Great Gardening Article

I’ve recently staked my tomato plants and plan to get a few pictures of the garden up.  In the meantime, I read a great article from this Thursday’s Home section of the New York Times about growing tomato and pepper plants in the garden.  Titled, A Salsa Garden With Everything but Nachos, it covers some basics on growing the standard ingredients of salsa and offers a few websites that might be handy for next year (for ordering plants and preparing the soil):

• Natural Gardening Company (707-766-9303)
• Burpee (800-333-5808)
• University of Massachusetts lab (413-545-2311)

My Plants are Being Shipped

Last year I had some problems with my tomato plants. Well, it was really one big problem, they died. As I watched the pattern, I noticed a few things:  1) they were all the same variety, 2) they were all purchased from the same vendor at the local farmer’s market. While two other varieties produced, the bulk of my plants turned yellow and just died.

This year, I’m hedging my bets. My father-in-law gave me a gift certificate to Seed Savers for Christmas. While I don’t have the time, energy, or space to grow from seed, Seed Savers does sell transplants of key varieties. Today I received notification that the plants had been shipped and should be here by the end of the week. My plan is to add more dirt to each of the boxes, fertilize them, and potentially plant depending on the upcoming weather predictions. I’ll post more pictures once they arrive.

BTW, thanks to Shannon for the picture from one of our previous gardens.