Canadian Renegades Not Garden

We decided not to plant a garden this year. Between living at my parents, managing twins, and building a house we felt like our to-do list was maxed out. We wouldn't have time to water or tend or harvest the way we normally would. Instead, we would focus our efforts to homestead step number one: build a house. The garden would have to wait.

Tomatoes Here are where our tomato plants are living; tucked away under the deck.

Then, one afternoon my mom and I headed to the greenhouse's farmer's market and we spotted BOGO tomatoes. You know BOGO, right? Buy one, get one? That was it. I was done. How could we not get tomatoes? I quickly hopped into our Tomato Guides for a refresher and made some quick picks.

Tomato Guides: Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five

Truthfully, our tomatoes are seeing the kind of neglect we expected a garden would this year. But neglect is good, right Hive account@senorcoconut? Even though they're sun-loving we tucked them under the deck so that the infrequent watering isn't too detrimental. Several weeks ago, there were a few days where we encountered severe winds. The tomatoes were knocked over and most of the stalks incurred substantial damage. Our Better Boy was nearly severed! We hadn't even staked or caged them yet.

Despite the neglect, however, they are still producing a small bounty for our bellies! I went outside to check on their progress this evening and here is what I found:

Sungold These Sungolds are definitely the heavy producer they promised they would be.

When we shared our Tomato Guide, both Hive account@redouanemez and Hive account@pennsif chimed in to let us know how much they enjoyed the Sungold variety of tomato. We hadn't grown it before so we decided this would be the perfect opportunity to test them out. Well, they are plentiful and if I had to describe what sunshine tasted like I would use this tomato as an example. They have been cracking a bit on us but we suspect that's from out inconsistent watering schedule.

BetterBoy This Better Boy was nearly severed but is surviving. We have one fruit hanging out there right now but I am doubtful we will get more than that.

The Beefmaster has about four pieces of fruit night now. We'll still have to wait a while before we can sample these fruit.

SweetTreats Sweet Treats to the left and Sungolds to the right and both look plentiful!

Million Our Sweet Millions look like they're experiencing some catfacing, which can happen if the flowers are exposed to -10°C to -15°C or when excessive nitrogen fertilizer is used. Since the other tomatoes aren't exhibiting this characteristic, if I had to guess, I would bet this is from fertilizer. When we first brought these home we were all eager to water and weren't communicating well. I know they received a few extra waterings with the seaweed based fertilizer we are trying this year.