It's official! The Early Girl has seen fit to bloom, so now all three tomato plants and the tomatillo are sporting yellow blossoms. The one on the Topsy Turvy seems to have disappeared, however. I'm hoping it dropped in order to grow a tomato and was not (as I fear) blown away by the wind. The bowl is definitely looking far too crowded now. The poor cherry tomato plant is being eclipsed by the Early Girl, and the jalapenos haven't shown much growth either. The time has come to remodel.
I don't know precisely who Dr Q is (perhaps a relative? LOL), but I'm certain that he's a big fan of mine, as I've become a regular consumer of his Filthy Rich organic potting soil. Bright and early in the morning, I loaded up the toddler and headed for the nursrey, where four huge bags of said soil were loaded into my rather tiny car trunk.
A few trips were required for me to haul the giant bags of soil from the trunk to the back yard (sadly, no helpful carryout person was waiting at my home), then the remaining sections of my above-ground garden kit. I hadn't even started yet, and already my muscles were protesting!
After a quick breakfast, my tiny assistant and I headed out back. I quickly loaded the "patients" onto the patio table to await their transplants. I made an executive decision to move the patio swing in order to add onto the onion bed, rather than just building up the corner where the tomatoes were presently. I think they'll get a bit more sun this way, and it makes it easier to work without the swing in the way. Of course, this also involved moving a BBQ grill, a few big planters filled with fake flowers (leftovers from the previous owners) and one way-heavier-than-it-looked decorative rock.
Once all the remodeling was done, I set out the pieces of the garden bed. The toddler thought it was super nice of me to do this for her, and immediately claimed them for herself. She began making towers of the end blocks and found great joy pushing flat puzzle pieces through the slats in the walls. But the most fun for her was when I started clearing rocks to lay down the walls. She squealed with delight as I started shoveling rocks into the plastic holding area, and immediately claimed the hand-shovel for herself.
I used my hands to clear away most of the rock in the "wall zone," then, after putting the slats into place, I used the shovel to remove some from the interiour (opting to leave some stones at the bottom to help with drainage). Each shovel full of rocks I dumped into the tray made my toddler squeal "thank you!" with high-pitched glee. Such is the world of a 2-year-old!
I opted to build the second bed double the height, to give the tomato plants room to root. Then, after a quick rake to level the stones, it was time to add the soil. By this time, my tiny assistant had moved on from the rocks (which she seemed intent on eating) to checking out the dirt. As I walked over to get the second bag, she started shoveling it into the onion bed next door. After a tiny power struggle, I felt sure she understood that wasn't a good idea, and went off for the third bag. This time, she had decided to shovel it into the plastic container where her rocks had been. I explained that we needed the dirt to all stay in the container, because the plants needed it to grow. She didn't seem impressed, but moved on to playing on the swings.
Raking the dirt into place, I turned on the faucet to give the new plant beds a good soaking. This, it turns out, was the greatest idea I'd had all day (according to the toddler). She very enthusiastically wet her hands in the showering water, and collected it in the shovel. I had to stop her short of giving her baby doll a "bath" in the muddy mix, however. In fact, she loved it so much, she brought the wand back after I'd turned it off. It is awesome watching her start to understand what I'm doing out here in the dirt.
I opted to put the Early Girl and the tomatillos next to the wall, where they can grow taller without blocking the sun from the cherry tomato or the jalapenos, which I placed farther forward. The middle space will most likely be taken up by the herbs I started this week, or possibly some baby watermelons that hubby's mom sent us seeds for. Our transpalnt operation was briefly halted by the toddler tossing her handful of puzzle pieces into the holes created for the tomato plants. It would be totally awesome to be able to grow puzzles, though, without a doubt.
The strawberries got a new home in a deeper bucket. I don't know much about much when it comes to gardening, but I suspect the reason the second plant wasn't flourishing was because it was too crowded in the hanging basket. Hopefully this will help. The very lonely Topsy Turvy also got flipped around so that it could get sun on the other side as well.
After all the hard work, aching muscles and slightly sunburned nose (note to self: wear a hat!), it was a treat to find, upon examining the "patients" for signs of trauma, my very first teeny tomato bud! I'm so excited to grow more of them, and to finally put together that epic salsa grown from my own patch of land. I think it's time to start hunting for good salsa recipes!
