In an effort to utilize as much yard space as I could for growing veggies, I created a bed on the northwest side of the house last year and planted a few volunteer tomatoes and some peppers to get it going. My reasoning: the bed, although it doesn’t get a lot of sun until late afternoon, is beside a brick wall, so it gets plenty of absorbed heat from the brick to warm the seedlings and, later, the plants and the fruit I hoped would be tumbling off the vine and into my kitchen.
The peppers (poblanos and bell) produced well – the tomatoes not so much, but I figured it was about them being volunteers, and all.
This year, I decided to be optimistic: I not only purchased tomato seedlings, but planted cantaloupe seeds as well, reasoning that the vines could climb structures I placed along the brick, and when the fruit came along, I’d sling them in old scraps of pantyhose made into miniature hammocks to support the weight of the melons (a trick I used successfully in a previous garden). Both tomatoes and ‘lope plants grew up and out – but didn’t fruit until very late. Finally, in October, I got a handful of small but delicious tomatoes. And one lone melon, still green on the vine.
So optimism pays off. A little.
I can't resist showing off my best crop this year, too: look at that gi-normous carrot!
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