Just feeling particularly ornery.

I may have over looked it but how far apart are the panels for the tomato plants? May try that method this year. Thanks. Alliaon

The panels are about three feet apart at the bottom, A-framed and tied at the top.
It's really just too easy.

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

Thank you. I think I am going to try that. Allison

Thank you for the pictures! Very inspiring! You have wonderful gardens and beautiful children.

Do you have a huge cellar to keep all the vegetables in? I imagine you do a ton of canning. Any pictures of storage and preservation? Do you dehydrate?

I wish I were in one of the classes that come see your place!

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"There were no houses. There were no roads. There were no people. There were only trees and the wild animals who had their homes among them."

Just found this thread, thanks to someone else posting in it. The pictures are just beautiful and the size and scope are absolutely mind boggling.

Since our snow is finally almost gone, I ventured out to the garden today in 70 degree weather, to see how well it had survived. The Walking Onions are alive and promising.

I would truly love to see your place one of these days. Thanks for the visual tour.

Katy, Nicole and Brian...... you would all be most welcome to stop in for a visit any time.
That goes for anyone who has such an interest.
This land project was not intended to be hidden.

We do can extensively. We had two root cellars, but Idaho underground technology doesn't seem to work quite as well in Illinois, so I'm down to one at the moment. That will likely change by harvest time.
We're working steadily toward dehydrating as being every bit as extensive as canning.
We dehydrate fruits, peppers, garlic, onions, (garlic and onions do store well, whole, but dehydrating gives them a flavor, yuh know...) all manner of herbs, tomatoes, etc.
Maybe this next harvest season I'll do a dehydrating thread. There are bits and pieces of that operation scattered throughout my postings in forum.

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

Thank you, forerunner! Our family will definitely stop in if we are down your way (although you're not that far away to begin with).

I think there would be a great interest in you doing a harvest thread in general, showing the process from harvest to cellar. It would be a great lesson in preserving such a large harvest.

Thank you again for sharing all of this with us!

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"There were no houses. There were no roads. There were no people. There were only trees and the wild animals who had their homes among them."

Oh my that photo of the bowl of strawberries looks so delicious! I can almost smell them. ~sigh~

This thread has given me inspiration.

You have an amazing garden Forerunner!

I'm kinda just gettin started. I told my city slicker neighbor bout raised beds and he did OK the first year and declined every year thereafter. Last year I bragged bout my cherry mater plant covering more than 25 sg ft. He said ah you just got a green thumb. I also told him bout compost that I get for free and he just complained. If I bought a pickup load of bagged compost anywhere it would cost over a 100 smackers. He complains over free. I really wasn't prepared for such a large mater plant. It was in 2 YR old compost and local dirt/sand from the drainage ditches the county scoops up an pushes into a gulley. I mixed it 40/60 heavy compost for a raised bed garden. This year I tilled a traditional garden bout 50 ft square with bout 20 yrds of compost tilled in. Sorry bout no pics. Maybe this year.

I agree an amazing garden - and you most assuredly don't have a deer problem. Otherwise it would be gone in one night.

Gorgeous, Simply Gorgeous

How hard is it to harvest the tomatoes through the wire mesh? You're growing big tomato varieties and it's hard to believe that you really don't have any problems getting them out of the trellising (although I've seen the gorgeous pics).

How many tomatoes do you plant? What kind of harvest are you getting from them? I know I won't get near the harvest as I'm just starting over on some BAD dirt (clay and rocks). Adding lots of compost, but still not expecting much this year. I'll be extremely happy with an almost normal harvest.

I love looking at your beautiful gardens, Forerunner! Makes me happy inside. Soon gardening season will be here again but your pictures help make the wait go faster.

Do you trellis your determinate tomato plants the same way, or don't you grow any of those varieties? Just wondering since they don't get so tall and do stop at a certain point...

The bulk of our garden panel supply has several rows of 2 inch by 6 inch openings at the bottom, and the rest are 6x6 inch. We do get a few tomatoes that don't fit through a six inch hole, but not that many.

I've not kept track of pounds per plant. I'm sure it's at least average.
I do know that the neighboring gardens all begin to lose their tomato plants in late July/August, while ours carry on enthusiastically until frost.

We have set out as many as 200 plants.

We don't set out any determinate tomato varieties. For us, it has basically boiled down to the Mortgage Lifter and the Brandywine. We have seed, and I may even set out some yellow, low acids and some Amish Paste, which are said to be like the Romas in characteristic. My yellows were a volunteer plant that came up out of the blue (or the black ) way up in the field in the middle of my Dixie Queen melon patch that year. Taaaaaaaayysty.

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

Thanks for the explanation.

How long are your panels? I'm guessing their hog panels and not cattle panels? Are they the normal 16' long ones? How many tomatoes do you plant per panel?

Panels are 16 feet long. They are cattle panels, most of them.

I generally plant tomatoes 18-24 inches apart. Usually, we end-to-end the panels three or four long to facilitate a row the full length of the area we're planting in.
I leave two feet or so between the A-frames to allow room to walk, mulch, weed and harvest, though our tomatoes usually jungle out until they touch, intertwine and finally overwhelm the paths. I bring a good set of pruning shears and a taser when I venture into the tomatoes.

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

What an awesome thread! That's a gorgeous garden! Compost is definitely magical stuff I have to say. When we bought our place 10 years ago it had been treated with nothing but chemicals. Artificial fertilisers, weed killers, etc. It has been amazing to watch the changes just from going to an integrated system and piling on the compost.

We have had good luck with just about everything too and like you we have seen a reduction in bugs every year. But for the life of me I can not get a Moon and Stars watermelon to grow. All of our other cucurbits do really well but watermelons have not.

Odd.....watermelons love the hot and dry, and I've been to Arkansas in the summer.
Smelled like hot, dead armadillo everywhere.

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

We have had a weird couple of summers here from cold and wet to super hot and droughty. Guess they don't like either of those. I love the heat though!

Thanks for posting the pictures, they're great! It's like a spring tonic to me, we just got some more snow.

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“If I rest, I rust”

At the risk of using an overused word, I will say "awesome." Thanks, Forerunner, for the pictures and explanations.