The Plantening

Last Night, I came home to a jungle on the back porch. @PatzillaYo did a fantastic job of watering while I was away, my peppers and tomatoes are flourishing.

However, the tomatoes were taking over. I've been having trouble with them for weeks--they had yellow branches here and there. I couldn't figure out if I was over-watering, over-feeding. I read some of the pages at Tomato Casual and talked to my friend @Susanlu and realized that my plants needed to be pruned. I grew up with a garden where the tomatoes were left alone to become insane bushes, and not necessarily "optimized" for food production.

But I've spent far too much money on my deck garden NOT to optimize food production. Pots, dirt, fertilizers, bug deterrents...time. I hate to estimate how much each tomato will truly cost. I keep reminding myself that next year I will already have all of the items I need, and will just add heirloom plants from Farmers Markets.

All of the branches that weren't producing flowers needed to go....so they did. It was quite the butcher-session, I felt bad, but it's ultimately in the best interest of getting fruit.

Things look a lot better this morning!