Tomatoes in the patio

I planted some tomato seedlings in the garden and they were all growing so well with thick and robust stalks until they got attacked by some blight and everything had to be destroyed. Knowing that I would get the same result if I planted tomato seedling in the garden, so decided not to do it. Instead, I bought several big plastic pots at ACE hardware ( SM mall Baguio) and used these to plant the new tomato seedlings that I've sown from seeds. I had them growing in pots at the foot of the garden right in front of the rabbitry until I decided to transfer them to the patio. The sun hits the patio from 9 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon so the plants will get 8 hours of direct sunlight. I tried something different as well by using an old tea kettle with a long spout in watering the plants at the base without getting the leaves wet so they do not get diseased. I also pruned the bottom leaves so they are not touching the soil in the pot and the energy is concentrated in producing more fruits. It worked this time as the tomatoes grew well and were very productive! So from now on, I will plant my tomatoes  in the patio and I will buy more plastic pots for the next planting season.

 

Nothing really beats the taste of freshly picked vine-ripened organically grown tomatoes! Whenever I needed some tomatoes for my cooking or making sandwiches or pasta, I just go out and pick them right from the vine. My hubby and I enjoyed many a scrumptious meals with these tomatoes this summer. I had a good harvest of tomatoes this afternoon for making the sauce of my chicken creole recipe including a piece of bell pepper, some celery stalks and basil tops from the garden and all of these went into the pot together with my tomatoes. The result was wonderful according to my hubby who liked what I served for dinner tonight. There are still some unripened fruits in the vine but I will be gathering them soon before they get damaged by the rain. It is now the onset of the rainy season here in the Philippines so I will not be planting again until the next season. My plan is to start sowing my seeds sometime around the middle of October so I could transplant them in December. I don't have a green house yet so I could not raise tomatoes or other vegetables in the garden during the rainy season. We get a lot of rainfall here in Baguio City during the rainy season so it is best to just let the garden rest during this time. As the saying goes "time fly when you're having fun" and I did have a lot of fun with my gardening this summer.I hope you enjoy the pictures of my tomatoes.

Crop Rotation

My best friend Mary whose family comes from a long line of farmers has informed me about not planting the same kind of plant in the same location year- in and year- out so as to prevent plant diseases from building up in the soil. After I built the new additional raised bed near the outdoor aviary, I also moved the Sweet Pea trellis in this new bed. This is good practice for crop rotation in the garden. So just as I had done in the past, I placed the Sweet pea trellis nearest to the walkway where it will not cast a shade to the plants in front of it. Then I sowed some Sweet Pea seeds on both sides of this trellis. The Celery seedlings meanwhile are ready to be transplanted so I planted them next to the Sweet Peas. Since this new raised bed has never been planted before and it was rich with rabbit wastes and compost as fertilizer for the plants, all the things that were planted in this raised bed grew well and robust.  I planted the Celery seedlings close enough to each other so I did not have to blanch them as they grew. Their own leaves will serve as a shade for their stalks so they do not get the direct sunlight and this will prevent the bitter taste that most celery have when their stalks are not blanched. 

The 5-feet wide walkway is behind this Sweet Pea Trellis

Blue tanks in the background are the cooking gas tanks

Celery, Sweet Peas and Sun Flowers all growing together in one raised bed.

Adding Another Raised Bed

I got so hooked up in my gardening that I wanted to add another raised bed where I could grow more vegetables.  It's just that we do not have too much space in our small backyard so this is how I managed to gain another space to make an additional raised bed. Just above the last raised bed in the garden is a 14-inch wide cemented walkway that leads to the outdoor aviary and right beside this walkway is a flat area as shown in the picture below. Next to this walkway is a 4 feet wide and 6 feet long space where I built a temporary chicken coop and chicken run for a hen and her chicks. This hen was too aggressive to live with the rest of the flock so she had to be separated and this temporary coop and run was built for that purpose. We later transferred the hen house in another area at the back of my brother's house where they get some protection from the elements specially during the rainy season. We then covered up this vacated area with some broken clay pots and gravel as you can see in the picture below.

This vacated area is about 12 feet wide from the edge of the cemented walkway to the wall of my brother's house and it is 10 feet in length. Leaning against the wall of my brother's house is a wooden stand that is 3-feet wide at the base and tapering to 1-feet wide at the top and it is 5 feet high. This wooden stand is where we store several containers of 5-galloon  drinking water and  some cooking gas tanks. Right in front of this wooden stand is a 5-feet wide gravel walkway as shown in the picture below. Next to this walkway where the chicken coop used to stand is where I planned on making another raised bed as a new addition to the garden. So I enclosed this area with 2 layers of hollow blocks, each block is 8 inches tall. I did not have to dig up the soil in this bed because I figured that with 2 layers of hollow blocks, that will give me 16 inches of height which should be sufficient for planting some vegetables. This new raised bed is 4 feet wide by 6 feet long and 16 inches high. So with a walkway on 3 sides, it would be easy for me to reach for the plants or to do some weeding. This raised bed is next to the outdoor aviary as seen in the picture below. 

 

It's a good thing that we have plenty of different varieties of plants around the property so I gathered some leaves and chopped them up and put them in the bottom of this new raised bed. My hubby trimmed the Gumamela shrubs that serves as a fence in front of our property and these were all thrown into the new raised bed. Another good thing we have going for us is that we have rabbits! The green gold is priceless and we get to have them for free. So every day when we clean out the rabbitry, we throw the wastes over the shredded leaves in the raised bed and cover them up with a thin layer of compost so the flies will not have a chance to land into the wastes. We did this layering of green leaves, rabbit poop and compost soil for awhile until the compost reached the top of the first layer of hollow blocks. Time is really slow for those who wait, like me! I could not wait any longer until the bed is full because I was too eager to plant so I threw in a layer of about 4 inches thick of compost and smoothed the top and started planting.