A Welcome Sight!

Seed and gardening supply companies are clairvoyant! They seem to know the exact moment when you become sick of winter and spring fever is beginning to set in.

Last week, my car got stuck in the snow at the end of our driveway. All I could do was put my boots on and walk up the hill to the house. Since the car was now parked closer to the mailbox than the house, I decided to get the mail first. Expecting mostly bills, I was pleasantly surprised to find with those bills some of my favorite garden catalogs!

The best catalog that I got was Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I wrote all about them and their catalog last year.

The other catalogs I got on the same day were Henry Fields, Totally Tomatoes, and Gurney's. Wow - Jackpot! I will put these with my other favorites and decide what new seeds plants and supplies to buy this year.

What a great cure for Spring Fever!

Tomato Playground Part 2

In my last post, I listed 5 fun things I am planning for my tomato garden this year (other than eating lots of tomatoes). Here is the list again:

See how big I can grow a tomato.

See how early I can produce a ripe tomato.

Grow at least 7 different colors of tomatoes.

See if I can grow a 15 foot tall tomato vine.

Make some time-lapse videos of tomato plants growing.

The first two were explained in that post, but now let me explain the others.

Number three is simply to grow many different colors of tomatoes - a tomato rainbow of sorts. Last year I accomplished this with my cherry tomatoes.

I grew several colors of full size tomatoes as well but they ripen at different times. I never really got a good picture of all the different colors together. This year I plan to pay more attention to the number of days it takes for each variety to mature, and have some of the plants timed to ripen together.

The next silly thing on my list is to grow really tall tomato vines. Climbing Triple Crop tomato is supposed to grow 15 feet tall. I have seen pictures in magazines of tomatoes growing on lattice up the side of a two-story house and thought that was interesting. My Chinese Red Noodle beans reached the top of my 8 foot trellis last year, so I had planned to build a new 10 to 12 foot tall trellis for them this year. Now I will extend that trellis for these tomato plants.

I plan to build these trellises with PVC pipe similar to what I used on my cinder block raised beds last year.

I love growing veggies vertically, so this trellis system may get a little complicated. I will write much more about it when the time comes.

The last thing on my list is to produce some time lapse videos. This idea has been brewing for over a year now. My nine to five job is at a video production company, so I'm not lacking the know-how. The difficulty will be in the discipline to regularly take the shots or the video. I want to make a wide shot time lapse of the whole vegetable garden as well as one of a single tomato plant from sprout to full grown. More to come on this as well.

A bonus idea for my tomato playground will be to grow some as hanging plants. I want to make something similar to the topsy turvy upside down tomato planter, or the hanging tomato baskets. Last year I saved some fending and big seed sacks for this purpose, but I haven't yet worked out the details of how to make this.

So those are my five six odd tomato goals. What about you? Please tell me that I am not alone in having strange goals and experiments in the garden. Do you ever do things other than planting, tending and harvesting the vegetables? Several things come to my mind other than these tomato tricks. Have you ever tried for giant veggies, grown cucumbers is a bottle or forced squash into a "face mold"? Are you going to try any of these crazy things this year? Please give me more ideas!

I think it makes things more interesting to garden for food and fun. Do you?

Tomato Gardening is my Playground!

My last post about growing 35 different tomato varieties attracted some great comments which made me realize that many of you out there think I'm crazy. Chris actually called me nuts, but then he added that it was in a good way. Alan who is an actual farmer seemed to think I was being wasteful. He was very nice but in a normal way of thinking, he is right.

When it comes to tomatoes however, I don't think normally. I wanted to take a few moments here to explain my oddity. Tomato gardening is my playground. Not only do I love eating massive amounts of tomatoes, but I love growing them and trying crazy things with them. This year I have 5 fun tomato growing goals:

See how big I can grow a tomato.

See how early I can produce a ripe tomato.

Grow at least 7 different colors of tomatoes.

See if I can grow a 15 foot tall tomato vine.

Make some time-lapse videos of tomato plants growing.

