It's Friday, so this morning I went out and tended the tomatoes. They've been growing wildly out of control for a good long time, and now that the fruits are starting to develop they are getting heavy and drooping. I tied them all up, and it's a horrid mess.
But it was a fun exercise in structural design. Chris wanted to use this tension system, so when the tomatoes first started to pop up I put one stake at either end of each row, and strung some twine between the stakes sorta zig zagging between all the plants. Well, now that they are big plants those two stakes are woefully inadequate. We've added a few stakes randomly in the interim. Today, though, I added some large stakes and reinforced the tension system, and tied it into the squash system because the squashes have now died down but their pyramidal stakes are still very strongly in place. I believe we might avoid getting blossom end rot on each and every roma tomato now that they've been lifted off the ground.
I also tended to the brambles, which is a whole other set of structural difficulties. The blackberries seem to be vine-like in their growth pattern, but they are thick and strong and resist bending unlike the tomatoes. I have a weird trellis system of stakes tied in squares for them. The branches of the blackberries sorta arch over and rest on the trellises, and at the ends of the rows I have to carefully coax them to bend back and go the opposite way again. We will need to replace these trellises, I can tell already. They need to be much taller. The raspberries, which are much more bush-like, are easier to tame so far. One was reaching out of its designated zone, and I just tied it back. There is one raspberry that is going out of control, and we need to get a trellis set up for that because it is currently using our deck railing as such. And those things have huge thorns, so I don't really want them infiltrating the deck area at all.
The Rascals are anxiously crowing today. I'm not sure what their problem is, but it is getting irritating. I shall have to escape the office for some time in a bit if they don't stop this racket! Perhaps they were upset that I was outside but not paying attention to them. They should just be quiet and enjoy the broken or green, squirrel tampered, tomatoes I've given them!
But it was a fun exercise in structural design. Chris wanted to use this tension system, so when the tomatoes first started to pop up I put one stake at either end of each row, and strung some twine between the stakes sorta zig zagging between all the plants. Well, now that they are big plants those two stakes are woefully inadequate. We've added a few stakes randomly in the interim. Today, though, I added some large stakes and reinforced the tension system, and tied it into the squash system because the squashes have now died down but their pyramidal stakes are still very strongly in place. I believe we might avoid getting blossom end rot on each and every roma tomato now that they've been lifted off the ground.
I also tended to the brambles, which is a whole other set of structural difficulties. The blackberries seem to be vine-like in their growth pattern, but they are thick and strong and resist bending unlike the tomatoes. I have a weird trellis system of stakes tied in squares for them. The branches of the blackberries sorta arch over and rest on the trellises, and at the ends of the rows I have to carefully coax them to bend back and go the opposite way again. We will need to replace these trellises, I can tell already. They need to be much taller. The raspberries, which are much more bush-like, are easier to tame so far. One was reaching out of its designated zone, and I just tied it back. There is one raspberry that is going out of control, and we need to get a trellis set up for that because it is currently using our deck railing as such. And those things have huge thorns, so I don't really want them infiltrating the deck area at all.
The Rascals are anxiously crowing today. I'm not sure what their problem is, but it is getting irritating. I shall have to escape the office for some time in a bit if they don't stop this racket! Perhaps they were upset that I was outside but not paying attention to them. They should just be quiet and enjoy the broken or green, squirrel tampered, tomatoes I've given them!
plum tomatoes and somebody's wacky trellising
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