Market Garden 2011 - Tomato Update

The rain has finally stopped so we were able to get some tomato plants in the ground for the market garden. Definitely later in the season than what I wanted, but better late than never. This year, we are trying out using landscape fabric to control weeds and moisture. I didnt really want to get into doing drip irrigation so that is why I chose landscape fabric over plastic.

In the first pic you can see how we laid out the landscape fabric and planted a double row of tomato plants spaced 12" apart. We will be using the "single stem" method of growing tomatoes which involves removing all suckers and letting the plant concentrate on only one main stem instead of 10-15.



After the landscape fabric was laid and the plants planted, we installed 2x4's as trellis supports. Next time we will install the supports before planting. We hammered nails into the supports so we have something to secure the twine to.



This pic shows all of the supports installed.



This is of the completed trellis. Well, almost complete. We still have to run more twine further up the supports, but I will do that as the plants grow.