Let me explain these endeavours a bit more. The first one was simply growing a giant tomato. Last year two of my tomato fruits weighed in at almost 2 pounds.

I didn't do anything to promote this, but supposedly there are things you can do to help increase fruit size. You can allow each plant a lot of growing space and compost. You can pick off all but one or two fruits when they are small to put all of the plants energy into the remaining fruit (talk about wasteful - but fun). It also helps to grow varieties that have the ability to become large. Two of my selections from Baker Creek this year are for this purpose. Delicious produces 1 to 3 pound fruits. Someone once broke the world record with this variety by growing a 7 lb 12 oz. tomato! Another potential giant is Omar's Lebanese, a pink pink tomato that promises 2 - 3 pound fruits.

#2 was to see how early I can harvest a ripe tomato. This is a game I've been playing for a couple of years now. I live in northern Kentucky, zone 6a, where main season tomatoes are harvested in late July/early August. In 2007 I got my first ripe tomato on June 15th. Last year, I put the plants outside earlier and added a makeshift greenhouse tent to protect them.

That helped me beat the previous year by ten days as I picked my first ripe tomato on June 5th.This year, since I now have a real greenhouse to help me, I hope to get ripe tomatoes in May!

I would like to further explain the other 3 goals, but this post is getting a bit lengthy and it is getting pretty late. I will save it for my next post. Hopefully after explaining the fist two goals, you can better understand that I grow tomatoes for food, and for fun!

Do you still think I'm crazy?

Is Growing 35 different tomatoes this year too many?

I really appreciate all of the suggestions I received in the comments on my previous post about what new heirloom tomatoes to try. I really did take them into consideration and choose a number of them to try this year. It has been a really hard decision. Matron's comment said it best with her statement "There are just too many varieties to choose from!!"

Every year while it's cold outside, I like to plan the upcoming garden out on paper and choose what varieties to grow - almost like you would choose what players to have on your team. I want to assemble a championship team like those competing this weekend in The NFL conference championship playoffs. In the NFL they have a 53 man roster, so I should have 53 tomato varieties right? If only I had room for that many. I have narrowed down this year's tomato team to 35 varieties, so let me announce my starting lineup:

A football team consists of different player position groups; lineman, running backs, receivers, defensive backs etc. My tomato team is also arranged in different groups.

All of these are heirloom varieties except for six. The hybrids are designated with an (H) after their name.

First up are the early tomatoes. This is a big passion of mine so this group is heavily represented. They are:

Returning from last year,

Siletz

Sub Arctic Plenty

Orange Blossom

4th of July(H)

Early Girl(H)

This year's rookie is "New Mountain Princess" from Baker Creek, chosen because it can be ripe in 45 days.

The next group is your normal "Red" tomato category which is what has managed to stick around even with the wonderful other colors and flavors added. Also returning from last year:

Celebrity(H)

Burpee Super Beefsteak(H)

Park's Whopper(H)

Delicious

And the rookie in this category is "Climbing Triple Crop" from Pinetree Seeds because it can grow up to 15 feet tall. Cool!

The next position group is the Pink tomatoes:

Brandywine (my all time favorite)

Pink Flamingo

Caspian Pink - recommended by Connie on my last post

Mortgage Lifter - recommended by Kelli Simone

Omar Lebanese - new this year because it is supposed to produce mammoth 3 to 4 pound tomatoes!

The Orange tomatoes this year will be:

Kentucky Beefsteak

Pineapple - recommended by Connie

Persimmon - recommended by Throwback at Trapper Creek

Garden Peach - recommended by Jen and Janet

and Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge, which looks really cool.

Black/Purple Tomatoes will be represented by:

Black Krim - the veteran in my garden

Black Brandywine - invited because I love pink Brandywine

Prudens Purple - recommended by Happy Girl

Japanese Black Trifele - recommended by Patrick and Melinda Are they really pear shaped?

