Gardening: Optimism and runaway cabbage.

OK, I'm sure I'm not supposed to let it do this, but the ornamental cabbage we've had in a pot for a few years now wanted to bolt this spring and I let it. Hey! It's what nature intended for the thing to do anyway, right?

 

 

The optimism part of this post comes from what I did for the tomatoes today, or rather the future tomatoes (Assuming they have a future- and there's the optimism part!!)

I took a couple left over pieces of 1" EMT and fastened them to the rafters of the greenhouse so they pass over the tomatoes which are more or less in the center.

Then I cut up a length of rope into eight sections, one for each of the tomato pots, one of which actually has a pepper in it so I guess we can't call that a tomato pot. . . I tied the rope to the EMT with one end dangling just above each pot.

I wound the excess rope I around the EMT to get it out of the way.

Then a little bit of twine tied tightly around the rope and loosely around the plant completed the tomato support. As the vine grows taller I'll continue to tie it to the rope.

I read that commercial grow operations growing indeterminate tomato varieties, which can  keep growing and producing until the weather stops the plant, (Unlike determinates which are more bush like and produce all their fruit at about the same time then die.) use this rope trick and as the vine grows and the lower end stops producing, they lower the rope and vine, coiling up the lower end of the vine as they go so they don't run out of headroom in their greenhouses. I have no idea if that will work in my little space but I have the extra rope up there just in case.