Sunday, July 12, 2009

End of the tomato season...

I ended the tomato season (a disappointing one) yesterday by ripping out the full-sized tomatoes that were still in my garden. This being Florida, the day before I started four cool-season tomatoes (Nepal, Black Plum, Yellow Submarine and Tiffany). They'll go in the ground sometime during August, maybe at the beginning of September. It'll be a battle to keep them disease- and pest-free, but if it works, I'll have tomatoes from October until the frosts... Let's see, what else. I'm still moving mulch. Easily a hundred loads so far dragged into the back yard and spread throughout the garden. When I'm done, it my garden will be a grass-free zone. (Right now, the only grass is on the paths.) It's a lot of work, especially inasmuch as the mulch is very wet. In zones where I don't have anything growing, I'm piling it very deep so that when the dry season arrives, I'll have some nice soil to work with.

I noticed yesterday how many worms I have--every handful of dirt has one or two in it. I found a little worm nursery that was seething with scores of tiny red wrigglers. Very good sign, and another indication that minimal spraying leads to a healthy garden.

Oh, yeah, I also planted some "Premium Crop" broccoli. It can go in sometime in late August, maybe earlier. I just need to keep it on life support until the heat abates a bit.

Nesbit grapes are slowly ripening. A poor fig season, but my trees are still quite small. Lots of citrus on my super-dwarfed trees (Flying Dragon! Love it!). Peppers are still setting fruit, which is nice--both my bell and banana peppers are full of fruit, which is the first time that's every happened for me in July.

1 comment:

Quickgardens said...

I can relate. I just pulled my plants as well. Not the best tomato season so far. I will plant Mortgage lifters again in August. They taste so good. Most of my yard is mulch now. I use cardboard to cover where the paths go and newspaper where the raised beds go. You have a great garden and blog.