I ignored our wilting tomato vines sitting in our raised garden bed (aka a water trough) for the last few months. I didn't want to acknowledge their existence and that they produced less than 10 tomatoes for us over the summer. Sydney just threw them in a bowl in our kitchen waiting for more to make a salad–but they never came. Today we turned the page on this dark chapter. I mustered up the courage to face the garden and clear out the tomato vines so we can try to flex our green thumb again and attempt to grow something else through the cooler months.
You can see that the vines had no problem growing. I'm at a loss why they barely produced any tomatoes. Here is the garden in its feral state. The white sticks are left over fence posts from when I built the chicken fence. You just sink them into the ground and clip wire/mesh into them. We used the sticks and tomato cages to try and keep it tidy.
So the first I removed the sticks and tomato cages.
Then I ripped out all of the tomato vines. Here's what the bed looked like after. The remaining plants are herbs. Basil is on the left hand side of the garden and thyme is on the right.
Here's a close up of the basil. It's actually nice to have on hand when it's healthy. We've used it for Caprese salads and pizza toppings when we use the Uni.
After I ripped out the tomato vines I cleared out all of the leaves that were covering the soil. A ton of acorns were among the leaves from squirrels. Not a fan of them. They dig up the plants to hide their acorns then forget them. They also get Bella, my GSP, riled up.
With the garden bed cleaned up now I can start planning on what I want to plant. I think my first step is to relocate the basil and thyme to separate pots so I can use all of the space in the trough for our next attempt. In contention for the garden is spinach, onions, or lettuce.
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