Over Planters Anonymous

Maybe not so anonymous since this is a blog that is available for anyone that has access to the internet to view. . . now whether they do or not is a very different story.

Either way. . .

My name is Andrea, and I have a problem with over planting.

It is a very common rookie mistake. Sadly, I knew that going in.

My garden is doing great, but it is definitely getting rather crowded. Note to self - The planting distance guidelines on the plants/seeds should be doubled for just about everything.

My problem is short-sightedness. I was all excited in the spring about the garden and I was overzealous with the planting. I obviously knew that the plants would grow, I just didn't really think about just how much they would grow. Now my tomatoes are looking rather crazy, and I am very reluctantly having to prune them back a little.

I have a hard time pruning my veggie plants. I grew them from seeds or baby plants, it feels so wrong to just chop off pieces. I know it is necessary in a lot of cases, but I don't like doing it one bit.

Once upon a time, my tomatoes looked like this:

They were cared for with love, and they began to grow.

This was 2 weeks ago:

1 week ago:

Today:

They are taller than me now and they are incredibly dense.

There are plenty of little 'maters within that are at various stages of growth.

Here are some of the baby babies:

They are taking their sweet time growing and hopefully soon I will have bushels and bushels of tomatoes that I will probably have to share with friends and family. So far only 3 have been harvested.

Remember my purple heirloom?

Well, this impatient momma got sick of it sitting on the vine without growing for 2 weeks. So I picked it. I set it on my windowsill in hopes that it would turn. A week later it finally started to turn. I was an idiot and didn't take a picture of it, but it was made into a delicious caprese salad. I picked it too early though, because it wasn't fully turned when we ate it. I decided to eat it in a now-or-never moment because it would have gone bad sitting around for even 1 more day. It was still pretty tasty. I have a couple on deck that are getting close to full size on the vine so there will be pictures at some point.

My Topsy Turvy on the other hand is having some problems. I don't know if the soil I used doesn't hold enough moisture or what, but that thing dries out WAY too fast. On hot sunny days I have to water it twice a day, sometimes even 3 times. Even with that, it is a scraggly mess that looks like it is on the verge of dying. I have been adding organic plant food too, but it didn't look like it did much. Honestly I was about to give up on it a few days ago:

Dying mess!

Yesterday we were doing some yard work, and the hubs found a couple of beautiful red tomatoes on the Topsy Turvy. One was a roma and one was a cherry tomato. He fed them to Little Dude before I could get a pic taken, but they looked really good!

Today I have a few more cherries that are turning:

So. . . while I doubt the Topsy Turvy will give me an amazing yield, at least I am getting something from it. Unless it completely blindsides me with tomatoes, I think next year I will use it for just herbs.

On a final note about the Topsy Turvys, the strawberry one was great while it lasted. The strawberry season was short and sweet here in Minnesota this year, and both kids loved eating fresh strawberries. I think next year I will have a bigger strawberry patch on the ground though - since they are less maintanence that way. The Topsy Turvy required way too much watering. Here is what is left of that:

Stay tuned, tomorrow I will update everyone on the rest of the garden happenings and harvests.