Rural Gardening: Adventures on Dirt Rich Farm (City goes Country), 1 by Hineni

Hineni wrote:
Now, we had an 80% chance of rain forecast today, and about 2 PM I was seriously praying for rain to get me out of this chore that I had so cheerfully put on my 'to-do' list for today. My caveat was that I work until it rained. (as an aside, it rained finally at 8:30 p.m. tonight...so...I keep rain away by working!) I had a target. There is a wonderful peach tree about 2/3's of the way up the garden, nearly a dividing point of the garden. I could SEE the peach tree. I was discovering gigantamous mutant curcurbits of assorted shapes, sizes and colors. But I was hot. The dogs were back awake and doing their best to keep my feet cool again. The Jack was growling ominously at assassin bugs and bettles and basically everything that moved in the garden. I finally ignored him, and hoped he didn't see something that was actually threatening. The pups discovered earthworms and millipedes MOVE, and so I had to tell them no about a thousand times before they gave up and laid down on the mutant squash plant, breaking it :( Time for chocolate. Always lifts the spirits (and some water was good too).

And then I saw them...Tomato plants...yay! More edibles in the forr...errr garden. However, when tomato plants have grown up with strong, sturdy (see first pic) living stakes, when you pull all of those living stakes away...they fall over. Especially if they are heavy with....baby maters....yeah! Okay, solution - tomato stakes or cages, right? Guess who did NOT plan to bring those. Yes, moi, me. Surely there is something salvagable that I can use for mater stakes. I pulled rebar out of the 'garden art' pile. Soft, luscious soil, rebar should go right in, right? No. I couldn't get enough leverage on the rebar to sink it into the ground. Hike down to the barn to get the maul. I'm not sure that's what the hammer looking end should actually be used for, but eh, it worked. Before I started on this task though, I caged the pups and put the jack inside. If I lost control of the maul (hey, it's happened before) - I didn't want to smash a dog. They probably appreciate that gesture too, although only subconciously - if it doesn't involve feet or food, I'm not sure they are aware of it. I actually revealed 9 tomato plants in various stages of growth and of various types. Here are three staked with rebar. I promise I will get them real supports, don't report me to the mater police!

And can you see it...the target, the peach tree, in the background? Yippeee, I'm almost there.