Tomatoes

The nursery ordered in six-packs of tomato seedlings for me last week for 50 cents/plant. They were big, strong, healthy plants and we put 84 of them in the ground the next day (Saturday evening). So far it  has been a perfect experience, with light rain every day since. One of the plants wilted temporarily because it was too far from it's drip line but that was quickly remedied. This may be the first time we haven't lost plants to shock (because I am too impatient to get the plants used to full sun before transplanting).

We are very hopeful that this will prove to be an excellent fall harvest. My only misgiving is that one year we had multiple rainstorms which brought a fungus that killed the seedlings, or at least turned them black and they stopped growing. Hopefully not this year! The plants look great so far! The plan is to do a lot of canning this fall and we still have onions, garlic, and peppers to make our own pizza sauce with once the tomatoes are on.

Garden Preparation

Today is our day for garden preparation. We will be tilling to loosen the soil, which has been baking with no water for several weeks. The last couple of days we put the drip lines on and moistened the soil so it will be ready for tilling today. The nursery's are starting to carry fall tomato seedlings, and the Maricopa County planting calendar says now is the time to get those in the ground although the nursery person told me it is still too hot. So we will till the soil today and incorporate all the material in the mulch pile.