This trellis sucks

The reason is quite simple really: shade. In the top photo I am standing on the south side of the trellis. Both years we used this design, the tomato plants on this side did quite well, the ones on the other did somewhat crappy.

The north side tomatoes were destined to be smaller than the other side just because it wasn't getting that true southern exposure, but the unforeseen problem actually turned out to be moisture related. By 11:00 in the morning, the sun would be blazing everything quite effectively. However, one morning (probably around 9:00) when I walked past the north side of the trellis, I noticed that the morning dew had not yet been evaporated; about a week later the same dewy leaves were turning brownish yellow and they eventually shriveled up. At the end of the season the north side tomatoes looked like trees from a Dr. Seuss book, tall scraggly trunks with bushy floppy tops. No good.

We've tried a lot of trellising techniques over the years and it looks like we'll be trying another this year. I believe that if we had the space we would stick with the last trellis from our Downingtown garden.

It had everything: plenty of air flow, plenty of sun, and plenty of support. The only problem is that it took up more room than we can sacrifice in our tiny backyard. Maybe we can develop a city version. Hmm.

Dispatches from the Metropolitan Yard-Farm

So, it looks like a certain city gardening family that we all know and love has recently trademarked the terms "urban homestead," "urban homesteading," and others. Now, they're shutting down blogs, Facebook pages, and other organizations that use those terms. Niiiice.

Kate @ Living the Frugal Life has written a much more concise account of the goings-on than I can right now. Make sure to check out her recent post on the issue as well as the Take Back Urban Home-steading(s) (heh) Facebook page.

By the way, be wary of the "news" stories linked from PTF's website—it looks like they're writing their own press releases and posting them to Yahoo News.

The Tomato Plan

Last year we went a little overboard with our tomatoes—yes this is possible. As I said in an earlier post, a mistake we made when transitioning from a country garden to a city garden (stop thinking of mice) is that we didn't realize to feed ourselves from a small space it would still require the variety we had in a larger garden.

We did have quite the spread these past two years, but we had the quantities all wrong. Looking back I can't believe how much growing space we dedicated to tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, and hot peppers. Really, it was silly. Sure we grew a bumper crop of these four veggies, but harvests from other plants like peas, greens, squash, and other staples took a while before we had enough to make a meal.

So for the tomatoes (and I'll try to address the other garden hogs later) our plan will be to plant five varieties and try to keep them in half the space consumed in previous years. We'll see if this can satisfy our cravings and our desire to put some food by. One thing I should mention is that this year we have a partial share from a CSA to balance our production needs.

The five varieties of tomatoes will be:
Amish Paste - for sauces
Grandpa's Germans - for sauces, salads, and sandwiches
Black Cherry - for salads, pastas, and snacking
Peach - for salads and pastas
Yellow Brandywine - For sandwiches and snacking

There have been some questions regarding our trellises. We'll be bagging the old and developing new this year. In the next post or two I'll explain why we're making the change.