Tomatoes Tomatoes Tomatoes!!

Get your plants ready cause its a plantin time!! Well, actually it was planting time several weeks ago, but Im just running REALLY behind! I clipped off all the lower stems to my tomatoe plants several weeks ago and now they are all ready to be in the ground! 

I got my whole locations all set so the tomatoe plants would be right at the drip whole of the dripper line. Then gave each of the kids a shovel to help dig the whole a little bit deeper. 

The tomatoes are doing great!! 

Grafting tomatoes and peppers onto Maxifort Rootstock

Grafting plants for your garden!! I love to learn new things and this is something that has thrilled me since I first heard about it last year. I have to admit I was a little nervous though. For some reason it seemed like a ridiculous amount of work for a few plants...but im beginning to be more and more excited! It really has not been that much work at all! We always start our garden from seed inside...so that wasn't a new step. Then this grafting process only took about an hour (which was with the help of all my kids, me taking pictures, and a few drop in guests that ended up attending the "party"). The research, on the other hand, has definitely taken a lot of time...but I LOVE research!! I also chose not to do my entire garden as grafted plants. I am doing 1 plant of each variety as a grafted plant and then the others are regular...this way I can see how vigorous and disease resistant the grafted tomatoes are (or aren't) in direct comparison to their ungrafted counterpart... don't worry, I will definitely be posting pictures throughout the season of their progress and my research!

Watch this video and he will show you 2 different methods of grafting...I went with Top Grafting. 

Supplies Needed:

• Rootstock plant - (the base and roots you want to keep. I used Maxifort Rootstock)
• Scion plant - (the top and fruit you want to keep. I used various heriloom plants)
• Grafting Clip (I used 2.00mm silicone grafting clips)
• Razor Blade
• Pots for post grafting planting

Grafting Clips:

Razor Blade: Make sure your razor blade is clean and sharp!

Cut off the first leaves from both plants. 

Find a rootstock and scion plant that have very close to the same size stem.

Oh my Oh my...I seriously hesitated several times and was VERY nervous before I took my first cut! It was quite amusing! But I was so nervous!! I kept thinking how odd it was that I grew all these little plants from seeds and now I was about to hack off the top of them all and stick 2 different plants together and hope they survive! 

Well deep breath folks cause we haven't come this far for nothin!

Cut off the top of each at a 60 degree angle. Slip the clip over the rootstock and then slide in the scion to match up. 

Slide them together gently to touching...dont cram them together forcefully

Gently repot your plant into the soil pot.

Once you have all your plants successfully grafted you will put them into a "healing chamber" for several days to give them an opportunity to fuse the graft. You don't have to buy fancy equipment to make a healing chamber, you just need humidity, darkness, and warmth. 

Water and Mist all your plants well: 

I put my plants into a plastic storage container with a cup of hot water: 

Then I misted the top of another storage container and set it on top to form a humid environment: 

I put a towel over my container to keep it dark.

Day 1-4 do nothing...just let them set in their warm, dark, humid place. Then the 4th evening just remove the top cover to let them slowly awake from the healing chamber. Keep them in a low to light area that night and next day. Then just begin hardening them off by introducing a bit more light each day till they are good with full sunlight!

This same process can also be done with eggplant, peppers, or whatever plant you desire to have a strong root system!!

Tip: Since all of my rootstocks and scion plants were not perfectly the same stem size, I chose to pull them out and match them up prior to cutting to make sure I had the best matches...and rearrange if necessary. Be VERY careful not to confuse the rootstock from the scion...that would be bad! I laid out all my scions first under their name on my tags...then matching up the best Maxifort was easy. 

Seedlings

This year our seedlings are getting their start in the laundry room on top of the warm washer and dryer! I started my seedlings alot later this year than I have in the past, but they are doing great in here! Bryan hooked our grow light from the ceiling and we set it up on a timer. The seedlings love the warmth from the dryer and it has helped them get going fast!

This year we are attempting tomato grafting! Im so excited to see the potential...or just learn from my failure, who knows :) They are MaxiFort Tomatoes and quite vigorous and disease resistant!