Starting for the Yellow Tomatoes:

Yellow Brandywine - mentioned by Harmony

Dixie Golden Giant

Lemon Boy(H) - for my Father-in-Law

The Green (even when ripe) Tomatoes this year will be two returning favorites:

Aunt Ruby's German Green

Green Zebra

Small but powerful - The Cherry Tomatoes:

Sweet Million(H) - Red

Sun Sugar - Orange

Aunt Ruby's German Cherry - Green

Black Cherry - Black mentioned by Melinda

Finally, last and least - this year's White Tomato:

White Tomesol - the punter on my tomato team.

Wow, I'm exhausted now! There you have it - 35 tomato varieties. The re-cap:

28 Heirlooms

7 Hybrids

6 Early Tomatoes

5 Red Tomatoes

5 Pink Tomatoes

5 Orange Tomatoes

4 Black/Purple Tomatoes

3 Yellow Tomatoes

2 Green Tomatoes

And a White tomato in a Green Garden!

I am also trying 11 kinds that I have never seen and listened to nine of you from my last post's comments. Thank you to everyone who made suggestions.

So, is 35 too many? Too few? How many different varieties are you going to try? Are you growing more than just red tomatoes? Heirlooms or Hybrids?

I can never get enough tomato talk!

Looking for new "strange but good" heirloom tomatoes

If you have visited my blog in the past, you probably know that I am addicted to tomatoes. I'm sure my wife wishes that I could stop with that statement because she too loves tomatoes. Unfortunately for her, I also have an unusual fascination for wierd tomatoes - the stranger the better, as long as they still have great flavor.

Eating plain red tomatoes is a bit boring to me. I would rather my BLT look something like this:

or this:

The first picture featured Aunt Ruby's German Green tomatoes and they are fantastic! The second picture was a new heirloom variety that I tried last year called Kentucky Beefsteak. Since I live in Kentucky, I am particularly proud of it. It boasts tasty large orange fruits.

Of course my all time favorite unusual colored tomato is Black Krim. It isn't exactly black in color, but look at them in comparison to the red Roma tomatoes:

Another new unusual heirloom tomato from last year was Green Zebra:

It has great flavor and the markings make it very interesting to look at. I do wish it produced larger fruits though. Here it is plated with red Brandywine (the king of flavor) and Black Krim:

Not every wild and wacky variety that I try turns out to be great. This is why I think my wife gets aggravated with my obsession. For every variety that "makes the team" there are two or three that don't get invited back. Last season's disappointments included the White Tomatoes. How cool is a white tomato? Unfortunately when you take all the pigment out of a tomato, some of the tomato flavor goes with it. They do look cool though:

The above picture is Great White and the below picture is White Tomesol:

Actually, to be fair, the flavor is still good but pretty different. I may still grow some this year, even if for no other reason than the novelty of it.

So this year I am perusing the seed catalogs and seed company website in search of more "strange but good" heirloom tomatoes. My keeper list from years past include Brandywine, Black Krim, Orange Blossom, Ky Beefsteak, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Kellogg's Breakfast and possibly White Tomelsol. A clear winner in the Pink Tomato varieties have yet to surface.

So help me out - am I missing out on a truly great heirloom tomato variety? What is your favorite? Least Favorite? What should I be looking for for my new rookie sensation this year? I'm a bit worried. I have successfully found worthy varieties to join the rooster each year, but I'm not sure about this year.

I'd like to hear your thoughts. Doesn't this make you crave a garden fresh BLT?

2008 vegetable garden line-up!

Now that the regular season for Major League Baseball has officially begun, I guess it is time to introduce The 2008 GardenDesk Growers Baseball team!

Okay, I know a garden is not a baseball team, but just like in spring training, I have spent a lot of time figuring out which vegetable varieties will make the cut this year. In addition to which particular varieties I will plant, I had to decide which vegetables needed to be cut (I just don't have enough room on the field!). Last year my total area for the veg garden was 25'x40', all in raised beds. This year I am expanding it to 40'x48'but the outside 15' will be planted in old fashioned rows. I have painstakenly tried to fit everything in using graph paper but I still don't have enough space.

