The Fourth of July tomato is true to its name.
I wandered down to the garden this week and squealed with delight when I saw my first ripe tomato of the season! The variety (shown above) is called the Fourth of July, because it promises to be ripe by…well, you can guess when. It’s true to it’s name—I enjoyed a sweet juicy tomato on my salad this week. Well, okay…so it was only one, but others are close to ripening and this variety is soooooooo good!
Other tomato varieties I’m growing this year include:
- Mortgage Lifter VFN - A large tomato, an improved but smaller version of the original “Radiator Charlie’s Mortage Lifter TM”
- Sweetie – A sweet, cherry sized tomato, with fruit forming in small clusters.
- Black Krim – An heirloom tomato, this will have a deep red, almost black color, and a naturally salty taste.
- Striped Roma – A long Roma, with orange and red stripes. Thick and meaty.
The Black Krim are coming along. These are also supposed to be early tomatoes.
Striped Roma,.
Other happenings at the garden include a new 3-bin composting system, built out of cedar by some of our own handy community gardeners. The goal of the 3-bin system is to have compost in varying stages of decomposition. The low fronts enable ease of turning and transferring compost. I will share more about this when we begin using this system.
Our new 3-bin composting system.
The garden is looking great! Yea for the compost bins! And your tomatoes are coming along nicely. I have enjoyed keeping up with your season through your blog. I am missing (and missing) gardening in all forms this year. I have saved a lot of money, but have had no fun! My daughter’s MIL has a raised bed veggie garden and greenhouse…. sometimes she lets me water.
Missing the East Row neighborhood, the garden club and good friends,
Carole