Planting Tomatoes - Early!

This spring has been a warm one so far - lots of record-breaking temperatures.  And since no one seems to want to buy our house, today I stuck the tomatoes into the ground!  Usually I plant them out around the 24th of May, but when you have steady nighttime temperatures of around 10 C, you can set them out.  And my plants were getting quite leggy in the hot potting shed!

To combat the legginess, I dug the planting holes to the bottom of the concrete beds.  I trimmed off the lower leaves from the stems and snugged 2 big shovelfuls of screened compost for each plant.  Each plant got a good watering at this point.

Then I filled in the holes gave them another water and fitted a large tomato cage over each plant.  These 6 plants are Health Kick - a determinate tomato that doesn't grow too tall, but produces heavily and needs strong support.

The tomatoes are already sporting flowers!  I have cherry tomatoes planted elsewhere in the garden - Gold Nugget, Sweet Million and Yellow Pear.  A friend traded plants with me and an Indigo Rose (another cherry) will sit in a 4x4 bed with a Gold Nugget. The rest of the bed the Health Kick are now occupying will be planted with peppers - Anaheim, Ancho, Jalapeño and Hungarian Hot Wax.  The sweet peppers - Gypsy - will go in the 4x4 bed with the cherry tomatoes.

The rest of the garden is doing very well.  Snow peas are scrambling up the zig zag fence.

Lettuce is ready to pick.

And this lovely Iris should really be owned by someone who is into growing flowers - my efforts these days are all about vegetables.  It's called Thriller and is an amazing colour!