Tomatoes

Not much new animal news to report today. I'm pretty sure that's a good thing at this point. No more vet bills, please! At least not for a long time. The way things are going at this point I'm expecting a calf and some lambs some time in December.

Meanwhile things in the garden are starting to ripen up. Below are pictures of the same tomato plant, at almost the same angle, just a couple weeks apart. It's the first Health Kick. On the bottom you can see the very first ripening tomato peaking out from the inside.

We've had a few tomatoes so far, and of course they are delish! I'm very pleased with the Health Kick. You can see they are loaded with fruit. The Heat Wave is living up to it's name also. It has a bunch of large, very round tomatoes on it, though still green at this point.

Both the German Queen and the Red Beefsteak are now over five feet tall. They both have tomatoes on them, but I'm a bit disappointed with the Beefsteak. For some reason I thought they'd be really big, but they aren't yet. They are all still green yet too, but it won't be long before we'll be loaded with tomatoes, I'm sure.

The one thing I'm a little upset about right now is some of the tomatoes are suddenly developing blossom end rot. I've read that means they are lacking in calcium. I wonder if I were to crush up a few Tums and sprinkle around the base would that help? I think I'll try it. I wonder what flavor I should use? Hmmm.

I did dig a new water trench around the bottom of all the plants and refilled partly with my home grown mulch. The mulch is a mixture of last year's garden debris and weeds that didn't get fed to the animals, and lots of pony and cow poop. It sits for a good year and when we dig into it it's turned into a nice rich pile of compost.

Hopefully that's all the tomatoes will need. When I first planted them I put two fertilizer spikes next to each plant, and they've been watered once or twice with Miracle Gro. Other than that, they get watered usually once a day. *Fingers crossed* I haven't seen any evidence of those hideous horn worms (yet). You watch, tonight I'll go out and find one!