Tomatoes are in the Ground

I put the tomatoes in the ground Saturday.

This year there are five tomato varieties:

Sun Sugar - Pinetree Seeds
Sun Gold - Pinetree Seeds
Black Cherry - Pinetree Seeds
Best Boy - Burpee
Black Truffle - Burpee

This reflects my recent preference for the flavor of cherry tomatoes, Sun Sugar, Sun Gold and Black Cherry are all cherry tomatoes.

I started them all inside in February, and happily several of them have small tomatoes already, and all five have flowers. This promises some early harvesting. The goal is to have the tomatoes set fruit inside because once they are outside, it will too cold for pollination until June.

I have planted them in Wall-O-Waters. At left is a photo, but someone else's yard, as it was too dark and rainy to photograph mine.

The patent on Wall-O-Waters must have run out because now Burpee is in the store with "Aqua-Shield," which is the same thing, but shorter and wider.

They are clever because they are simply plasticized PVC film filled with water. If a freeze comes, the plants won't freeze until after the whole water-filled shell freezes. Since a few hours at 28 F would not do that, the plants are safe.

I expanded the garden by a about a third this year. This is part of my annual over-enthusiasm for gardening that I get every Spring. I turned over sod, and treked in new topsoil from Home Depot. I am compensating the fact that the strawberries have taken over a quarter of the garden themselves.

I need to get the peas and lettuce started.

!!See this post for my early season harvest -- such as it was.!!