I went into town to buy some compost & soil for planting my remaining winter squash. (The ‘Burgess Buttercup’, ‘Small Sugar’, and ‘Waltham Butternut’ are being planted in hills in the sheet much bed or under the landscape fabric so I need to provide some sort of growing medium for them.)

While at Canadian Tire I also went in search of some backup tomato plants. I’m super concerned that the seedlings I’ve carefully selected, started from seed, and have cared for for months won’t recover from the heavy rain. I had a look again at “my” tomatoes when I got home and I’m hopeful that they’re just suffering from lack of nutrients due to nature’s overwatering. However I think I’ll find a spot to tuck my backups in just in case. Everyone looks forward to tomatoes and I don’t want to disappoint my CSA members.

I sorted through the remaining tomato flats & pots of tomatoes at Canadian Tire. They had a fair number of varieties left, though I had to look carefully to find flats/plants which met my standards. I settled on a half flat of ‘Celebrity’, a half flat of ‘Pink Girl’, a flat of ‘Sweet 100’, a ‘Lemon Boy’ plant, and a ‘Carolina Gold’ plant. I think I should be able to get about 16 plants in as backups. I’m pretty sure that they’re all hybrids, and I’m probably giving my money to Monsanto, but at this point my options are pretty limited.

I also picked up a flat of celery transplants. Someone (I think SneIrish?) mentioned that last year they bought transplants and didn’t know to think of them as fussy and they did well, so I am giving them a shot. At $3 for the flat, if I get two celery harvests out of the 12 or so plants I’ll come out ahead.

And trees & shrubs were 20% off, so I came away with two blueberry plants (complete with blueberries!) Sadly, I have some space where almost all of my strawberry plants did not make it through the late transplanting, hot weather, and heavy rains. An Austrian Pine, lemon verbena, and another sage plant round out the purchases.

Photos
1 & 2 Purchased tomato transplants (it’s been years since I purchased tomato plants, it felt a bit odd…)
3 – One of my ‘Big Beef’ tomatoes (one of the only more “commercial” tomatoes I grow for reliability) I think it may be starting to recover
4 – Bags of sheep & cow manure, black earth, and peat moss ready for mixing & planting tomorrow.
5 – Blueberries ‘Duke’ and ‘Chippewa’ (I’m probably supposed to take the berries off and help the plant focus on rooting… I’m not sure I can do this, the look like they’ll be so tasty!)