A little beauty from the garden this morning. By this time last year, all my summer crops were done, so it’s really exciting to watch vines unfold in August. The first is a Kazakh melon with five (!) ripening babies, and the second is a prolific candystick delicata unfolding optimal leaves at optimal spacing.
The tomato is “Sokolades” from Adaptive. It’s supposed to be reminiscent of Cherokee Purple but better suited to our climate. This one is from a May planting, and it grew so slowly I ignored the whole bed, except to plant a couple of bush dry beans in the other half. Now there’s war, with the tomato slowly overwhelming the beans as it tries to take up an entire 4’x8’ bed. Eventually I noticed it and pruned a few suckers back. There were two overripe tomatoes half buried in the mulch at the bottom of the tangle, and the chickens approved of them. Can’t wait to eat my own!
Part of my overarching plan this year is to minimally intervene, so I can learn how the plants naturally grow. Last year I wasn’t quite sure what was a sucker and what would fruit and keep growing! After watching my various tomatoes unfold, I can see how some are bushier and some are vinier. I can see how, if we had any rain, I’d get fungus in the middle of the tomato jungles. I think next year I’ll feel more confident manipulating them as they grow - stay inside the cage or else! Bondage for your limbs! But it’s been very valuable just to let them go.
The early plants, the Uralskiy Ranniy, were listed as semi determinate. I pulled out a few of them to reuse their containers, but I kept watering the most magnificent plant, hoping it would vine ripen the last few fruit. It has! And it’s even regrowing some tiny new foliage, with tiny new flowers - I’m going to see if it’ll give me cherry tomatoes if I fertilize it again!
