Costoluto Genovese Heirloom Tomato Harvest

The tomato that I knew I wanted to grow the first time I ever saw it. The Costoluto Genovese. It is an Italian heirloom that has an amazing sweet flavor. The pics below are of the tomatoes in a cluster on the vine, of the tomato itself, and of the tomato after slicing. Enjoy!

Single Stem Heirloom Tomato Garden Update 6/29/2011

The first pic is of one of the heirloom tomato beds before removing more of the suckers.





This pic was taken from the front of the tomato bed. You can see the plant almost looks bare compared to the first pic. This is my first year for trying this, so we will see for ourselves. I have heard so many good things about his method.





This last pic was taken from the back of the heirloom tomato bed. I had to install bamboo stakes to help the plants go up the trellis. The plants are massive and heavy so they need lots of support.

Hot & Sweet Pepper Garden Update 6/29/2011

The first pic is of the hot peppers we are growing this year in our vegetable garden.





The next few pics are of my sweet peppers that are grow in a raised bed and planted using the square foot gardening method.


















Here are some pics of my Bhut Jolokia's. They are the best looking plants I have. Maybe it is because I baby them so much.









I have taken a lot of pictures in the last week or so. I will be posting pics of our market garden which has 300+ pepper and 300+ tomato plants. I will be posting updates in the next couple of days.

Single Stem Heirloom Tomato Garden Trellis DIY

The success of the heirloom tomato plant sales have been outstanding. I am so excited to grow 1 of every variety I sold this year, which comes out to be 26 different kinds of tomatoes. I think 20 are heirloom and the rest are hybrid. I went to my moms house and pulled some 4x4 posts off the burn pile. They are about 8 ft long, so they will be nice posts for the trellis.

I will be growing my heirloom tomatoes in a raised box 3' wide and 30' long and using the SFG concept.



I used the recycled 4x4 posts for the main supports. I dug two holes, 2ft deep and then screwed the 4x4 posts to the bed frame.



After getting the posts set and screwed to the base. I hammered some nails 6 inches apart all the way to the top. Next time I will do the nailing before I set it in the ground.



I wrapped twine around the nails from one end to the other and back again making a trellis all the way to the top. Well, almost to the top. I ran out of twine.



As you can see from the pics, the tomato plants are planted about 12" apart. I am borrowing the concept from the SFG(Square Foot Gardening)idea. What I am doing is removing all suckers from the plant so it keeps only its main stem receiving nutrients. The idea is that the plants have the same size root ball. With removing all the extra suckers, all the nutrients go to the 1 stem, not the 10-20 sucker stems and grow as main stems. That is why a tomato plant can get out of control and take up a lot of space.

I use tomato cages made out of old field fence. It works great. I cut about a 8-10 foot piece and attach the two pieces and make it round. Works WAY better than traditional tomato cages. Not to mention it is WAY CHEAPER!



I also took the concept on the tomato cages and made a cage for cucumbers. I will eventually put cages around the watermelon, pumpkin, and cantaloupe.



And since we are talking about using a trellis, we installed a trellis my wife bought at a rummage sale in the garden for the squash to grow on. I had to re-enforce the sides with twine to help with the vining. Other than that, it looks good.



I think that's it for today. Big day tomorrow. Going to the market garden plot we have outside of town. We have 300 tomato plants to plant and 300 pepper plants to plant. Going to be a good day. I am hoping for nice "working in the garden" weather.

Before and After Pepper Garden

Here are some before and after pics of my peppers. The first 2 pics are of the big garden and te other 4 pics are of the pepper beds I made out of 2x6's which are 4' x 4'. Each bed holds 16 plants. The before pics were taken June 20th, 2009 and the after pics were taken on Aug 8th, 2009.

My garden layout

Ok, so this is the layout I am going with this year. I was so impressed by the square foot gardening method, that I am converting my whole garden to SFG this year. I will be buying a 5 tier shelving unit for my seed starting which will be taking place real soon. I will post pics as I take them.

Square Foot Gardening

Ok, so I read this book today concerning square foot gardening by Mel Bartholomew. It is a completely different concept of gardening. If you all get a chance to read this book, it is worth every minute it takes you to read it. It has a lot of helpful hints with regards to composting, seed starting, and general gardening. More on this to come. I have really thought about trying this method this year, but have not made up my mind yet.