Garden Log: June 7, 2021
A Recap
Last year was my first year gardening, though unlike many who took it up, it wasn t out of fear of food shortages. I ve long loved spicy food and I m one of those people who puts hot sauce on everything, even toast. I enjoy sampling as many different flavors as I can find but I longed to try something beyond the basic three options of banana, jalapeño, and habanero. So I planned out a pepper garden and settled on six different varieties plus some cherry tomatoes for good measure. I ordered the seeds, built a raised bed out of scrap lumber I had in the garage, and planted them all in mid-June.
So far, our spring on the prairies has been all about a mixture of everything. What is the summer going to bring? We don’t know. Unfortunately, like farming, gardening is all about making the best . . .
It’s time to plant tomatoes! Although they may survive cool spring weather, tomato plants do not truly thrive until temperatures are above 70 F during the day and 60 F
Dakota Gardener: Tomato varieties for North Dakota
Thousands of gardeners in North Dakota will go to their garden centers during the next two weeks to buy their tomato plants for this summer. 11:23 am, May 11, 2021 ×
When selecting tomatoes to grow, look for varieties that ripen early, resist diseases and produce good yields. Courtesy / All-America Selections
By Tom Kalb, Horticulturist, NDSU Extension
Do you like tomatoes?
Of course, you do! It’s the favorite vegetable grown by gardeners.
Thousands of gardeners in North Dakota will go to their garden centers during the next two weeks to buy their tomato plants for this summer.
Once tax preparation is out of the way, I look forward to counting down the days until the first tomato ripens.
One local sign of Spring is Veggiepalooza, a tomato and vegetable sale held as a fundraiser by the Fullerton Arboretum. Last year’s sale was axed by COVID-19 restrictions. This year, instead of roaming the tables looking for just the right tomato variety, we were restricted to combing through a list of seedlings available for purchase.
Not the same at all, but with a similar result we selected five varieties of tomato and two different types of sunflower. While we didn’t get the sunflowers, we did get all the tomatoes we ordered: