Creative "Free" Tomato Supports

My tomatoes are coming along really well and are now starting to need some support. I have the 8 tomato cages that I bought last year and they really didn't work well and with money being tight, I needed to get creative for the rest of my 50 some tomato plants.

Before:  The "small" tomato bed, better known as Adin's.

The supplies: large and small trimmers, hunting knife, twine, and maple poles cut from the woods.

After:  The first round of support put in.  More will be added as the plants grow. 

 I think that it looks kind of pretty and I'll use this method for all of my tomatoes.  It allows me to put up a support branch where ever I may need one, the materials were all on hand and it is all bio-degradable.  It does take a little time to do the tying of all the branches together, but that is ok.

Here are some updated pics from other parts of the garden:

Sugar Snap Peas on the left just starting to bloom and Shelling peas on the right with tons of nice pods.

Bush Beans: Green & Wax

Cucumbers with a second season Carrot and some volunteer Sunflowers.

Potatoes:  Blues and Reds (I have mounded twice now.)  I also have 2 garbage cans with blues.

Asparagus forest and a couple of tomatoes.

Seeds Have Arrived!

My sister came down this weekend for my son's 5th Birthday party and brought my seeds with her.  We split a lot of the seed packets because some just have more than we need.  I know we could save them for another year on a lot of them, but this just works better for us.  So after our dividing the ones that we are sharing and her keeping some of the ones that she will start for both of us (because she has the small green house and ours isn't built yet) we are ready for spring.

My list of seeds include:
Peas: RSVPea for shelling and Sugar Snaps
Beans:  Burpee's Tenderpod and Gold Mine
Pumpkins: Dill's Monster,SuperFreak Goosebumps Hybrid, and Snack face Hybrid
Squash:  Waltham Butternut Heirloom & Buttercup
Gourds:  Gremlins and Goblin Egg
Carrots:  Atomic Red, Bambino, Cosmic Purple, Lunar White & Solar Yellow
Sweet Zuke Hybrid Zucchini
Baby Leaf Hybrid Spinach
Sweet Basil
Lettuce: Iceberg A & a leaf
Early Pride Hybrid Cucumber
Dimitri Hybrid Brussels Sprouts
Peppers: False Alarm, California Wonder, Sunbright, Horizon, Purple Beauty, Midnight Dreams, Chocolate Bell, White Belle and Lilac Bell
Dukat Dill
Granex Yellow Onions (grown from seed for green onions and sets for 2012)
Tomatoes:  Brandy Boy, Roma & a Cherry
Cilantro

I think that is it.  Looks pretty daunting, but I am excited.  I may add a thing or two as the time get's closer.  I am also getting seed potatoes and onion sets, but they are on back order.  We have this huge beautiful south facing deck that doesn't get much use, so I will be doing a bunch of container plantings up there with the leaf lettuce, herbs, some tomatoes and maybe I'll add some pole beans as my others that will go in the garden are bush varieties. 

Friday, Scott and Adin went and got our glass for the green house.  We got 10 panels of replacement patio door glass for $15 each.  Should work great.  The layout of the green house is once again changing in Scott's mind.  He is now thinking of having it longer and narrower, which is fine with me.  He has a picture in his head and it should work.  He is pretty meticulous when it comes to building so I'm sure it will be beautiful.  He even textured the concrete that he put down last fall for our split wood to sit on.  He is wonderful. 

Today is beautiful, but tomorrow is supposed to rain.  At least we should loose a lot of snow this weekend.  This afternoon I was actually able to get into the garden and dig up some carrots that have been overwintering in there.  I was amazed.  Other than being really dirty, they were still crisp and crunchy and not frozen.  I love it.  It is fun to be harvesting again. 

Enjoyment

This morning I had the chance to enjoy my first cucumber from our garden. There is definitely a difference between fresh just picked, home grown cucumbers and those things you get in the store that have that slimy wax on them. Yuck! My cucumber open faced sandwich (a favorite that I pick up on in Norway many years back visiting family and friends) was wonderful. My Cucumbers aren't big as they are a pickling variety, but are very tasty. I hope to try canning a few jars of pickles this weekend if I have enough pickle sized cucumbers. Gotta try Grandma's Mustard Pickle recipe. I also blanched and froze about a gallon of green beans and a quart of sugar snap peas. We had fresh ones in turkey stir fry the other night and they were fabulous, the kids kept picking them out and eating just them. I was surprised when Scott said that the meat was part of his turkey from this spring, it was tender and not gamy tasting.

I was thinning out some of the carrots as they got planted too close together in some spots and they are actually looking like carrots. Way fun. Instead of composting these tiny little things I'm feeding them to Amy the Lionhead bunny. Boy does she like those, they are gone in an instant. We are all excitedly waiting to be able to harvest big carrots.