My Tomato Garden

So sometime in early March my DVR broke down. I recommend this happening to anyone who wishes their productivity would increase dramatically.

I love fresh tomatoes. I love heirloom tomatoes. A tomato that is actually the color it is supposed to be when it is picked and has never been in the refrigerator is easily one of my favorite things. So, at some point, I decided to construct a garden in order to grow tomatoes for the camp during the summer.

I decided to build on the other side of the back tennis courts. The land is mostly flat, it gets a ton of sun, there is a water source, and one of the fence sides is already built. Contrast this photo with the one above:
So, I marked off the land I wanted. I decided to build it 72' x 33'. I broke up some of the larger mounds in order to try and even the land somewhat. This is actually a large mound:

I then ordered over 800 standard cinderblocks (16x8x8) from Lowes.

I built the first two beds. Each bed is 33' long and stacked two cinderblocks high.

The depth is 15" deep.

I put newspaper about 5 sheets thick into the bottom and watered it to keep it from blowing away. This will help weeds from coming through and the newspaper will breakdown with time.

I then lined it with around 4-5 inches of peat moss.

I then put in about 3-4 inches of in-camp horse manure that is around a year old.

I then put in about 6 inches of LC1 soil.

Then topped it with another inch of horse manure.

So, again, the layers are:
Newspaper
Peat Moss
Horse Manure
LC1 Soil
Horse Manure

Weeds should be minimal.

Then I built the next two beds & filled them the exact same way.

Then I continued on with the last 4 beds.

While I was putting up the beds, I was also putting up the corner posts, the gate posts and the gate.

I dug 18" down for the corner and gate posts. Which is actually an extremely long way down through tough dirt.

Edward helped me dig and even invented a new game that is sweeping the nation.

We dug holes for the line posts and then measured off the height for the line posts.

My bud, Mere Vasquez, helped with the cementing, since I know really nothing about such things.

We cemented all the line posts in place.

I then placed the crossbeams.

We stretched the chainlink into place.

The fence is a little over 6' tall.

Deer can jump that height, but I don't think they will want to in such an enclosed space.

I think it looks fantastic.

We lined the bottom with chicken wire and then I placed some of our Mystic rock along the bottom. It should help keep small rodents like black squirrels and skunks out.

Plus the rock looks awesome.

Finally, in early May, I was able to plant. Or rather, transplant. I went to the Planthouse, a wonderful nursery in Kerrville, and picked up 40 various plants from them. I planted them at night, and planted them as deep as I could.

I have been growing Heirlooms from seed in my bathroom. I'll get all into that in another post.

So, I planted those heirlooms in the other four beds.

I planted those at night as well. I spent almost 2 weeks "hardening" the plants off, getting them used to the wind, the sun, and the changing temperatures bit by bit.

Still, they had a little bit of transplant shock:

Though, 2 days later, they were looking wonderful.

That is the same plant.

I went ahead and caged the Planthouse plants, since they are much further along than the plants I started from seed. I started mine on April 1st, where the Planthouse may have started these in late Feburary.

Tomatoes naturally want to lie along the ground when they start getting weighed down by their fruit. The cages allow you to rest their stems on the wires, and basically prop them up like Weekend At Bernies.

So, I have 80 plants in the ground and really have no clue what I am doing. Anyone who has actually grown tomatoes finds me insane to have planted this many.

I have 21 different kinds of tomatoes planted. It will be nice seeing which types do the best and which are the most popular.

My Tomatoes:

Bed 1	Bed 3	Bed 5	Bed 7
Big Rainbow?	Cherokee Purple?	Lemon Boy	Italian Red Rose
Big Rainbow?	Cherokee Purple?	Lemon Boy	Italian Red Rose
Big Rainbow?	Cherokee Purple?	Lemon Boy	Italian Red Rose
Big Rainbow?	Cherokee Purple?	Cherokee Purple	Italian Red Rose
Big Rainbow?	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Cherokee Purple	Italian Red Rose
Green Zebra	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Cherokee Purple	Surefire
Green Zebra	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Better Boy	Surefire
Green Zebra	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Better Boy	Surefire
Green Zebra	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Better Boy	Surefire
Green Zebra	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Better Boy	Surefire
Bed 2	Bed 4	Bed 6	Bed 8
Green Zebra	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Big Boy	Black Krim
Black Krim	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Big Boy	Black Krim
Black Krim	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Big Boy	Black Krim
Black Zebra?	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Beefsteak	Black Krim
Black Zebra?	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Beefsteak	Black Krim
Black Zebra?	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Beefsteak	Merced
Black Zebra?	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Carnival	Merced
Black Zebra?	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Carnival	Merced
Black Brandwine?	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Carnival	Brandywine
Black Brandwine?	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Mortgage Lifter	Brandywine

Beds 1-4 are the plants I grew from seed. Beds 5-8 are the plants I purchased from the Planthouse. Beds 7 & 8 are the ones closest to the tennis courts.

