How big is your garden and how many tomato plants?

wyeguy · May 20, 2013

100x100 ft. 35-50 tomato plants depending on the year. Lots of canning stewed maters & just juice. Also make a lot of salsa, and piccilli (relish) from green maters end of season. Lots of other stuffing the garden, too. I hang small pieces of smelly soap (like Irish Spring) on posts to deter deer. Have to put the soap in small wire "cages", otherwise the raccoons and possums eat the soap. I also regularly pee on the posts. All this is really effective for the deer, and helps with the coyotes who favor my cantelopes.

hunterridgefarm · May 20, 2013

wyeguy said:
I hang small pieces of smelly soap (like Irish Spring) on posts to deter deer. Have to put the soap in small wire "cages", otherwise the raccoons and possums eat the soap. I also regularly pee on the posts. All this is really effective for the deer, and helps with the coyotes who favor my cantelopes.

I tried all of this and several other things. Now use a double type fence. I peed around the garden so much that when I would go to the grocery store and walk into the produce section I would automatically unzip my pants.

bp fick · May 20, 2013

Not precise, but garden is a bit over 1/2 acre this year. I've got 150 tomatoes in pots. Intended to put out 40 or so tomorrow, As we've had days of 80 degree weather but now they are calling for frost warnings for Thursday/Friday. Not that unusual, but a pain. I used to fight the late frosts with covers, buckets, cloth, but now I just leave them in the grow pots until June 1st. I plant with a full sized Ames shovel. :laughing:

If it gets to where I need a TLB to plant the tomatoes, I'll retire.

We also use the 7' plastic deer fencing. It's never failed and we have horrendous deer pressure.

clemsonfor · May 20, 2013

dave1949 said:
Good luck with your corn! Once in a while I grow some sweet corn in the garden. I've found that it really responds well if you side dress high nitrogen fertilizer at the recommended stages--which are a little fuzzy in my memory, so I won't guess at what they are.

ammonium nitrate when you start it somewhere in between and when it tassles

DFB · May 20, 2013

sixdogs said:
Well, you win. You don't win anything but you win. :laughing:

We, well mostly our crew, picked countless tons of rocks when we lived in Maine. I used to wake up screaming. Down here, someone will complain about picking up rocks in the garden and they come back with five or six. Huh?

Geeze and here I thought Vermont had an exclusive on rocks

KenB2920 · May 20, 2013

DFB said:
Geeze and here I thought Vermont had an exclusive on rocks

Lol, I literally have enough rocks to fill up a large swimming pool.

dave1949 · May 21, 2013

DFB said:
Geeze and here I thought Vermont had an exclusive on rocks

KenB2920 said:
Lol, I literally have enough rocks to fill up a large swimming pool.

I blame the Canadians for sending their rocks down here. They send cold air too. Bad neighbors. :laughing:

I bet there are around five miles of rock walls on my 150 acres. About 2/3 of the perimeter has rock walls, then there many walls that separated the old pastures, or were piled in rows where the ground changes from usable (more dirt than rock) to not usable (more rock than dirt). I can't imagine the sorry life the early settlers had dealing with rocks and huge trees with no excavators, dozers, tractors, etc. Many of the rocks in those walls are heavier than can I lift alone by hand.

And they keep coming up to the surface over the years from frost heaves, that's the basis for SixDog's joke about every Mainer's best crop--it's truly our most reliable crop.

keegs · May 21, 2013

Meh....early New England settlers and it easy ....the Irish of the Aran Islands built their topsoil on scoured rock outcroppings by harvesting and composting seaweed. Now that's some hard farming Dave.

dave1949 · May 21, 2013

keegs said:
Meh....early New England settlers and it easy ....the Irish of the Aran Islands built their topsoil on scoured rock outcroppings by harvesting and composting seaweed. Now that's some hard farming Dave.

Now which is heavier, rock or seaweed? :laughing: And ... they didn't have one tree to contend with. You ever try to compost rocks and grow something on them? :laughing:

DFB · May 21, 2013

dave1949 said:
And they keep coming up to the surface over the years from frost heaves, that's the basis for SixDog's joke about every Mainer's best crop--it's truly our most reliable crop.

I always said to my ex when we farmed together that all we need to do is sell rocks and if we got a dollar for every for rock we picked we'd be rich!