A Productive Day

Today was a very productive gardening day. While I didn't get everything on my "to-do" list checked off ( who ever does?) I did make a good stab at it. I started the day working in the vegetable bed next to the house. I got out the bottom tiers of my favorite tomato cages from Gardeners Supply Company and spaced out my tomato plantings. One change I made this year was to move my pole bean tower. Last year it was at the end of the tomato row, right next to the bird feeder. The little red and gold finches spent a good part of the summer pinching off all the growing tips of the beans. They never got over three feet tall ! This year I have placed the bean tower in the middle of the tomatoes. Hopefully it will be far enough from the bird feeder there.

Since this is the sunniest garden spot that I have, I chose my "favorite" 8 tomatoes to plant here. All the rest will have to make a go of it in partial sun down in the big garden.

Each tomato was planted in a bit of a trough and watered in well. It's hard to imagine how huge they will be in September when you are planting a small little tomato from a 1" pot. So much potential!

After getting all of the tomatoes planted, we took the truck to Lane Forest Products and picked up a load of their potting soil. After getting that unloaded at home, we headed down to the garden for tilling #3. I am happy to report the big garden is slowly drying and the clay clumps are getting smaller. There is hope! When we got back to the house I started potting up my dahlia tubers. Normally I start this Mother's Day weekend but I have somehow found myself a week behind this year. I worked for about an hour before dinner and an hour after dinner. I managed to get 51 tubers potted, so that's a good start. I think I have about 180 dahlia tubers this year, but I haven't done a final count yet. Just as well!

Behind every successful gardener is at least one cat helper. Potting up dahlias is exhausting work!