{"id":1017,"date":"2011-03-26T16:35:56","date_gmt":"2011-03-26T23:35:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/?p=1017"},"modified":"2011-03-27T17:05:21","modified_gmt":"2011-03-28T00:05:21","slug":"tomato-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/26\/tomato-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"Tomato Surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I have a wonderful, darling friend named Kjelene who thought of me on Friday when she heard that a nursery in Sunol was giving away free tomato seedlings. She drove down and picked up a bunch for herself and several friends, and came by my house to share the bounty. She dropped off seven little seedlings, each about 6-8 inches tall with an inch or so of roots, all packed into some wet potting soil in a plastic sandwich bag (I wish I had taken a picture). They were unlabeled, too, so besides knowing that they are all heirloom varieties and that there were a variety of sizes, colors, and types available… I have no idea what I’m getting!<\/p>\n

It’s still pretty cold, so I really should have waited until next week to put them into the ground, but they just looked so miserable in their little plastic bag that I couldn’t help myself: the rain had stopped and the sun was shining weakly, so I spent that evening planting them all in a row. I’m glad my soil was already prepared, since I had turned it over twice and added some manure, peat moss, and topsoil already – it was perfect for planting. I pulled off the lower leaves and planted them quite deep, so now they’re just tiny little things poking out of the ground. \"\"<\/a> It’s not likely to freeze anymore, but It’s still cold enough that I’ll be covering them at night for another week or so. I got pretty creative… between garbage bags and plastic drop cloths, they should be nice and snug. With so many plants this year, I’m going to try a year of severe pruning and training. It will mean fewer tomatoes, but I’ve been reading that it’s good for the roots and makes for higher quality fruit. I look forward to lots of canning this fall – who wants to come help??? \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>For my Dad’s benefit – at his request – here are also pics of my perennials: The strawberries are starting to get their buds, and my raspberries are doing great, too; you can’t really tell, but there are several new shoots mixed in with the strawberries. \"\"<\/a>My poor little artichoke plant is kind of hanging on for dear life. I think it must just not get enough sun in its little corner: the fence blocks it from both the south and the west. I thought it had died completely last fall, but since it seems to be hanging in there, I’ll give it some more time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a wonderful, darling friend named Kjelene who thought of me on Friday when she heard that a nursery in Sunol was giving away free tomato seedlings. She drove down and picked up a bunch for herself and several friends, and came by my house to share the bounty. She dropped off seven little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[14],"tags":[42],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8WrW-gp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1017"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1026,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions\/1026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}