Homegrown Tomato Garden – New Decade, New Location

Happy New Year!  My homegrown tomato garden is celebrating the new decade in a new location.  I don’t live in S. Florida anymore — I am in eastern Tennessee.  My normal growing pattern is topsy-turvey; no Winter planting, but I do get to grow through the summer.

I’ve gone from 10a for a plant hardiness zone to 7a.  Which basically means a chilly winter with plenty of freezes, and a last expected frost date in mid-April.  But interestingly so far, with all the frosts we’ve had so far this Fall and Winter, our yard doesn’t seem to collect frost; across the street does, though.  Talk about being in a micro-climate!

Primary Grow Space

Different State, Different Soil for the Tomatoes

I’m used to sandy soil, which is fairly easy to dig up.  I had a lovely spot planned for the garden for my homegrown tomatoes; I was going to rototill it, put down plenty of compost.  First, I decided to plant a few daffodil bulbs nearby.  Imagine my surprise when instead of an easy to dig soil, I found compacted clay and rocky soil.  Argh!  (I barely got 10 bulbs planted before I gave up.)

There goes my plans for rototilling the garden.  I’d have to put down so much compost and perlite that I’d be rototilling for weeks, and spend many hundreds of dollars.  With those plans out the window, I’m turning to container gardening.

Container Tomato Garden For 2020

Secondary Grow Space

Fortunately, I’ve had a lot of experience with container gardening my tomatoes.  The approximately 12 x 7 foot garden plot will be festooned with 3-gallon, 5-gallon, 7-gallon and 10-gallon grow bag containers.  I have some room to expand a little to the northeast of that plot, maybe a little more across the walkway.

Right now it doesn’t look like much; well, it is the tag end of December.  I still have to pull up one bush that is in my way, but I think it’s small enough to not give me too much trouble.  But, it faces southeast and is protected by the house on 3 sides, giving it another micro-climate; I may be able to put out at least some of my plants a week or so before the last expected frost date.

Well, this should be interesting, to say the least!  My growing situation is much different from where I gardened for some 20 years.  I am very much looking forward to see what kind of homegrown tomatoes I can successfully garden here, and share the results with you.  😀