Gardening in my Roots, heating up outside

I'd not been paying attention to the tomatoes. Honestly, they depressed me--the thin branches with tiny leaves on weak, spindly plants; already starting to bloom and set fruit, but no foliage to shield it from the scorching sun.  Here in Texas tomatoes are especially prone to sun-scald.  The only treatment for it is to pick them early and hope they don't rot on the countertop.

But there is a preventative you can apply--cover the tomatoes with a light cloth before they start showing signs of sun-scald.  I went out Saturday, determined to install tomato cages and cover up any tomatoes that were out in the sun.  But installing tomato cages is harder than you think.  For one thing, if you wait too late (I did) the plants are sprawled all over and are hard to tease up into the cages. Luckily I was able to borrow a second set of hands for this part of the job.  And for another thing, you can't just shove the bottom wires into the ground and leave them.  If the plants grow, the cage becomes top-heavy and a strong thunderstorm will blow the whole thing over on its side, snapping the bottom stems.  It's happened before and will likely happen again.



Each cage need to be tied to a stake pounded deeply into the ground. Luckily I have the stakes, thanks to me scavenging the ones I found left around on the street by work crews in town. I have the mallet. I have lots of old sheets.  And I have results.









And rewards.