Planting Tomatoes - June 17, 2026@goldenoakfarm

Lovely June day

On Wednesday morning I was up at 4:45AM and got the house opened up. It was to be in the 70’sF and partly sunny with strong breezes. I checked the mail and was out in the Small garden by 6:15AM.

I had a lot of grass and weeds to get out as we’d moved the mulch to put in tomato stakes, thinking we’d be planting the end of May. But that didn’t happen…

I had most of the grass done when my #2 intern arrived just after 7:45AM. She helped me get the remaining out then we raked up the hay and put the amendment down. She did the broadforking and we started planting.

The tomatoes had gotten leggy it had been so long, so I carried each one around from the cold frame to the planting spot. We got collars on each one and carefully got them tied to the stakes.

The first row were what I call eating tomatoes, ones for salads and sandwiches, but also sauce, etc. The next row was a mix of basil and horehound as they are symbiotic with tomatoes. The middle row was the paste tomatoes. We made the circles of soft mulch around them, but I didn’t have the energy left to get more mulch hay and put it down.

So my #2 intern got 3 bales from the Big garden and brought them over for Thursday morning. She left at 11AM and I sat down to rest for a while before I started 4 hours of mowing.

I went out to move chairs and cold frame covers so I could mow and realized I’d have to prune the 7 Sisters rose in the East Shed garden so it wouldn’t attack me every time I went by. It’s amazing how much it has grown since I cut so much winter kill off.

I finally got to the mowing about 1:15PM and of course, the little mower wouldn’t start when I shut it off to empty the bagger. So I did a good part of the mowing on the rider and tried the little mower and got it going so I could finish the trim work.

I had to mow up at the barn also and that took an hour to do. I finished about 3:45PM. I got the chairs back in place and got some photos and went in for a shower.

I just sat and rested after that, had some supper, and decided to take the last 2 trays out to the cold frame when I closed it up. I’d found out it was to rain all day on Thursday so instead of picking strawberries as I planned, my #2 intern would be taking me shopping in the morning.

I was in bed by 8PM after closing the house up. It was to drop into the 50’sF during the night and that’s too cold for me to be able to get started inside in the morning.

On Thursday we’d leave at 10AM to do shopping and to try to find plants to replace the ones that died in the Big garden. In the afternoon my #4 helper will be here and we will be taking down the back porch shelving and putting it away and feeding the seedlings in the cold frame if it’s not raining.