I have removed the last of the tomato plants from the high tunnel and begun replacing them with lettuce and spinach transplants. The high tunnel has performed beautifully in its first summer season.
High Tunnel Tamaters
As usual, the tomato plants in the garden have all fallen to late blight, but the tomato plants in the high tunnel greenhouse are still thriving. Here are some of our heirloom beauties.
Smoothing the Pasture
This fall we have worked to improve a section of a horse pasture. It was originally part of a raspberry farm, so it has hills and valleys spaced at 4′ intervals reflecting where the rows of fruit used to be. I rototilled about an acre, and removed 500 lbs of rocks. Then I spread a ton of manure and a quarter ton of lime. After this photo was taken, I rototilled once more, smoothed the surface with our pasture groomer, and spread 5 lbs of orchard grass seed.
Microgreen seeds
When my pea crops stopped producing, I allowed those pods that had become to mature to dry on the vine. When shelled, this yielded 3 lbs of snow pea seeds and 2 lbs of shelling pea seeds. I will use these to produce microgreen pea shoots over the winter. This amount of seeds purchased commercially would cost $80-$100 including shipping.
Ahhh, summer.
Fig Baklava Tarts
Finally, Ripe Tomatoes
The first tomatoes are finally ripening in my high tunnel. This is Slava, a dependably early variety.
Planting Fall Veg
Half of the bed of potatoes was harvested last night. The bed was rototilled, covered with 200 lbs of compost mixed with 1 lb of bone meal, and planted with transplants of lettuce, various members of the cole family, endive and kale (lacinto and red Russian varieties). To help the young plants along I laid down new drip tape.
First Tomatoes of ’17
The first fruit to ripen this year are Washington Cherry (left) and Bloody Butcher.
The High Tunnel Rocks
Tomatoes and melons in our new high tunnel are thriving with many green fruit on both and the first early tomatoes beginning to ripen. A few tomato varieties, such as Debarao have 7′ tall vines.