Great Year for Heirlooms

I'm really behind on my posts so expect a lot over the next few days (hopefully!).  I've taken pictures all along so I have lots of info and pics to share from the past couple of months.

It's been a great year for heirloom tomatoes - all tomatoes actually!  All 20+ varieties of tomatoes that I planted have produced well and provided me and my family a cornucopia of tastes, shapes, and sizes...just what nature intended.

It has been a wonderful spring with one of the largest tomato crops I've ever had including several dozen "pounders" and the largest, a Belgium Giant weighing in at 1 lb. 8 oz., just short of my record 1 lb. 10 oz. Watermelon Beefsteak from 2008.

Most of my tomatoes are in my tomato and pepper garden at The Green House.  Springtime at the store requires that my garden is very low maintenance so  I use a combination of no till and carpet for weed protection.  As with most organic gardens, with a little compost and organic fertilizer, the soil just gets better and better.  I had few pest problems (tomato horn worms of course; corrected with a little Dipel) and a strange leaf curl which didn't seem to affect production (I'll post another blog with details on this).

Here's some pictures from my garden by month:  April, May, and June.

The Green House Backyard Garden April 2010

TGH Backyard Garden May 2010

TGH Backyard Garden June 2010

You can tell it's getting hot but most of the plants are continuing to produce.  In the foreground is an heirloom squash and a couple of Jubilee watermelons with their vines trained along the carpet to keep away from weeds.  Just behind the squash is a couple tomatillos and a 4x4 box of potatoes.  To the left is a row of black-eye peas (seeds bought from the grocery store) and a row of bush green beans.  It seems that Strike is the best bush bean variety for our area.  The second row is a double row of Betty's (my mother-in-law) LaJoe giant jalapenos.  I have a special batch of seeds called #1 Sport which are doing fantastic.  Here's an example pic - and they are still growing!

LaJoe #1 Sports

To the back of the pictures are five rows of 4 tomato plants each; each a different variety.  Both heirloom and hybrids are represented but I haven't noticed the hybrids as having an advantage over the heirlooms in either production or disease resistance.

Hope you are having a great garden year too!