Friday, May 27, 2011

An Experiment

One of the things I enjoy most about gardening is trying something new. 

 For the last several years we have been plagued with tomato blight.  I know that it comes from the soil, but we have tried pretty much everything we could think of including spraying with chemicals to try to eradicate said blight with very little success.  Some years it seems less severe, and mulching heavily helps a little, but for the most part I simply plant plenty of tomatoes and plan on losing the plants after several weeks of production.

This year I'm trying something new.  Can you guess what this is?
If you said tomato plants you would be right.  However, they aren't planted in the garden.

 I planted the usual amount in our garden, but I reserved three plants for a little experiment. 

Three weeks ago we cleaned off the compost pile and spread it on our garden.   The soil underneath the pile was black and rich--as it hadn't been completely removed for several years. 

My husband suggested that we move the compost pile several feet--since we have two chicken coops right now and the current location would have been directly in front of one of the coops doors.

Over the next few days I kept eyeing that rich soil that had been hidden by compost.  Surely I could use it for something .

Then a light bulb went on in my head.  Why not try growing a few tomato plants there?  So, Monday I planted three tomato plants there.  I hope the compost is rotted well enough that it won't burn the plants.

  It's my little experiment for the year. 

 
Posted by Picasa