I have finally finished the tomato planting phase of the project. I began planting outdoors on April 28th. The digging is slow and the ground rocky. Nothing has ever been planted here before, this is an area that has been growing trees and brush. It took me 15 different planting days over four and a half weeks to finish putting in this tomato patch. Some days were quite productive, others not very.

The new Tomato Patch

I normally wouldn’t plant 96 tomato plants but this is an experimental garden. I want to see how different varieties work out as well as try out a few different planting techniques. Consequently the number of plants kind of mushroomed on me. I started out buying 15 different types of seed. As a bonus, two seed companies provided complimentary packets of tomato seeds so I wound up starting 17 different varieties. In order of earliness, I selected Stupice, Willamette, Brandywine OTV, Pink Accordion, Heinz 2653, Pruden’s Purple, Heart of Compassion, Costoluto Genovese, Japanese Black Trifele, Striped Stuffer, Palestinian, Olena Ukrainian, Mortgage Lifter, Dinner Plate and Marvel Striped. Then I inherited Yellow Brandywine and an unknown hybrid variety from Shumway seed that I nicknamed Shumway Surprise.
Seed was sourced from Territorial Seed, Nichols Garden Nursery, Tomato Fest, and Burpee. I will be keeping notes on the performance of these plants all summer long.
I am just grateful that I don’t have to dig in any more tomato plants.

These rocks came out of the tomato patch