing indoors though a few are stunted. A couple basil plants are large enough that I have started drying the leaves for future (easy use).

Cannot wait for next season!

I'm praying for frost - I'm tired of canning!! kidding! Still working on tomatoes with more beets and carrots to come...

I'll be making some changes as well but the best thing happened by accident. I wanted to try planting in straw bales - that didn't work so well because I put them out too late and they weren't rotted enough when I tried planting in them however I placed them in a three sided square and planted my tomatoes and peppers in the 10 x14 space It's really windy here and the wind blows the moisture away quickly. The bales protected the plants from the wind and created a heat sink. It worked so well I'm going to do it again next year (in another area)! I've been experimenting with different things and except for initial watering of the newly planted transplants I didn't water my garden all summer - we had a drought remember??? With the bales and mulch mulch mulch - it not only survived - it thrived!!

I was able to produce much more than last year but much of the garden remained un-planted because I was just too busy. I feel likeI learned a TON this summer and that was also worthwhile - for the rest I hit the pick-your-own place and the sales at the grocery store and bought some produce.