Garden 2010: part 3

Last year I was introduced to the concept of pruning tomato plants. The suggestion came from a fellow gardener when we were having dinner at her house and I expressed my awe at her amazing tomato yield. She suggested I prune the plants, which was something I had never considered. This news was received too late in the season for those tomato plants (which, you might remember, were ravaged by a large rodent anyway), but I resolved to try in 2010.

Before

If you look at your tomato plants, you'll see many green shoots that don't have blossoms attached, and those are the ones that can be safely plucked off. By removing this greenery the plant has more energy to give to the blossoms, and eventually the fruit, which should, in theory, produce a higher yield.

I'm no expert. Like I said this is the first year I'm trying it, so I'll report back my findings. I'm also staking some tomato plants for the first time instead of caging them all.

After

In other garden news:

• we have been in snap pea heaven for over a month now and there are still many, many more to be picked and eaten
• being first-time potato farmers this year has made us anxious to know what's going on underneath all those leaves, so we plucked one and found two little new potatoes, which were roasted and eaten. yum.
• for the first time ever we are having success growing carrots. hooray!

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Linking up:

Little jugglers

Watching a local juggler and reading library books about juggling makes the Fuller boys want to learn how to juggle.

So a request was made for some juggling balls.

I always love a project that doesn't require a trip to the store for any supplies. This one used old socks and white rice. Just don't look too closely at the hand stitching.

Little chalkers

While we were gone to D.C. I thought it would be fun for the boys to have something new to do while Gma and Opa were here. Inspired by this post we decided to make big outdoor chalkboards for our little artists.

We bought a large--8' x 4'--piece of hardboard and had it cut it in half. We chose hardboard because it is smoother and cheaper than plywood ($11 compared to $35). One can of chalkboard paint, two coats of paint, and one day of drying later, they each had a 4'x4' board of their very own.

I've never met a kid who doesn't love chalk and a chalkboard--including me--and these will be used and used during these gorgeous, dry, Oregon summer months.