Time to Bring in the Tomatoes from my Cottage Garden

It's amazing the difference it makes when your tomato plants like their habitat.  My one plant by the house in my cottage garden produced a bigger crop of tomatoes than all seven sister plants that I grew in the little garden plot across the road.  These tomatoes were huge.  I almost hated to bring them in; I wanted to show them off instead.

I planted it along side the bench arbor and it decided it would be a climber instead of flopping like some of my plants did.  It grew till the tip reached the top of the arbor and then became to heavy and slid down, so I gave in and tied it up.

I had thought that it might not do so well there this year since it was the second year in the same spot, but it liked it there so well last year that I decided to give it a try again, and I'm glad I did.

Last year's preparation involved burying bone meal, ashes and vegetable scraps in a deep hole in the thick bed of pure compost.  This year I had no time for babying my plants but I knew that there would still be nutrients in the soil decomposing from last year.

I think one of the keys to that tomato plant's success was location. It seemed to love the warmth of that west wall.



The photo on the right shows the tomato plant on the arbor in my trailer cottage garden after I had picked the tomatoes off.

I gave most of the tomatoes away.  With my husband in the hospital, there were way too many.