Taking a beating
Have you ever just had one of those days when nothing will seem to just go right and fall into place? Living on a homestead is a series of those, but sprinkled in is just enough accomplishment, lightning bugs and small victories to keep us from a big city.
Two days ago I made a dumb mistake. I've made a couple of those with regards to our gardens, but this one cost us food. We live on a budget so tight, those living on shoestrings are rolling in cash! Let me explain my goof. One of the chores around here is maintaining the lawn, which isn't really something special...most home owners know all to well about mowing and weedwacking. However, when you're lawn doubles as an agricultural space (doesn't that make it sound huge to put it like that?), you have to pretty careful about where you wack, EXACTLY. Long story short, I sliced through the healthiest bean vine cluster we had about two inches about the soil. I didn't realize what I'd done until the next day when the plants were mostly browning and wilting. My dumb move cost us a bunch of green beans because those vines were beginning to flower a lot.
Lesson: Watch where the hell your waving that weed wacker around!!!
Our Roma tomato plant is in dire straits as well, but I think that is from being root bound. So, to provide a place for all the tomato plants to grow better, I'm using some nearby bricks to construct a makeshift raised bed deep enough for them. My arthritis is acting up like crazy so I'm hoping I can fight through the pain enough to get it finished before the other tomato plants develop the same issue. The bottom line is that most types of tomatoes want to run a root ball at least 8" into the ground, which is difficult to accomplish when you're trying to grow them on what is essentially two inches of soil laid over at least 4" of 4cm aggregate! The last tomatoes we grew were a cherry variety and they didn't seem to mind a shallower container, but these full sized plants want lots of root space. I know the soil is good because I got the mixing formula from a reputable source.
