Well, after about five years off, I'm finally reading this forum regularly again... it's good to see at least a few of the old regulars here still (Hi, Carolyn!)

Four years of intense university -- two to finish off my bachelor's, two to get my master's -- took their toll on my garden. I've been trying, most years, and largely failing to get plants in the ground, or give them enough attention to thrive. I vowed to change that this year, and by golly I did. I planted a full 30'x40' veggie garden for the first time since '05, and almost all of it is going like gangbusters. Apparently it all came together this year! I'm so happy.

I've got 28 tomatoes out there, with 16 varieties (I think)... all of them seem to be doing well, setting lots of fruit and growing tall. Many of them are over 5' now. I'm setting up to give them their first supplemental feed of the season. No diseases yet (crossed fingers), even though my currant tomato had something I could swear was a virus; it grew out of whatever it was, and it's set fruit now.

I harvested my first tomato yesterday, a halfsize Jaune Negib, and one of its mates is coloring up. I'll get inundated once the rest start to ripen -- it'll be a great canning season, finally. I'm happy to beat my July 4th estimate for ripe tomatoes (I started digging beds around March 20).

Speaking of digging beds, I couldn't help but think of Earl while I was prepping -- each two-tomato bed got either a bunch of horse manure or a hundred pounds of wet coffee grounds, a few armloads of organic material like leaves or chopped up weeds, and a one-gallon bucket of alfalfa pellets; each tomato got a fish head under it at planting. It feels like overkill, but I've doubled the amendments for several years running, and this amount finally gave me good vigorous growth with reasonable fruit set. Love that biologically active clay loam we've got here (not). Just call me "hole digger". ;)

As for varieties... let's see. Stump of the World, Noir de Crimee, Earl's Faux, Vorlon, Little Lucky, Mortgage Lifter (Estler's and Radiator Charlie), Jaune Negib, Brandywine Sudduth strain, Red Brandywine from Carolyn, Yellow Brandywine, Brandywine OTV, Abraham Lincoln (supposedly; they don't look like it), Dr. Carolyn cherry, Sara's Galapagos currant, and Dorothy's Green. My Abe Lincoln seeds yielded a semi-det that's set an enormous number of 2" fruit and an indeterminate that has fruit on flat trusses... I have no idea what those will end up being. Everything else looks true to type.

I'm growing mostly potato-leaf varieties to cope with the mites later in the season, but I'm hoping that tripling the water will hold off the stress that seems to bring on really bad mite attacks. We'll see. I do hope it doesn't diminish the flavor of the fruit.

The rest of the garden has sweet potatoes, okra, a few Irish potatoes, a couple of peppers, basil (two plants make a truckload!), summer squash, popcorn (I'm continuing my purple variety breeding program), long beans and scarlet runners, cukes (I dearly hope), and melons (they've had a rough start). It's looking great out there, for the most part.

I'm hanging out mostly in the Pests and Diseases forum, but I'll pop over here occasionally. It's good to be back. :)

--Alison