Sorry, I know you can't read the names listed on the graph paper. Just like last year, I have divided up the list into the following categories: Tomatoes, Cool Season, Main Season, Herbs, Decorations and Fruit. First I need to mention the veggies that I would like to grow but didn't make the cut.

This year's honorable mentions are: sweet potatoes, okra, leeks, beets and field pumpkins.

Now, the 2008 starting lineup

Introducing the GardenDesk Heirloom Tomatoes:

Aunt Ruby's German Green

Black Cherry

Black Krim

Brandywine

Brandywine (Glick's strain)

Caspian Pink

Delicious

Dixie Golden Giant

Egg Yolk

Furry Yellow Hog

Great White

Green Moldovan

Green Zebra

Kellogg's Breakfast

Kentucky Beefsteak

Pink Flamingo Ukranian

Principe Borghese

Prudens Purple

White Tomesol

The GardenDesk Hybrid Tomatoes:

4th of July

Burpee's Supersteak

Celebrity

Early Girl

Golden Girl

La Rossa

Lemon Boy

New Girl

Orange Blossom

Park's Whopper

Roma

Siletz

Sub Artic

Introducing the GardenDesk Cool Season Players (many are already on the field!):

Potato Onions

Garlic

Peas

Broccoli-Green Goliath

Purple Cauliflower-Violet Queen

Radish-Cherry Belle, Easter Egg

Carrot-Short-n-Sweet, , Easter Egg

Swiss Chard-Five Color Silverbeet

Spinich-Space Hybrid, Melody Hybrid, Bloomsdale Long Standing

Head Lettuce-Summertime, Tom Thumb

Leaf Lettuce- Simpson Elite, Buttercrunch, Prizeleaf, Royal Oak Leaf, Lollo Rossa, Salad Bowl, Red Salad Bowl, Black Seeded Simpson, Mesclun Sweet Salad Mix, Pinetree Lettuce Mix

Oriental Greens-Komatsuma Tendergreen

Cabbage

And now for your Main Season GardenDeskers:

Corn-Mirai 301BC

Bush Green Beans-Tender Pick, Blue Lake Bush 274

Pole Beans-Kentucky Wonder

Cucumber-Park's Whopper, Straight 8, Burpee Bush

Squash-Vegetable Spaghetti

Zucchini-Ambassador, Longo Bianco

Onion-Red, White, Yellow Spanish

Potato-Kennebec, Russet Burbank

Bell Pepper-Park's Colossal Hybrid

Give it up for the GardenDesk Herbs:

Basil

Purple Basil

Oregeno

Chives

Thyme

Mint

Nasturtium

Horseradish

Next up, the GardenDesk Decoration Dudes:

Pumpkin-Jack Be Little

Gourds-Bird House Mix, Penguin, Assorted Gourd Mix

Sunflowers

And last but not least, the fruit selections:

Watermelon-Sugar Baby

Cantalope-Ambrosia

Strawberries-Cavendish and others

Blueberries-Jersey and others

Grapes (new)

Apples-Red Delicious, Golden Delicioius

Peaches

There will also be many annual flowers planted in the vegetable garden. This is my daughter's area and she has not given me her line-up card yet. I know there will be plenty of marigolds, cosmos, zinnias and morning glories.

And there you have it ... The comprehensive list of players for GardenDesk 2008! Several players are already on the field. Many players have begun warming up inside under grow lights. More will soon join them. Stay tuned for more updates on the pending season and players! Will they all actually get in the game? Will they hit a homerun, or will some strike out? Many questions will soon be answered.

What does your 2008 "player list" consist of? What vegetables will you be growing that I have left off my list? Are you as anxious to get started as I am?

Dum dum da dum da dum .... CHARGE!

Heirloom Tomatoes for 2008

For years I grew only hybrid tomatoes. Then, a few years ago, I added the Amish Heirloom Tomato Brandywine. Wow, what exceptional flavor! I was hooked. Last year I expanded my heirloom tomato trials and now I have two new heirloom tomato favorites, Black Krim and Aunt Ruby's German Green (pictured below).

