The great tomato experiment fails, and Pulling out the heavy artillery

I was late planting my tomatoes this year, and shortly after they got large enough to produce, they were hit by a freeze. I only had two at that time, a Park's Whopper and an Early Girl.

The Early Girl finally died, but not before I got some cuttings rooted, which I gave to my neighbor. The plant is doing very well in her yard, but did nothing in mine.

The Park's Whopper is not producing large fruit, and something is scarring the fruit badly. This has always been a favorite tomato of mine, so I'm very disappointed. I have a couple of babies rooted that I'm going to put into 5 gallon pots and try again.

I truly think this is because of where I planted them. They get plenty of sun, but the ground isn't very fertile, and they are competing for nutrients with two large trees nearby, plus my purple leaf plum. I think that once I get the raised beds going in the back yard, and get them into those, they'll grow much better.

In the meantime, I'm pulling out the heavy artillery - Miracle Gro. I've said before that I'm as organic as I can be, and I have added lots of compost and manure to the garden bed, but to compete with the roots, I'm going to need to do some heavy foliar feeding. So I'll be out early in the morning, hose end fertilizer sprayer in hand, feeding these babies to see if I can salvage something out of them before they kick the bucket.

Everything in the bed is looking peaked, even the beans and squash, so I think that in order to get as much as possible out of this small experimental garden, I'm going to have to do what has to be done. Next year, I'll probably not plant anything but ornamentals there, since that seems to be what does best, but it was worth a shot.

On the upside, the cherry and grape tomatoes seem to be thriving. Go figure.

This small garden was an experiment anyway, and I'm finding that this is not the best place to grow veggies. Well, experiments are experiments, and some fail. I got enough off of the plants to make it worthwhile.