Your garden looks GREAT!
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Thanks, @don_mannes. This year, it is first time the garden is planted completely bottom-up since we takeover the care of it from my parents in law.
It is not too big, just about 2/3 of an acre. But it needs quite a big portion of work and plenty of water. Fortunately, we have a well at the backyard, so even in dry summer we are not without irrigation.
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I’m putting in a hundred tomato plants this year. I tried to count yours. Looks to be right in that ball park. Never see stakes like that before. Probably the nicest looking tomato garden I’ve seen. Big thumbs up.
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Tom my trick to nice tomatoes is get the ones that never stop growing I forgot the term for them but I like brandywine tomatoes about the best. Then put a spade full of cow manure under the plant with just a covering of dirt maybe half an inch to protect the roots from burning before they grow into the manure. The same works for squash pepper and cucumbers. You will get an insane amount of tomatoes that way. My uncle told me he had never seen tomatoes grow so big. My grandfather believed you had to trim the back but I just keep them supported and let them grow as they want. About 40 plants that way 2 feed apart will produce more tomatoes than I can process and I give a as much away as I use.
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So, I stopped at a yardsale today, and saw this beautiful 67 chevy. Its the exact model I had as my first vehicle. This one is in better shape now than mine was almost 40 years ago. No, it was not for sale or it would have come home with me.
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I don’t know if I could have taken no for an answer, that’s a beauty! I regret getting rid of my 71 and 72…
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We have the same lot there, @tcholton717. But granny has another 25 in buckets in her yard and I have my own lot of 36 in small garden behind our house. So if each will give around 3 kg I could expect some half of tonne harvest this year 
It’s funny, @DanNH. Thousands miles away, never meet each other, and grow the same way. Two feet apart and three feet make a lane. I have no cows, so I use pelettized horse dung from a friend of mine, who sell it for a good price. And then just wait till sun will do its work.
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Getting back into sawing logs. Can’t afford to buy it now. When I first built my mill it was on a wheels and I had the use of a tractor with a FEL to move logs. That ship has sailed. Now I have to bring the logs to the saw. The log in the back of my truck is maple and only 15 inches in Diameter and 9 feet long and it was a two hour job to get it pulled out to where I could hoist it. The hoist has a 2500 lb Harbor Freight winch on it. They lie. That log probably doesn’t weigh more that 6-7 hundred pounds and it burned out that winch. Definitely going to have to make a better way to do this. Log arch won’t do it in the area I have to retrieve logs from.
Now I have to get it rolled on to the mill.
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Maybe you could trade some boards for the use of a loader from someone nearby. There has to be a farmer or contractor who would love a few boards in trade for a day of skidding.
I always wanted a log arch but I have tractors with heavy loaders.
Or better yet find someone who is into draft horses or oxen and have a small pulling event one weekend.
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If there is a pulling event I need pictures! Amazing to watch those big Percheron and Clydesdales put to work in teams
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We used to log a lot with a single horse it is actually very useful to get select trees out of the woods without building roads. now our horse is very old and doesn’t do much anymore.
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Guys how do you protect your tomato plants from desease? I havent eaten homegrown tomato in years. Every year l plant at least 10 plants but just before they start to ripen leaves turn rusty and the plant dyes. Here a greenhouse is a must for tomatoes so l am amazed to see you guys planting them outside even norther thain me. And Kamil with nearly identical climate and weather thain me!
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A friend of mines grandfather did special low impact work with his Percherons, I used to love watching them work. On days there weren’t working he had logs at the house they would pull to stay in shape with. Mesmerizing to watch every muscle lock in sync to get the turn moving
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I must just be lucky. My tomatoes never seem to have issues.
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If it is leaf mold you have, then there are tomatoes that are quite resistant.
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Sounds like blight to me. Blight blows on the wind, it will affect an entire area. Probably doesn’t help if people have potatoes and tomatoes all over. If you look into it there should be a few blight resistant tomato varieties available from seed.
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I suppose that your enemy is funghi disease called peranospora. It is the same kind which attacks cucumbers, potatoes and grapewine too. It likes humid and warm environment, so a greenhouse is a heaven for it. It spreads very fast if leafs are wet, which is typical condition inside greenhouse.
I have to fight it here as well, even not in greenhouse. First, I never splash water over the plants, always only to the ground. I remove progressively all the leafs from bottom of the plant, which are most prone to get the desease. You should not to let it spread, so keep an eye on it and remove everything what get infected as soon as possible. Never let it at the place, put it on the hot place and then burn it. And at the end, there are sprays to fight it. I know it’s not too much “bio”, but if you use it soon as prevention, you will not need it often.
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As Kamil said. keep your leaves off the ground and be sure to prune away any suckers and even some leafs so your plants get plenty of air. Tomatoes are about the easiest thing I grow. My main problems in with squash, pumpkins and cucumbers. I grow organic and it’s almost impossible to battle the squash bugs, cucumber beetles and vine borers and come out a winner. Anyway don’t crowd your tomatoes. For a good, short season tomato you can try these. I’ve been growing them for a couple of years now and like them a lot. They are heirloom so you can save the seeds.
https://www.seedsavers.org/category/tomato?order=displayname:desc
Oops. Showed the whole page. The ones I’m talking about are the Siberian. Fifth row down on the right.
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We plant all of our above ground veggies in the greenhouse. Root vegetables do well outside
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Whoa! Swing arms too! Authentic! I always looked for the GMC version…leaf springs didn’t get stuck as easily.
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