Not only had I discovered two new great tasting tomato varieties, I also found out that there can be great tomatoes in colors other than red!

I also tried other new heirlooms of different colors last year; Dixie Golden Giant (yellow), Prudens Purple, Kellogg's Breakfast (orange), Caspian Pink and Kentucky Beefsteak (orange). These varieties didn't do as well and I really only got to sample them. They at least earned a second chance for this year's season. Only the Brandywine, Black Krim and Aunt Ruby's German Green were successful. We did have a terrible drought last summer and as I documented in my post "Pros and Cons of Heirloom Tomatoes", heirlooms can be tricky to succeed with.

Below are the seed company pictures of these heirloom varieties.

The only heirloom that I tried last year that will not be invited back is Homely Homer. It was a fun novelty marketing tomato, but lacked in performance and flavor. I have to cut somewhere, don’t I?

So now for this year, 2008!

I absolutely loved last year's alternative colors with the ripe green and black tomatoes. This year I want to expand the tomato color pallet. Something new and cool that I discovered from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds is white tomatoes! I don't know about you, but I have never eaten or even seen a white tomato. I have to grow some in 2008. I selected the cultivars Great White and White Tomesol. Look how white the White Tomesol is!

I really enjoyed Aunt Ruby's German Green last year so I also wanted to add more varieties that stay green when ripe. New for me this year will be Green Zebra and Green Moldovan. Green Moldovan looks neon even!

Another area that I want to expand is the heirloom Cherry Tomatoes. Last year I grew hybrids Sun Sugar and Gardener's Delight but no heirlooms. This year I will turn to Aunt Ruby again for Aunt Ruby's German Cherry. And since Black Krim was a hit, I will add a black cherry variety simply called Black Cherry.

Another odd variety that caught my eye was Egg Yolk. I don't know if it can be called a cherry tomato but it is a tomato the exact size and color of an egg yolk?! The other heirloom pictured above is Principe Borghese which I have grown before. Principe Borghese is considered the leading variety to use for sun drying.

So to recap, my complete 2008 Tomato Heirloom Team is:

Red:

• Brandywine
• Principe Borghese

Pink:

• Caspian Pink

Purple/Black:

• Prudens Purple
• Black Krim
• Black Cherry

Yellow:

• Dixie Golden Giant
• Egg Yolk

Green:

• Green Zebra
• Green Moldovan
• Aunt Ruby's German Green
• Aunt Ruby's German Cherry

Orange:

• Kellogg's Breakfast
• Kentucky Beefsteak

White:

• Great White
• White Tomesol

Wow! That is quite a list isn't it? A rainbow of delicious and interesting heirloom tomato excellence!

I'll keep you posted on how they all do throughout the 2008 season. I am really excited!

Valentine's Day reminds me of.... Tomatoes!

What's red that you think of on Valentines Day? - Hearts? Roses? Not Me! Valentine's Day makes me think of Tomatoes!

Early Tomatoes to be exact.

Around here, folks use holidays as reminders of when to do things in the yard and garden. They say to set out peas and potatoes on St. Patrick's Day, set out tomatoes and peppers on Mother's Day, open your pool on Memorial Day and close that pool on Labor Day. Call me strange, but I add "start tomato seeds on Valentine's Day" to that list.

Last year, I started extra-early tomatoes with the goal of getting ripe ones by my birthday on June 24th. I actually picked the first ripe red tomato on June 15th!

This year I'm putting more work into it and setting the goal at May 31st. If I'm really lucky, I could have a ripe tomato by Memorial Day!

How do I plan to achieve this here in Northern Zone 5 where most ripe tomatoes are harvested in Late July and early August? Much like I did last year by planting early under grow lights and potting up multiple times until I transplant the monster-huge tomato plants outdoors in April. What I will add to the strategy this year involves the outdoor planting site. I will put down black plastic to warm the soil, and I will wrap the new plants with plastic cages and possibly construct a temporary hoop house over the early plants.
I will let you know all the details in these pages as we go along.