Oh it looks so cute and innocent right now, but I guess it will literally take over your garden if the top isnt chopped off and grated to a normal tomato plant. 

Addie's Avocado Almond "dip it" recipe (grain free, dairy free)

What's more fun than decorating your dip!! This is Addie's new favorite "dip it" and it is actually a recipe that she made up! She just kept saying "ok mommy, lets put some of this in there"...and so I did and then we blended it up and decorated it!

• 1/2 cup almonds (soaked overnight in water)
• 1 avocado
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1/2 tomato (quickly eat the other half so it doesnt go bad - at least that is what Addie says!)
• 1 garlic clove
• salt to taste

Easy directions: Toss it all in a bowl and puree it with a hand blender. And of course you must make a fun face on your dip...this is Henry and Addies favorite part!

This dip is great with sliced bell peppers, carrots and celery! Addie also likes it on her lettuce wraps with a little bit of turkey! 

Enjoy!! Let me know what creative ways you find to use this dip!

Easy Pasta

Pasta with crumbly herb goat cheese and red zebra tomatoes! This is by far one of my favourite meals to make and to eat. It is extremely easy and explosive in flavor and freshness.

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So many blessings

Its been quite a busy few weeks around here! We had our precious little baby boy punctually on his due date. His name is George and he was born Thursday May 12th. 

 Both of Bryan's bee hives are doing fabulously and we are excited to see their daily progress. I have so much to post about Bees, but for now here are some fun photos of their progress.

And of course the baby goats!! They love to sit up on top of the picnic table and snuggle. They are growing up so fast!

 The garden is in full swing with daily harvests of lettuce, arugula, and spinach for delightful salads. This first picture is of the tomatoes. We still have yet to put up the T-posts and twine to hold up our wall of tomatoes.

Bed of sweet sugar snap peas :) YUM!!

Bush beans are creeping up and will soon be in full swing!

I dont have any new photo updates of the baby chicks...which really are not babies anymore! Ill get some good photos and post those later.

First Planting

My seedlings tables are overflowing with plants and I love it!! However, it is time for those seedlings to be planted. We started on Saturday by doing the final preparations on the beds and aerating (digging up to loosen) the soil one last time. On Saturday, We were able to plant 1 bed of tomatoes and planted 46 tomato plants. Then last night (Monday) we were able to plant our second bed of tomatoes and planted another 45 tomato plants! We still have a lot to plant, but I am moving quite slow...seeing as I'm over 8 months pregnant now.

I plant my tomatoes 2 feet apart on the drip of the dripper line...so they get water placed right at the roots. Some people say that this is too close to plant heirloom tomatoes, but this is the way I did it last year and they were extremely productive all the way to the last frost of the season!

We are also going to do the "wall of tomatoes" like we did last year instead of using tomato cages. (more info and pictures once we get our "wall" up). 

I have a tendency to obsess over the layout of the garden and waste a lot of time trying to decide exactly how and where to plant everything so it will be "perfect"...but the fact of the matter is that it always changes and it will never be "perfect". I was focused on the tomatoes on Saturday and wanted to get as many in the ground as I could.  I have 13 tomato varieties and well over 100 seedlings. I wasn't planning on using all these tomato plants but will sell the extras that we don't have space for in the garden. The varieties I planted are: Orange Kentucky Beefsteak, Red Beefsteak, Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge, Red Zebra, Big Zebra, Gold Medal, Mini Orange, Black Cherry, Violet Jasper, Red Fig, Egg Yolk, Besser, and Porter. All these will present a wide variety of colors and sizes! 

I couldn't decide which order to plant them in or which bed to put each variety. After Bryan and I sat laughing at how ridiculously obsessive I was being (I wasted well over an hour just staring at the plants)...we decided to have a "random wall of tomatoes". So we rotated the entire bed and didn't plant any varieties together! It will still be easy to identify which plant is which (based on the size and color of the fruit and it will be fun to pick  from all the random color and variety along the wall! This will help with disease prevention as well. 

Having drip irrigation really saves on time as well as water consumption. It places a drip of water at an exact root system for a designated amount of time. Bryan even installed shut off valves on each dripper line so we can only use water on the beds that are planted as well as regulate the amount of water that each bed receives.