Annexing and Irrigating more Garden Areas

I had a lot of tomato plants extra in my nursery, but the main garden was full. I especially did not have enough containers or extra soil to plant them all in. So what did I do? I figure I can make the most of some more space in the backyard and create a satellite garden plot.

The area I was focusing on today is slightly to the north of my vineyard. I hadn't thought to develop it because it gets a lot less sun than the other parts of the yard. I figure though if this area used to be overgrown in weeds, then it must get enough sun to grow something.

I hadn't tilled this section of the yard yet, so the night before, I soaked the area with water and covered it with my weed control cloth to keep it moist. Once the next day came, I removed the cloth and went to town on it with the tiller. You can read more about how I tilled the other section of the yard here.

Before

After. Here is the tiller I used

For this plot, I cut holes at 6" centers. My plan here is to space the tomato plants at 12" apart, using the outside rows and the middle rows. The other holes are to be interplanted with basil and lettuce. As I quickly learned from planting the other side of the field, 8" spacing is way too dense, but 16" spacing for the plants is more than enough. 12" is a good balance. Plus, if the plants are in uniform locations, stringing up the trellis is much easier.

Read more about setting up weed control cloth here.

Being in between 2 sprinkler risers, I added some irrigation. I got soaked doing adjustments to these sprinklers!

Next came the trellis frame. Much like the ones set up on the other part of the field, this one is free standing. Read more about how I made the trellis frames here.

A nice view from my kitchen window

With everything but the twine in place, it was time to finally transplant in all the tomato plants. At 12" spacing, about 27 plants fit here. I've got room for about 3 more at the moment, but those holes won't be vacant for long. Once the plants are a bit bigger, I'll string them up. For now, I need to start and clone more basil!

Let's get growing!