Last year, my extra-early tomato plats were the Early Girl variety. They did well but this year I will be planting 4 other extra early varieties to give Early Girl a run for the money!

The GardenDesk newcomers are: Hybrids New Girl and Orange Blossom from Johnny's Selected Seeds and Heirlooms Siletz and Sub-Artic "World's Earliest" from Baker Creek. Both of these companies are amongst my favorites. More details to come!

Getting back to Valentine's Day - before I get any angry email accusing me of not being a romantic, I want to state that I DID give my wife and daughters the real red of Valentine's Day - Roses.

Now they will lovingly let me start tomatoes tonight! Yum!

Green Thumb Super Bowl Sunday!

Okay, I haven't actually been using my green thumb much lately but the NFL Super Bowl marks the beginning of the gardening season for me. I know that sounds strange but I usually spend much of Super Bowl Sunday planning the upcoming growing season. After church I will likely get out my seeds, my seed catalogs and my graph paper and get to work. By the time kickoff happens, I will have most of my 2008 garden planned out.

You may think I'm crazy, but organizing a garden is a lot like an NFL football team. To get into the spirit, here's my garden/football team's helmet:

I'll call my team the "GardenDesk Growers"!

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the off-season for the NFL. The off-season for a team is spent figuring out which players and coaches are good enough to remain and which ones need to be cut. They look to add new players to better next year's team. They also look back at the season that has just ended to figure out what worked well and what didn't. All teams but one did not achieve their goal of winning the Super Bowl. They try to learn from last season's disappointments so they can do better this season!

These are the things I have been doing in the past couple of months because my garden's off-season actually took place in December and January . I have been pouring over seed catalogs looking for new star players to draft and have decided to cut some of my under-achieving vegetable varieties. I am redesigning part of my game plan and am even planning to increase this year's playing field! I have carefully looked over the 2007 "touchdowns" as well as the "fumbles". I will be reporting more about that in the near future.

So the Super Bowl marks the beginning of The "GardenDesk Growers" 2008 pre-season! Many players will soon report to my basement to begin their season under the grow lights! Today I will be mapping out the 2008 garden and figuring out what plants will occupy what spot on the field. Of course I will also be dreaming of winning the Super Bowl of gardening in which every vegetable grows to perfection and every flower is beautiful!

If you are a gardener, chances are that you are also dreaming of a winning 2008 garden. So I know it is only February, but I must ask you that famous question:

Are you ready for some Football Gardening?!! I sure am!

Since this is the official beginning of my 2008 gardening season, this will also be the kick-off for my 2008 Green Thumb Sunday posts. This post is actually not a very good GTS post, but be sure to visit other Green Thumb Sunday participants!

Join

My next GTS post will be much better I hope.

For today I say, GO GIANTS! I mean GO PATRIOTS! No, I mean GO GARDENDESK GROWERS!

A Big Change in Garden Plans

I re-built my entire raised bed vegetable garden this year.

It was a lot more work than I expected and it has put me behind schedule on much of my planting. At the end of June I had one major construction left; building the corn bed and the fence to go around it. It was one of the things on my 2007 garden to do list, and was to provide protection for the corn and trellis space for cucumbers, melons, pole beans, miniature pumpkins and flowers. It was an idea that began when snow was on the ground and I was excited to do it. Even though I was way behind schedule, I set out to build my 6 foot tall fence.

It was hard work driving the fence posts in with a sledge hammer. The posts were so long that I had to get up on a step ladder to drive them!

Finally the fence posts were in and it was time to attach the fence.

I had never done this before and had no idea how to do it. I tried attaching the fence with the little hooks built in to the post but that didn't work. It was also near impossible to stretch the fence taught by myself. I kept getting scratched by the end of the fence. Also the posts were level and straight but the ground sloped. Bottom line, I was in over my head.

By now it was almost the 4th of July and time for our family vacation. So what did I do? A pessimist would say I admitted defeat and threw in the towel. An optimist like me would say I improvised and switched to plan B for the garden design.

