Condo Construction

Over the past week or so, we've just been trying to keep up with the tending, weeding and harvesting of the garden. But today, we were actually able to have some time to start building the tomato condos. If we'd had more time and more manpower, we would have had them all built weeks ago, but as it is, we just have to build them when we can. Three were put up today:

These two were built first, because these beds didn't have the benefit of the temporary structures. The plants were spread out all over the place--you couldn't even walk through the path in the middle that is now visible. Notice the rungs that surround the corner posts. There are also rungs in the middle too. The tomato plants are then tied to these rungs with strips of cotton t-shirts. The cotton strips won't cut into the plants, and the condos themselves give the plants the flexibility to move in a storm without blowing over or snapping. This is the method of growing tomatoes vertically that we alluded to in earlier posts, which is why we can plant them so close together.



This one is just South of the first two, on the West side of the garden.



This is a cucumber condo, which is also partially visible in the previous picture. Notice the twine which enables the cucumber vines to crawl upwards--another means of arranging lots of plants in close proximity to maximize the available output of veggies in a smaller space. We have two other condos of this type on the South and East fences.

We did some harvesting before doing anything else this morning, and here's a little sample of what we found:



These radishes were one of the last things to be planted from seed--and they're one of the first things to be harvested. Radishes grow fast--so fast that you can use them as "marker crops". In other words, you plant radishes with other things so you can see where the other crops will be. As you pick the radishes, this aerates the soil to make more room for the other crop that you've planted.

We also picked more yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, acorn squash, and beet greens.



Elaine is looking for any tomatoes that may be ready to pick. As it turns out, they're not ready yet--but when they get ready, it will be an avalanche of tomatoes.



Believe it or not, these carrots just got thinned out. This is part of the process of planting a lot of seeds and then culling out the weaker sprouts to aerate the soil and make room for the stronger carrots. We'll be thinning these carrot beds out again before they're ready to harvest.