The girls and I went to the Baltimore Herb Festival today, where I picked up six heirloom tomato plants for the greenhouse experiment. I spent about $40 on dirt and containers at Lowe’s and planted them two to a tub. Hopefully that will be enough space and soil for them to grow comfortably.

In the fourth tub I stuck a bunch of cucumber shoots, in the hope that three or four of them will take off and produce something. Jen tells me I need to split them out further. I want to hedge my bets with some hybrid plants, so we’ll be going back to Lowe’s for more containers and dirt sometime this weekend, and I can get another container to divide the cukes up even further.

After that was done, I ordered 10 new misting heads for the irrigation system because the ones I bought 13 years ago are, well, 13 years old and mostly drip instead of mist. The hose bib is shot so I bought two of those as well. I placed a rain barrel under the corner of the garage but I need to set the other one up under the back corner of the house to really collect as much water as possible.

The next thing I’ve got to learn how to do is to keep the tomato plants from getting too big and not focusing on producing fruit. In years past they just got tall and waited until November to bother with giving us anything worth eating, but that was because I wasn’t on top of them every day. This year I resolve to visit them every day and make sure they are happy.