It has been many
years since I planted a garden. Western
Maine has many small family farms and the farmer’s market is always well
stocked with everything – except tomatoes.
Our last frost is usually late May and the first frost is mid to late September. This doesn’t leave much time for growing, ripening and harvesting tomatoes.
This winter, browsing YouTube, I came across numerous sites of people planting patio gardens using grow bags and decided to give them a try.
I laid out a patch using landscaping cloth. I ordered five seven gallon grow bags online. Locally I purchased potting soil, two dwarf tomato plants, two Sweet 100 cherry tomato plants, one pepper plant, one cucumber plant, and a squash plant. Then there was fertilizer, bonemeal, and accessories. All total about seventy dollars.
The sweet
100 cherry tomatoes came in early with a heavy crop and are still producing to
this day. The dwarf tomato plants are
just now ready for picking, and will probably have to be ripened in the
house. We got a few cucumbers, four tiny
squash, ten peppers, and we will end up with perhaps twenty early girl tomatoes.
I am not
sure I will do this again next year. I
say that now, but when the snow finally goes and we are past the dreary days of
mud season, the idea of getting into the soil and growing something may be more
appealing.
the Ol’Buzzard
