Ripe Tomatoes by June 1st?

One of my goals in the garden this year was to have red ripe tomatoes by June 1st! I planted the seeds on Valentine's Day, potted them up inside multiple times, warmed the outside tomato bed with black plastic, and planted the tomato plants outside in Early April under a clear plastic tent.

June 1st has now come and gone, so its time for an update. Here are some pictures taken on May 31st:

They are not red yet, despite all of my hard work. It was an unseasonably cold May here. Even giving the plants a huge head start did not overcome the weather. I almost lost the plant on the end when we had consecutive nights of 26 degree lows. Notice how much smaller it is then the others.

Even the main season tomatoes that I planted two weeks ago have not grown a bit. I may still be able to beat last year's early tomato mark of June 15th. One thing is for sure - when I do get early ripe tomatoes, there will be a lot of them! Last year I only had two extra early plants. This year I have 12 plants of 5 different varieties. You can track both year's early tomato progress with this Label.

So am I disappointed that I didn't eat organic garden fresh ripe tomatoes yesterday? Not really. The fun is more in the journey than in the destination. There are two reasons that I am not disappointed. The first is that I still will have loads of ripe tomatoes a full month before my friends and neighbors.

The 2nd reason it didn't bother me that I couldn't enjoy red ripe tomatoes from the garden this weekend is because my family enjoyed red ripe strawberries from the garden instead!

The strawberry defense plan worked! nothing got in to eat the berries except the slugs, and now I have a great way to get rid of them too! Stay tuned for a future post about my new SlugsAway which is a little battery-operated electric fence. Weird but cool!

As for now however, I'm going to enjoy the strawberry harvest and hope that the tomatoes are ripe before June 15th.

Happy June everyone!

Defending the Strawberries!

When it comes to the garden plants, my cat isn't the only animal that I need to be worried about. Outside there are raccoons, groundhogs, skunks, opossums, foxes, deer, and many birds that are watching my garden to see what is ripe and ready for the taking! Last year, the critters ate a lot of my garden! The first major front that needs defending this year are the strawberries. It looks like it is going to be a great crop!

We planted these strawberries last year using the hill method. The hill method for strawberries is not mounding up the dirt, or planting on top of small hills. We planted one long row of strawberry plants and then meticulously cut the runners back as the plants sent them out. We didn't let any daughter plants form like you would in a matted row system. So much energy stays in the main plant that the plant grows twice as big as they would with the matted row method. The plants grow to be two feet tall! Since there is only a single row of plants, the plant "looks like" a hill, which is why it is called the hill method.

So now that last year's work is paying off and I have many green strawberries ready to ripen, there is no way I'm going to let the animals have them! Tonight, as it was getting dark I gathered up some scrap wood, a hammer and nails, the roll of flexible fence that I recently bought, and the garden shears (for clipping back the runners) and got to work.

I built a little wood trellis down the center of the strawberry bed.

I then stapled the flexible fence to the landscape timbers on one side and stretched the fencing up over the wood trellis. On the other side I stapled the fence to removable scrap boards. This formed a little temporary A-frame fence.

I attached the fence in three foot sections, overlapping the sections as I went along. The removable boards can be lifted up a section at a time to reach in for harvesting.

I'm pretty sure this will keep the animals out. The only thing left to be concerned with are slugs. I haven't seen any on the strawberries yet but I have found some on the lettuce. I plan to put out saucers of beer to attract the slugs when the berries ripen.

It is crazy how defensive you have to be with food gardening. I am looking into what it would take to put an electric fence around the entire perimeter of the garden. That would take care of everything but the deer. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself with this though. Tonight, I can sleep a little easier knowing that my strawberries can now ripen in peace. I can hardly wait.

I'm off to bed to dream about....Strawberry Shortcake!
mmmmmmmm!