I spent the afternoon taking down my heirloom tomato garden, which is in containers on our front yard. The garden is in containers because it would have been very expensive to landscape an in-ground garden and the soil isn’t good because when this house was built, it was the practice to scrape off the topsoil, so what we have left is yellowish and rocky. The containers go in the front yard because tomatoes need at least six-to-eight hours of direct sun every day and only the front yard gets that much sun. Plus, there are no HOA rules or zoning regulations to stop me.
I had almost 40 varieties of heirloom tomatoes this year with 80-ish plants, plus patty pans squashes, which my father loves, basil, lime basil, lemon basil, oregano and coriander. I grow my plants from seed, so I’ll have about six-or-eight weeks off until is is time, in early January, to start making my list of tomatoes for my 2010 garden. I will include lots of cherry tomatoes in a rainbow of colors for my father. I plant them by the side of the walkway and driveway so he can sample as many as he wants when he goes out to get the mail or the newspaper.
By taking down the tomato cages and pulling the plants, I am reducing the time it will take this weekend when my tomato-friendly neighbors will help me cart the containers to their winter home in the back yard, where the squirrels and deer won’t mind them. Plus, the weather today was irresistible — it was a glorious October day, everything sparkled, the sky was clear and blue and it was so warm I didn’t need a jacket and cool enough that I didn’t need a sweatband — if you need numbers, that’s around 72 F.
The weather is predicted to be glorious again tomorrow, so I will finish taking down the tomato plants and maybe pull up the zinnias and plant some pansies in their place. I should pull the marigolds, too, I gather, but their yellow blossoms are so cheerful and abundant I can’t bring myself to do it.
What this means for the blog is a few days of personal blogging about the garden, cooking and baking, the kitties, songs I like — unless something comes up that absolutely MUST be parodied, mocked or lampooned. Let me know what you think of the change of pace.
