I took some wonderful photos today...

Today I took some particularly thorough and carefully planned out photos, numbering maybe 100 or more, only to discover that my compactflash card was in my card reader and not in my camera! So no photo update today but everything is growing very nicely, I'll snap some photos tomorrow and give you a peek.

Today I'm going to show you some pictures of some raised beds that I constructed at my uncles' hobby farm in 2006. The beds are 4 feet wide, 24 feet long and 1 foot deep. The site started as a grassy fenced in area used to keep emu's by the previous owner - but he sold them all shortly before selling his house/property. I roto-tilled the area while my awesome friends went to a nearby mushroom farm to pick up some free compost with a pickup truck and trailer. 2 loads worth was piled up in three 24 foot long heaps. Walls were built with 8 ft long 2 x 6 spruce boards coated with a mixture of paraffin wax, turpentine, and linseed oil. The walls are two 2 x 6 boards high and the stakes in the box corners and at board junctions are 2.5 foot long 2 x 4s cut to a point at the bottom end.

June 4 2006

June 30 2006

July 13 2006 - In this picture you can see the vertical string method of supporting tomatoes. Dead but not rotten cedar trees were found on the property and buried approximately 2 feet deep, two at the end of each bed and then the tree-posts were fastened to the ends of the beds with carriage bolts. Plastic coated steel cable was run horizontally between each pair of posts, a line at the top and a line at the bottom, and strings of heavy duty garden twine were tied between the upper and lower horizontal lines forming the vertical strings which the plants are to climb. This method is for use with indeterminate varieties (vine-type tomatoes) and works best when you prune your plants down to one or two vines. As the plant grows pinch off all side shoots and guide the growing apex of the plant, in a spiral around the string (doesn't really matter in what direction). The tomato naturally grips the string with the way its leaves branch out and are shaped. I find this twist around a string method so much more convenient then having to tie individual knots with fabric strips or twist ties etc. The main difference is these 4 big posts have to support the weight of the whole tomato crop instead of having 48 small posts at each individual plant. So the posts better not fail you with this method or your whole crop might be on the ground!