I took down the fence (getting scratched even more) and dug out the fence posts.

I rounded up my scrap wood and built two more garden beds.

I decided we would have to wait another year to find out if Mirai 301BC corn is really the corn that everyone talks about. I planted my root-bound cucumbers in one of the beds along with another sowing of bush green beans. I used the other bed to solve another problem. I had planned to till an entirely new area for a pumpkin patch but hadn't done it yet. So instead of engaging in all of that extra work, I planted my pumpkin plants in the other bed where the corn was to go. It is at the far end of the garden so the pumpkin vines will grow out into the yard. I will try to stay ahead of the vines and put down tarps and old carpet to kill the grass and allow the vines to lay on top. Next year, I will then make more garden beds in that spot.

So here is the finished product:

You can't see the plants very well but they're there. In another month they will take over the entire area!

These changes are indeed a compromise from what I had hoped to have, but isn't that how gardening goes? Does it ever go exactly as planned? I am just happy that finally - in July - I'm finished with my spring plantings. I hope its not too late to get a Fall harvest before frost.

It is just about time to begin the Fall planting for the Winter harvest!

Tilling in the Rain!

This spring has been crazy for me and my garden! First we had crazy weather and then my time was taken up largely by building my deck. On top of that, I made a great big garden to do list which included a complete redesign of the vegetable garden raised beds!

To get all of this accomplished I have had to resort to creative scheduling of my time like taking days off from my day job and building raised beds in the middle of the night by moonlight. Well now to add to that list, I roto-tilled the rest of the garden in the rain!

I included that last picture so you can see the raindrops in the trees. Even though it was raining pretty hard the ground was still pretty dry a few inches below. Since I am expanding the beds past where they were last year, I had to till some areas that were sod last year. The spot that was next to the end of last year's beds were particularly dry and compacted. You can see what I mean in this picture. Look just ahead of the rototiller tines.

These new areas do not have very fertile soil yet. I am going to have to use a lot of organic fertilizer on the beds in those areas.

I don't like using a tiller in the garden. I am against using it every year like many row gardeners do. Over-tilling destroys the soil structure and causes a hard-pan which that hinders root growth to form where the tines have pounded the soil. After this year, I will never use the tiller here in the vegetable garden. Unfortunately in my Kentucky clay soil, it is necessary to till where I haven't gardened before.

So till is what I did! I tilled in the rain for over an hour. Right about the time I finished, the clouds broke and the sun came back out.

This vegetable garden still doesn't look like much, but it will in a month or so. The most interesting thing to watch so far is still my extra early tomatoes. Notice them there at the bottom of that last picture?

Now that it is tilled, I will add a couple more raised beds and a fence to plant my corn in. Hopefully I will have prettier pictures to show soon!

Official Garden Desk Weight Loss Tools!

Part of Wordless Wednesday

Okay, I can't really leave this completely wordless. For the past month or so, I have been redesigning the vegetable garden and building a deck. Because of all of the hard work, I have lost almost 10 pounds! I could stand to lose 5 or 10 more, so I guess I'll just have to garden MORE, which is not a problem for me.

The re-design of the garden was a lot of physical work because I wanted raised beds but didn't have much extra soil. My solution was to till the entire area, build the garden beds from untreated lumber, place the new beds where I wanted them and shovel all of the surrounding dirt into the beds. In essence I obtained "raised beds" by lowering the areas around the beds by about a foot. That is quite a bit of digging and shoveling. I am not all the way finished, but here are a couple of pictures that I took before I planted anything (except the extra-early tomatoes):

As for building the deck, I've posted several times before about it's progress. I now have the entire floor on but I still need to build some railings and the overhead shade trellis. Here is a picture taken when the floor was about 3/4 done:

It has been nice losing weight because of these two projects, but they have delayed my garden plantings and I haven't been able to write as much as I would like in my blogs. Soon both projects will be done and I can hopefully get back to daily updates here.

Thanks for allowing me to be so wordy on Wordless Wednesday! If you want to see other peoples posts that probably are less wordy,Click Here.