Allrighty, if it’ll ever stop raining, we’ll roto-till the garden.  We did expand the garden last year and kinda botched it.  Well, we didn’t botch the expansion, that was pretty straightforward.  We screwed around with it and planted the lettuce too late – it got too hot and the lettuce went to hell.  We also used some fancy planting soil that was actually contaminated with weed seed and spent the balance of the summer fighting that crap.  So, this year, we’re sticking with simple old manure of one sort or another.  We need to get on the stick and get the greens planted. 

The stalwarts in the garden will be (as always) the roma tomatoes.  However, we will skip the heirlooms.  Those things are a pain in the neck so we’ll stick with a big or better boy hybrid for sandwich tomatoes.   Better yields and less tempermental.  My buddy Rich won’t be happy to hear that but that’s life…:)  Rich is a good gardener and I’m not.  He is, however, free to come on over and tend some delicious heirlooms in my garden too…:)

Basil and peppers grow great in Manassas and we will need those so we can make fresh sauce.  Can’t beat fresh sauce with a great bottle of red.  Probably will stick in an okra plant or two as those grow without TLC.  They grow well in the “corner”.  The “corner” deserves some explanation:  our garden is behind our office and is absolutely mobbed with rabbits.  If we dont’ put up a fence, we’ll be left with not much garden.  The corner is just that” the fence corner.

We usually plant some bush beans or peas but those only ever really seem to yield once so we’re looking to replace them.  Last year we dedicated some space to sweet potatoes but they sucked.  I’m thinking of sticking with good old cucumbers this time around.  Squash are great but they take up too much space and I think we can train the cucumbers up the fence and bring ’em up between the greens as those go out early….we’ll see!!  We’ll also fill in around the edges with herbs of some sort.  Rosemary is always a cheap date.

On thing that will not be making a return appearance is those stupid Topsy-Turvies.  You know what happens when you try to grow tomato plants upside down?  They try to grow right-side up.  This works well until the plant gets heavy and the stem can’t bear the weight.  At that point, the stem folds and the plant hangs down.  While this doesn’t kill the plant it does seem to crush the vascular system of the plant and the yield is zero.