Lessons Learned

In 1998 I used some straw from a neighbor for mulch which turned out to be a hay or grass that went to seed and created a worse weeding mess than if I had never mulched at all. This year I do not care what I am told "straw" will not get near my garden.

You can never remove enough suckers from a tomato plant, if you do not remove all the suckers a few plants become so bushy I can't get into their centers to get to the fruit.

 

I have learned an important lesson; for a house with only 2 people, do not grow 16 tomato plants. I was overwhelmed. And since I did not learn how to can until long after the harvest, I had had to freeze my excess tomatoes and that took up a lot of room even after stewing them.

 

I also attempted to be more organic in my growing techniques, i.e., I minimized the pesticides. When necessary I used rotenone and BT, so-called "nice" pesticides. I shall not do this again, at least not in 1999. My plants were devastated by tomato hornworms, potato and squash bugs, cucumber beetles and a few others whose names I cannot think of at the moment. This year I shall return to using Sevin^® before the infestations develop beyond control though I will not overdo it and of course stop the appropriate number of days before harvesting.

 

I used tomato cages to support the plants where I used to use stakes and found them much more convenient

 

In 1998 I grew about 8 different tomato varieties but lost track of which was where so I have no idea which tasted better than what.

 

One last thing I should mention is that I also went out to the farm store and bought some of those 6 foot metal stakes and placed them around my garden along with some of the cheaper metal electric fence posts and strung 4 foot tall plastic mesh along it. This is not really much of a deterent to wildlife, mainly it was a visual barrier to keep my new puppy, an incessant digger, out. It worked very well and perhaps helped with some of the more skittish wildlife.

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