Catching Up On Some Back Yard Plantings(2)

Here's the second half of this week's plantings...

Yesterday I dug the holes and my wife planted Neves Azorean Red, Snow White, Matt's Wild Cherry, Pierce's Pride, Black Krim and SunGold. I pulled out about a gallon and 3/4 of rocks and asphalt.

Today's plantings include Black Sea Man, Indigo Rose, Jaune Flamme, Black From Tula and Brad's Black Heart. A lot of dark tomatoes were planted today! I pulled out over 2 gallons of rock and asphalt.

My wife also started pulling out the grass in the area that I said we didn't have enough time to pull it all out. If we want to plant all our tomatoes, we'll need this area. We'll see how it goes...after all, this area didn't get the compost like the rest of the backyard planting area did. Still, it's better than nothing. 

Catching Up On Some Back Yard Plantings(1)...

So let's catch up on some of the back yard plantings...

On Tuesday my wife replaced the back yard Berkeley Tie Dye (from seed) with Odoriko, replaced Evan's Purple Pear (grown from seed) with Cherokee Purple and replaced the now non-existent Pineapple Pig(2) with Red Pear Piriform.

On Wednesday I dug the holes and my wife planted Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Black Icicle, Paul Robeson, Nyagous and Evan's Purple Pear. I pulled out about a gallon and half of rocks and asphalt.

The dirt for the back yard and "koi pond" tomatoes looks great. After I dig out the dirt I've been adding some kelp meal, a handful of worm castings and a handful of tomato fertilizer, then mix it all together. This is on top of all the compost we added a few months back. 

Friday's "Koi Pond" planting

Here's an image from Friday's "koi pond" planting. It might not show...but I'm really tired in this shot. This was after the Descanso Gardens TomatoMania preparation day, a full day in and of itself.

 

The "Koi Pond" is Planted!

Let's try to catch up on some of this...

We've fully planted the "koi pond". We still need to put up cages and make dirt moats around the tomatoes, but they have been planted. We're making a concerted effort to get them in the ground as quickly as is reasonably possible.

A week ago last Tuesday (March 25) my wife planted Yellow Perfection, Sunchocola, Adriana's Grande, Janet's Jacinthe Jewel and Orange Paruche in the "koi pond". It's my understanding that last year's delicious Grande tomato is this year's Adriana's Grande. On Friday (after the Descanso Gardens prep work) I dug holes and my wife planted Earl of Edgecombe and German Orange Strawberry. Last Tuesday we planted Earliana, Vorlon and Berkeley Tie Dye. Yesterday we planted Bread and Salt and Hungarian Heart.

So we have 12 tomato plants in the "koi pond". We planted six tomatoes in the back yard today and I think we planted eight yesterday (but several of these plantings replaced existing seedlings).

We're trucking along... 

Catching up -- Summary Version

I'll give a summary of the past couple of weeks and leave the details for later...

I worked the TomatoMania events in Encino and Descanso Gardens. Both were hard work but lots of fun. Gayle Anderson did several drop-ins for the KTLA morning news at Descanso Gardens on Friday. Met several friends at both Encino and Descanso Gardens.

We've been planting! Five tomatoes in the "koi pond" last Tuesday, two more on Friday, three yesterday. The three done today replaced bad or missing seedlings planted in the back yard.

Also, two of the volunteer tomatoes were moved to raised beds.

Everywhere we dig we find cutworms. They're everywhere. Not good.

Time permitting I'll fill in the details later...