In preparations of planting out, today I've hung the strings for the tomatoes in one of the tunnels. My hubby cut up some wire and bent them to make a hook at one end for me to tie the string on at the bottom then I tied the other end of the string to the tunnelhouse.
In previous years I've used bamboo poles to hold them up, which works OK, but using them year after year weakens them and some are starting to snap. Another downside to using bamboo for me is, I end up with a million ties to untie at the end of the season, which takes me hours to deal with!
I wanted to try something differnt this season as I am absolutely terrible at pinching out the laterals. I start the season well, and give myself a pat on the back, but then they just get away on me and I give up. My theory is by using string to keep them upright I HAVE to be diligent or else it won't work.
I have enough room for 28 (out of my almost 50) tomato plants to go in here, roughly two of every variety I'm growing should fit in the tunnel. I'll put some in the garden that I'll share with the birds (in hopes they stay out of my tunnelhouse) and give the rest away once I know they're all going to survive.
Over winter we got a couple of trailer loads of horse manure and compost that I've used on most of my gardens, and I've been lazy and just laid it on top to break down and let the worms do the work for me.
Looking at the weather forecast, we've got a few cooler nights coming up with warmer days than we've been having, but after that its a few degrees warmer at night so it might be OK to plant out in the tunnels later in the week, yay! The two tomatoes I planted before the cold patch are absolutely fine, so that's a good sign too!
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