My Free Range Tomato Ranch

[ddsack]

Great tomato photos! I really like seeing them all labeled next to each other for comparison. Wishing you continued success with your garden. Finding new ways to improve and change things up is part of planning fun for each season. Congratulations on solving the deer problem, I have had to deal with them too.

[sdambr]

You have an absolutely gorgeous garden! Love all the pictures.

[wildcat62]

Great job Noah. Love seeing that tobacco plant in your garden. Quite the variety.

Good job, Noah! That's pretty cool.

[NoahYates]

Thank you all so much for the kind words! I love to share pictures of my garden.

20190925_191238t.jpg

20190925_191247t.jpg

20190925_191330t.jpg

20190925_191400t.jpg

20190925_191414t.jpg

20190925_191753t.jpg

20190925_191648t.jpg

20190925_192054t.jpg

20190925_192257t.jpg

20190925_192334t.jpg

20190925_192343t.jpg

20190925_192459t.jpg

20190925_192541t.jpg

20190925_192702t.jpg

20190925_192730t.jpg

20190925_193015t.jpg

20190925_193032t.jpg

20190925_194443t.jpg

20190925_194507t.jpg

20190925_194518t.jpg

20190925_194544t.jpg

20190925_194601t.jpg

20190915_160015t.jpg

20190925_192758t.jpg

[ddsack]

Noah, what is that ?seedpod? with the speckled dark green back and the black spiky spines?

[NoahYates]

That wicked looking thing is an unripe African horned cucumber/ Kiwano jelly melon. They are so cool. This is my second time growing them. The first time I had forgotten about them/thought the vines were dead so I neglected them. I was walking around in my garden barefoot around thanksgiving and stepped on something sharp. When I looked down to my amazement there lay one of these fiendish fruits. If my memory serves correct, the jelly on the inside tastes like a banana meets a sour apple, meets a cucumber, with a squeeze of lemon.

They are beautiful vines too, and very aggressive. I had two seedling vines that took over a huge chunk of garden. I was initially concerned that the vines might not make it, but once they took off, they were unstoppable.

20190904_174927t.jpg
Be 20190905_194844t.jpg

I love Kiwano, and my neighbors like it, too. Historically, it has taken a while to grow in my garden, though. I hear it's very aggressive in most areas, but it hasn't been in my garden, interestingly. It must be the soil.

I grow West India burr gherkins without trouble, though! But they taste like cucumbers to sour cucumbers.

[SeanInVa]

Noah, you have a very impressive garden! I am amazed at how green it stayed all season! Thank you for sharing all those wonderful pictures with us

I would love to try to let tomatoes sprawl, but I feel like I would run into issues with 1. weeds and 2. diseases. Any resources/posts in particular you might recommend on this method?

[NoahYates]

Thank you! I have had serious problems with weeds this season, but I blame it on the fact that during the crucial interval when I needed to stay on top of hoeing the weeds around the plants and between rows, we were busy putting the finishing touches on the fence... and then we went on a vacation. In less than a week the weeds went from being fairly well under control to being over knee high. I had tilled and amended my garden so well in the spring that the weeds became mutant super weeds, thriving in the fertile ground I had prepared for my tomatoes, peppers, and melons. I nearly had a nervous breakdown when we got back from our trip to the Smoky Mountains and looked upon my garden buried in weeds. I was able to mow and then till again between the rows, and pull the weeds from around my pepper plants but weeding around the tomatoes and melons seemed too dangerous, as it might disturb the roots or delicate vines. Next season since we already have the fence built, I plan to focus my energy during June and July on keeping the weeds at bay. Also, I plan to do major mulching work this fall and winter in preparation for the spring. We have amassed two gigantic mulch piles, which need to be distributed.

With regard to literature on sprawling tomatoes, I would recommend using the advanced search here on Tomatoville to seek out the posts of Carolyn137 which mention the word "sprawl."
Here are a few of the threads that appear when you use that search:
http://tomatoville.com/showthread.ph...ghlight=sprawl
http://tomatoville.com/showthread.ph...ghlight=sprawl
http://tomatoville.com/showthread.ph...ghlight=sprawl

And here are all of the results of such a search:
http://tomatoville.com/search.php?searchid=3212565


IMG_0206t.jpg

IMG_0207t.jpg

IMG_0204t.jpg