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YART grew an amazingly delicious tomato plant in the growing dome (“It was the best tasting tomato I believe any of us have ever eaten,“ Jane says), and YART propagated this amazing tomato plant using cuttings. While the original plant is no longer there, YARTy folks are lucky to be able to buy its descendents now.
Tips for Growing Tomatoes
• Don’t crowd the seedlings; close conditions inhibit their growth. When starting tomatoes from seed, make sure to allow room for the seedlings to branch out. Transplant them as soon as they get their first true leaves, then move them into 4" pots about 2 weeks after that.
• Provide ample light. Tomato seedlings need either strong, direct sunlight or 14-18 hours under grow lights.
• Fan your seedlings. Tomato plants develop stronger stems when they move and sway in the breeze, so turn a fan on them for 5-10 minutes twice a day.
• Give them heat. Tomatoes love heat, so preheat the soil in your garden by covering the area with black or red plastic a couple of weeks before planting. Those extra degrees of warmth will result in earlier tomatoes.
• Bury them deep. Tomatoes can develop roots all along their stems, so bury them all the way up to a few top leaves. Either dig a deeper hole or dig a shallow tunnel and lay the plant sideways. (It will straighten as it grows toward the sun.)
• Mulch later rather than sooner. If you mulch too early it will shade and cool the soil too much for tomato plants’ liking. Tomatoes are such heat lovers, it’s best to mulch only after the ground has had a chance to warm up.
• Remove the bottom leaves. Once the tomato plants reach three feet, remove the leaves from the bottom foot of stem, since they get the least amount of sun, soil born pathogens can be unintentionally splashed up onto them, and they are usually the first leaves to develop fungus problems.
• Pinch and prune carefully. Pinch and remove suckers that develop in the crotch joint of two branches since they won’t bear fruit and will take energy away from the rest of the plant.
• Water deeply and regularly. Once the fruit begins to ripen, you can lessen the water in order to coax the plant into concentrating its sugars, but don’t let the plants wilt and become stressed or they will drop their blossoms and maybe even their fruit.
Tomato Trivia
- There are more than 4,000 varieties of tomatoes, ranging from the small, marble-size cherry tomato to the giant Ponderosa that can weigh more than 3 pounds. The smallest species of tomatoes are less than three-quarters of an inch in diameter.
- The South Arkansas vine ripe pink tomato is Arkansas' official state vegetable and tomato juice is the official state beverage of Ohio.
- The largest tomato ever grown weighed in at 7 pounds, 12 ounces, and the largest tomato plant was 65 feet long. (According to the 1996 Guinness Book of Records.)
- The tomato is the world's most popular fruit. More than 60 million tons of tomatoes are produced per year. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Americans eat more than 22 pounds of tomatoes every year (up from 13 pounds per person in 1980). More than half this amount is eaten in the form of ketchup and tomato sauce.
- Botanically, tomatoes are a fruit. A fruit is the edible part of the plant that contains the seeds, while a vegetable is the edible stems, leaves, and roots of the plant. However, in 1893 the Supreme Court ruled in the case of "NIX v. HEDDEN" that tomatoes were to be considered vegetables.
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 gardening tips
"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt."
Margaret Atwood
Those quiet January days are far behind, so pull on those overalls, put the Apis Mellifica in your pocket, and get your hands dirty.
You can start by pinching back any annuals or other plants that are getting a little leggy, and pinch your Chrysanthemum's to encourage them to be bushier and have more blossoms, repeating the process about every six inches as they grow. June is also a good month to plant new perennials in the garden. Check your roses for mildew and insect or disease problems and control any problems right away. Fertilize roses each month through the summer, tie climbing roses securely into position, and prune them after they finish bloom.
It's hedge trimming time! This is a great month to shear, pinch or prune Junipers, Cypress and Conifers. Fertilize flowering shrubs (like Rhododendrons, Camellias and Azaleas) immediately after they have finished flowering, and pinch the developing seed pods from Rhododendrons and Azaleas to improve next years bloom.
Start warm weather vegetables (corn, beans, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, squash, pumpkins) as soon as possible and sow seeds for flowering kale and flowering cabbage to get their colorful plants next fall and winter. Thin vegetable seedlings as needed to provide ample room for growth, and stay on top of those weeds so they don’t get a chance to go to seed. Allow one or two runners to develop from the most productive strawberry plants, and protect fruit from the birds with netting if needed.
Fertilize the lawn this month, and raise the cutting height of your mower to conserve water and increase the shade in your lawn. It's also not too late to reseed or over-seed the lawn as long as you keep newly seeded areas well watered. Soon you can move house plants outside to a shady, protected spot, but remember that warmer and drier weather will mean you need to water and mist your house plants more often.
*Change the water in your bird bath regularly since standing water can become a breeding ground for mosquito larvae. |
"No price is set on the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer."
- James Russell Lowel
JUNE CALENDAR
1 YART’s first birthday!; International Children's Day.
2 American Indians Granted U.S. Citizenship in 1924; U.S. Civil War Ends in 1865
3 New Moon
5 World Environment Day
6 1984 by George Orwell was published in 1949
7 YART’s first birthday party
11 Great Barrier Reef was discovered in 1770
12 Anne Frank’s birthday, 1929
17 Father’s Day
18 Full Moon
18-23 Jane and Kathy travel to Dallas for a wholesale buyer’s market
21 Summer Solstice
27 Helen Keller’s birthday, 1880
28 YART hosts Stray Hearts Animal Shelter Adoptathon
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YART owners and staff have spent countless hours building a straw bale house on Kathy’s land in southern Colorado. Look what the neighbor’s hungry cows did to it!
Dear Soup,
My husband snores terribly and I can never get any sleep. What can I do?
Signed,
Sleepless Nights
Dear Sleepless,
Licking the snorer’s face always works for me, but I’ve noticed that this technique doesn’t seem to appeal to humans as much as dogs. If that’s the case for you, sew a tennis ball to the back of his pajama top instead. (Don’t take the dog’s beloved ball, though!). Snorers snore less when they sleep on their sides, and the uncomfortable ball in the back will keep him rolling in the right directions in his sleep. If your family dog won’t stop gnawing on his back, or your husband won’t stop rattling the rafters, invest in a good pair of earplugs and send hubbie to the doctor. (If he doesn’t believe he has a problem, tape record him and play it full blast when he’s trying to go to sleep.)
Namaste,
Soup |
Welcome to our newest yartists :
TD Haldiman : Taos
Jennifer Hansen : Spinning Star Studio : Colorado
Tom Johnson : Taos
Mandy Stapleford : Taos {featured art in above photo}
Susie Whitebird : Whitebird Studio : Oklahoma
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YART is turning ONE!
To celebrate, all Stone Forest fountains are on sale for 10% off for the whole month of June. They're each a unique work of art that will create a sense of peace in your garden. We also invite everyone to come join our low-key birthday celebration on June 7 for refreshments, flower arranging, companionship, and door prizes. You're also invited to bring a brown bag lunch and enjoy a picnic in our relaxing garden. Come be a part of YART!
The Hannigan Growing Dome goes up without a hitch
new at YART...
fragments from sacred stone
{nestled all over the yard at YART}
patio puff chairs now available in outdoor fabric!
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last {but not least}
our newest yartian : elsa wren : born to beloved yartians john & emily : welcome!
Editor/Writer : Whitney Glenn
Layout : Emily Bakko
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