Strawbales laid out for the 2024 garden - treatment is underway. Yes, there are less!

In my February 29 blog I discussed the various seeds I planted. Jump ahead to today and now have seedlings that will be ready to go into strawbales in a few weeks. I know that March and early April existed - a few Instagram Live sessions that I carried out prove that. Rather then rehash it all, let’s take it from today and move forward.

Work and life thus far has been in three categories - (1) Zooms, talks, podcasts, Instagram Lives, email answering and seed sending, (2) getting my seeds planted, seedlings transplanted and labeled, (3) relaunching the Tomato Team for the Veterans Healing Farm and getting the strawbales cooking, and (4) hiking, primarily for wildflower seeking.

Trilliums along the North Slope trail in the Pisgah Forest

As far as talks - after today’s workshop on tomatoes in Morganton, things really thin out for me. I will talk tomatoes at the Veterans Healing Farm in mid May, at the Etowah Library in July, and at the Buncombe Master Gardener event in Hendersonville in October, and straw bale and container gardening in Brevard in September. Please note that examples of my talks and recent podcasts are now posted as links on my Instagram Linktree, found in my profile (@nctomatoman to find me on Instagram).

Regarding my own garden, 2 new raised beds are filled and as of yesterday contain chard, lettuce, collard, spinach and kale seedlings. 23 strawbales are under preparation. This will (as I’ve said for months) be a smaller garden. The tomatoes that will reside in the bales - 1 plant per bale - are Cherokee Purple, Cherokee Chocolate, Cherokee Green, Earl, Polish, Lillian’s Yellow Heirloom, Potato Leaf Yellow, Abraham Brown, Lucky Cross, Captain Lucky, Egg Yolk and Sun Gold. I will place a Mexico Midget in a large container in the driveway, and my recent new dwarf hybrids in grow bags, also in the driveway. One bale will contain Shishito and Pinata peppers, one will contain Twilight Lightning and Mardi Gras eggplants, one will grow cucumbers. Four bales are pushed together for three types of beans -Goldilocks, Jade and Marbel. Four bales are pushed together for summer squash - 2 plants of a zucchini (probably Dunja), and 2 plants of Zephyr summer squash - one plant per bale. That’s it! Basil will join parsley, rosemary, and oregano in one of the new raised beds. I will probably purchase a thyme plant.

This will still be a very interesting garden, as I will be aiming for excellence in the tomato plants. I want to try for maximizing yield and health. I’ve yet to decide how many suckers I will let develop on each non- cherry tomato plant. With greater spacing and less plants I am hoping to do a better job with issue identification and mediation - disease and critter spotting and removal ASAP.

2024 seedlings sunning themselves prior to fully labeling

Our Veterans Healing Farm Tomato Team is quite large this year, which is highly appreciated. We have a good mix of experienced and new members. Since we can not use the greenhouse this year (the current location of the Farm must be vacated by August, but we will be able to use the large veggie field next to Shaw’s Creek until the growing season ends). The VHF is seeking a new location and funding. There is a donation link in my Instagram Linktree in my profile.

We are going to keep the roots out of the soil by using strawbales. Since water is more of a challenge (we need to pump it out of the creek), we have the bales linked up in a row of 30. They were placed in large plastic bags. Holes were cut in the bottom for drainage, and the top mostly cut away, leaving all sides enclosed.

We are half way through the bale treatment. On Monday April 29 the seedlings will be planted, 2 indeterminate tomatoes per straw bale. We are limiting numbers of varieties this year. Current thoughts are that the tomatoes planted will include Cherokee Purple, Cherokee Chocolate, Big Sandy, Nepal, Red Brandywine, Earl, Polish, Brandywine, Lillian’s Yellow Heirloom, Potato Leaf Yellow and Lucky Cross. We will work out the quantity of each very soon. Note that we are not planting cherry tomatoes. The key is flavor, productivity and acceptance by those to whom the tomatoes will be donated.

I look forward to finding out how the bales do when enclosed in plastic to reduce water evaporation. The issue we had last year of enclosure in the greenhouse - which led to rapid disease spread and lower fruit set on the upper part of the plant - is absent this year. The plants will get full sun all day and excellent care from the team.

There it is - a full update on the goings on in my gardening life. We are going to keep up the hiking, and soon add kayaking. The weather has been mostly gorgeous. I hope all of you have excellent 2024 gardens! Be sure to catch me on my weekly Instagram Live, which should soon settle out to Friday afternoons (up to now, they’ve been very spotty and impromptu). You can watch them all after the fact at the reels tab on my Instagram profile.