Wanted to post about the only real experiment this year. My good friend Keith, an avid gardener friend, had shown me his garden of espalier tomatoes a couple seasons ago.
Last year, I'd thought about doing this, but was so consumed with the idea of grow boxes and soil additives...well, it just never happened.
So, this summer, in my ongoing effort to find the BEST possible tomato growing operation, I tried it out.
As you can see from the photos....it worked pretty darned well! Not only did it allow for a lot of air flow around the plants, it was very easy to pick the little guys when they were ripe. The only alterations I'd made to this would be to lower the cement reinforcing panels closer to the ground. Doing this would have eliminated a whole lot of tying up of vines in the early stages.
It's January, and if you can believe it, I finally ripped out these babies and ate one little last cherry tomato that was clinging for dear life to a blackened vine. Summer is certainly in the past...and fall rolled through wine country like a ghost, barely stopping to crisp leaves and turn the sky that amazing copper blue light.