The ones with question marks near them are tomatoes that are most likely what they say. 80% certainty. There was a mishap. I'll get to that when I blog about the tomatoes I grew from seed.

The Rainbow Heirloom Mix is a random mix of five different plants: Omar's Lebanese (Red), Dutchman (Pink), Golden Sunburst (Yellow), Black Russian (Purple), Djena Lee's Golden Girl (Orange). Hopefully I will get at least 2 of each plant.

I still need to put in the irrigation system, but I am pretty happy where I am with this right now.

1st term will probably get a good number of the Planthouse tomatoes about halfway through the term. I think 2nd and 3rd term are going to be getting a large amount of tomatoes from all the plants.

Dry Cure Fail

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. "
- Thomas Edison

I think Carrottop said something similar. But I am going to go ahead with the Thomas Edison quote since he actually learned from failure.

I am old enough to understand that most things I do the first time are going to be problematic. It is only after doing things several times that you start to avoid simple mistakes and errors. And it is only with these failures that you actually learn. I like to say that if I am not failing at things, I am not taking risks. That being said, I hate failing. I understand it is a rational part of it all, but when things go wrong, my whole day is shot and I am miserable to be around.

So then, to the dry cure. The first batch of Tuscan Salami had way to much humidity initially and started to dry, but never got close enough.

I was about a week away from the large Soppressata and the Coppa being done when we had a large weather storm come in. The heat and all the moisture in the air caused the humidity to go through the roof. I was at 90%+ for about a week. Nothing can dry with that sort of humidity.

So, here is where the sausages lie:

I quickly ordered a dehumidifier, but it did not arrive in time. I'll be better prepared next year.

So, I apologize for not having updated the dry cure posts the past few weeks. I had been busy getting the Mother's Day brunch together. And blogger makes updating posts with photos in them a hassle. But mainly, it was just me not being excited to post all the crashing and burning.

Edward Gets 30 Points

So, this past Saturday my wonderful nephew & Godson George turned Two. Right now he calls me Uncle Richard, though soon, I will make him call me Godfather.

Catie and Britt planned a wonderful party in an Alamo Heights park. There was much swinging.
George found this bouncing arena thing to be level 10 fun.

There was much bouncing and falling.

Which caused high levels of birthday happiness.

A special visitor was the only thing that took him away from such bliss.

ELMO! Or as the party store who doesn't exactly like to pay royalties called it: "Red Monster."

Now, I don't want to exactly give away the identity of the Red Monster. I think most of the children there and maybe a few of the adults would like to think that it was in fact the real Elmo. Which it may very well have been. But, I would like to point out that James was there.

And of course Britt was there.

I, of course, was manning my 6 megapixal Canon Powershot. Edward however, was nowhere to be found. Hmmm.

Anyway, the Elmo had much hugging to do. Which he gladly did.

A few children, were a little more nervous around this large monster.

I find it interesting that some children are immediately trusting and some are much more cautious. I think I fell into the category of immediately hugging the strange muppet.

Those of you who were scared of clowns as children I think were much more insightful than I was. I loved clowns. Now though, when I look at a clown, I see past the makeup and most of the time see very sad individuals. I think the children who are scared of clowns can sense this. I love the fact that my nephew seems to be one of these people.

But this Elmo was a champ. He worked the crowd and all the children grew to like him. Lots of photos were taken.

Even the Godson had a good swing with Elmo.

The only thing that could take the kids' attention away from swinging, bouncing and Elmo would of course be cake.

OMG look at this cute Belly:

Elmo was, of course, a part of the cake fun.

Now, I'm not saying I know if this was the real Elmo or not. But if it wasn't, then this individual easily deserves 30 points for staying in costume and character for two hours. No way I could of done it. Especially in that heat.

So 30 points and hat tip to whichever individual made turning Two so awesome.