I always plant tomatoes along with a wing and a prayer. There are many diseases that will kill a good crop of them. So with my prayers I will plant them knowing that too many will swamp me either with too many, or too few.. but my garden is never complete without at least ten of different varieties.
Maybe if you can mulch your tomatoes you can make your limited water go farther? It does make a whole lot of difference as far as maintaining soil moisture under the high evapotraspiration conditions of a hot summer and active plant growth. Also, determinate growth tomatoes are probably more water-sparing, not putting so much energy into adding greenery to themselves.
Mulch is a great but quite expensive idea for me, at least based on the prices I see at the gardening section at the nearest DIY shop but I could do some research into mulching materials that are not sold there. Thanks for the idea! I'm doing 50/50 determinate and indeterminate this year, we'll see how they go and plan accordingly for next year.
Old, moisture-spoiled, moldy, or too-weedy hay ("cow hay" in US parlance) is what I use for mulch. Unfortunately I too often grow my own, but sometimes you can also get it from farmers for a relatively cheap price. Cardboard or even gravel also work quite well.
Around here, folks are always paying services to trim their trees. Some of those services bring a covered dump truck and a wood chipper, so they mulch the tree trimmings and fill the truck as they go.
In the past, a polite request would get the trimmers to dump their load on my drive way at the end of the day. I think it saved them from having to drive out of town somewhere.
Now days, mulch has more cachet, so it might cost money to get them to do so.
Anyway, if there are tree trimming services actively serving your area, it might be an affordable option. You're left with a pile of mulch htat needs moving somewhere more convenient, though.
I agree, the price at garden centers and such is crazy.
Alas, the only tree trimming services around here are performed by the landowners on their own land. Cris has been at the old and dry almond trees along our fence for several months now but he uses a chainsaw and it doesn't produce a lot of mulchlike waste. But it's great you have this option -- circular economy in action!
I hadn't heard about live oak but now I googled it and it looks quite cool -- nice shade throwers. But I see how fast growth would be a problem. Trees of heaven are pretty fast growers, too, so we're forced to go around in the summer and pull out the youngest saplings before they take deep root and take over the place.
Tomatoes are the one plant that come by themselves every year ... little cherry tomatoes. I don't water them all and they appear randomly in the garden. Ironically I'm not a big fan of them, I tend to roast them and then make either soup or a base like passata.
It's always the ones we don't really care about that grow the best, isn't it? :D We have a jojoba tree in the garden that we take zero care of and it usually produces abundant crop... that we let go to waste because we're not big fans, healthy as it is.
I always plant tomatoes along with a wing and a prayer. There are many diseases that will kill a good crop of them. So with my prayers I will plant them knowing that too many will swamp me either with too many, or too few.. but my garden is never complete without at least ten of different varieties.
Alas, there is nothing else we can do. Your garden must be a sight to see!
Maybe if you can mulch your tomatoes you can make your limited water go farther? It does make a whole lot of difference as far as maintaining soil moisture under the high evapotraspiration conditions of a hot summer and active plant growth. Also, determinate growth tomatoes are probably more water-sparing, not putting so much energy into adding greenery to themselves.
Mulch is a great but quite expensive idea for me, at least based on the prices I see at the gardening section at the nearest DIY shop but I could do some research into mulching materials that are not sold there. Thanks for the idea! I'm doing 50/50 determinate and indeterminate this year, we'll see how they go and plan accordingly for next year.
Old, moisture-spoiled, moldy, or too-weedy hay ("cow hay" in US parlance) is what I use for mulch. Unfortunately I too often grow my own, but sometimes you can also get it from farmers for a relatively cheap price. Cardboard or even gravel also work quite well.
Thanks for the advice!
Around here, folks are always paying services to trim their trees. Some of those services bring a covered dump truck and a wood chipper, so they mulch the tree trimmings and fill the truck as they go.
In the past, a polite request would get the trimmers to dump their load on my drive way at the end of the day. I think it saved them from having to drive out of town somewhere.
Now days, mulch has more cachet, so it might cost money to get them to do so.
Anyway, if there are tree trimming services actively serving your area, it might be an affordable option. You're left with a pile of mulch htat needs moving somewhere more convenient, though.
I agree, the price at garden centers and such is crazy.
P.S. Vlad is cute.
Alas, the only tree trimming services around here are performed by the landowners on their own land. Cris has been at the old and dry almond trees along our fence for several months now but he uses a chainsaw and it doesn't produce a lot of mulchlike waste. But it's great you have this option -- circular economy in action!
Maybe it's just a central Texas thing. I don't remember seeing all these tree trimmers when I was a kid in Virginia.
We have all these fast growing live oak trees. If you don't keep them trimmed, they'll scrape the roof off your house.
I hadn't heard about live oak but now I googled it and it looks quite cool -- nice shade throwers. But I see how fast growth would be a problem. Trees of heaven are pretty fast growers, too, so we're forced to go around in the summer and pull out the youngest saplings before they take deep root and take over the place.
Tomatoes are the one plant that come by themselves every year ... little cherry tomatoes. I don't water them all and they appear randomly in the garden. Ironically I'm not a big fan of them, I tend to roast them and then make either soup or a base like passata.
It's always the ones we don't really care about that grow the best, isn't it? :D We have a jojoba tree in the garden that we take zero care of and it usually produces abundant crop... that we let go to waste because we're not big fans, healthy as it is.