If you’ve been around since the beginning, you’ve seen the progression of our tomato growing journey. After the outstanding results of soil blocking last year, we realized we needed to start our tomatoes a little bit later than usual, to try and keep them from getting too leggy before time to plant outside. So a couple weeks after our first seed starting day, we got down to business.
Another thing we’ve done a little differently this year is map out exactly how many grow bags of tomatoes, peppers, peas, beans, etc. we are planting and where they are going before it’s time to put them in the ground. We always start more seeds than final plants we need, because you want to use the best and strongest plants and more to choose from is always better.
We are streamlining our tomato selection a little bit this year, growing only 5 varieties: Blondkopfchen and Spoon tomatoes for salads and snacking, and we’re only growing a few of each since they absolutely took over last year. Brandywine and Amish Paste are being grown with the hope of a much more successful canning year. And well, Pineapple tomatoes we just love – they’re so good on sandwiches – and to keep our saved seed collection fresh, we have to grow new plants.
In addition to getting our tomatoes started, we finally found seed potatoes! Pickings were slim, but we were able to plant 3 grow bags of Kennebec potatoes, and 1 grow bag of the Norland Reds we grew before. Last year was a potato-less year in our garden, so we were very happy to get these.
Another experiment underway is starting sweet potato slips. We saw this method on a From Scratch Farmstead video, and decided to see how it would work for us.
The greenhouse shelves are really starting to fill up, and hopefully those blocks will soon be showing off sprouts! I check them multiple times a day, and it’s always exciting when those first baby leaves start popping out of the soil. Once they start, you can almost watch them grow.
We’ll have another big seed starting day around the middle of March {green beans, squash, and cucumbers on the agenda}, and before we know it the garden will be in full-swing.
If you could grow anything, what would be in your garden?
If I could grow ANYTHING it would be tulips, but the bulb’s cold-temp requirements and Alabama’s ….unreliable cold periods make it so troublesome I don’t even try. I settle for admiring others’ instead:
My vegetable garden is usually okra, cucumbers, and squash. I plant flowers (cosmos, that sort of thing) but have yet to see blooms. Probably need to test the soil since I’m following shade prescriptions…
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I love tulips! One day I’d love to have a big bed of them – like in those pictures, which are stunning 🙂
Strange, re: the cosmos and no blooms. A couple years ago, I grew cosmos in front of the house, which was absolutely full Southern exposure sun all day long/not a hint of shade, and they legit started to terra-form and take over the front yard, lol… Zinnias are probably my favorite – and the easiest – flowers to grow for maximum bloom oomph.
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How exciting! I’m not familiar with pineapple tomatoes though?? I would love to have a full blown garden with tomatoes, green beans, any and all kinds of squash and corn but the deer and bunnies would get the benefit of my labors, lol. I love my flowers and have beds of spring blooms like tulips and daffodils, then I have my summer favorites, cone flowers, daylilies and rudbeckia. Unfortunately the deer are getting brave and making their way to the front of the house, Last year they mowed down most everything I had. Even the hostas 😦
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The pineapple tomatoes may have another “real” name but that’s what Mr’s family has always called them, and have been saving the seeds from them for years. They’re so good: they’re huge and meaty, and a blend of colors: yellow to orange to red on one tomato.
Deer are definitely big time snackers! Thankfully we haven’t had that issue, but only because there’s so much else for them to eat 🤞 Love love love flowers! Hopefully you’ll be able to enjoy them this year, without the deer pruning them for you 🙃
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Those sound so good. I would like to try those sometime, will be on the lookout at the farm market.
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Wow five varieties sounds like a lot of tomatoes. How many did you do last year if that’s less? Mapping things out sounds like a good idea. I hope it goes well. I’ll also keep my fingers crossed that you get lots of potatoes this year. Ooh sweet potatoes are lovely. It sounds like you’ve got plenty of garden prep in the works to keep you busy.If I could grow anything I’d probably go for pumpkins (I think my niece would love that), edamame beans (as I love those), mangoes (for the same reason) & a mixture of berries.
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If I’m remembering correctly (because I am lazy tonight and don’t want to flip through last year’s planner 😂), we grew 8 varieties of tomato last year. And that sounds insane, but we didn’t get nearly as many as we expected… hoping this year goes better.
Fun choices! Pumpkins are on my future garden growing wishlist; I want to grow all the fun varieties and colors. Berries are also excellent 😋
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Oh wow that is a lot. It’s fascinating seeing some of the different varieties of various vegetables sometimes. I went to a garden that had a fair few I hadn’t seen before. I hope uou get better luck quantity wise this year 🤞
Oh yes I love some of the colourful mini ones that you can get. They’re so sweet in miniature size and look so pretty too. I hope you get to grow them one day 🥰
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I think there must be a million varieties of tomatoes 😂 Which is handy for us, since we want a specific “texture” of tomato that works well for canning (and sandwich eating!). Plus the tiny cherry types for salads and snacks 🙂
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Well I assume you were exaggerating but according to Google there are more than 10,000 varieties of them 😳 it would take an army to grow them all 😂 I hope you find one with the right texture. Cherry ones are lovely on salads, I agree.
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Crazy, right? 😂 And within all the varieties you have to choose from, there’s different *types* like determinate versus indeterminate (whether they all come in at one time or throughout the summer) and hybrid versus heirloom … it’s a whole huge world! 😂
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It doesn’t seem possible 🤯 and that definitely sounds like a lot to consider. Who knew tomatoes could be so complicated? 😂
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I love orchids and would love to grow a wide variety of them!
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Ooooh yes! That would be so lovely 😀
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[…] getting longer, things are starting to get busier around the garden. A few weeks after starting our tomatoes and planting potatoes, the time came to get the rest of our Spring/Summer garden seeds going. With only a few seeds to […]
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[…] was a very busy month, somehow March was a little less active on the posting-front. But we did see seeds started, not once but twice as the garden grows. Spring officially arrived, and there have been some […]
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