Normally we wait until Memorial Day weekend to plant the tomato babies, as I call them, but with the unusually warm temps it was safe to plant them this past weekend. We decided it was a good value to spend $65 to have the many bags of soil delivered to save wear and tear on Wayne’s back. This summer will be the greatest amount of tomato plants we’re growing: 26 of them! Besides the Lemon Boys we have Black Cherry, Yellow Pear, Roma, Cherokee Purple, Carolina Gold and Supersonic. In addition to the two raised beds we have ten containers spread out on our deck and behind our house. I’m looking forward to a fun growing season and this weekend didn’t disappoint.

On Saturday Wayne turned over the existing soil in the beds and then added the new soil to the beds and buckets with drilled holes on the bottom.

Next I gently removed each baby tomato plant from its plastic container and handed them to Wayne for planting. Until now they’ve been spending sunny days in the sunroom and nights in our warm kitchen.

I brought Wayne a simple, healthy “no touch lunch” while he was working, along with a G&T which is his new favorite mocktail, perfect for a hot day in the yard. Once the tomatoes were planted in the beds he placed netting around them with a secret doorway.

We went to Lowes early Sunday morning to buy more stakes for the containers pictured before we had them.

Ricky was very curious on Saturday about all of the new tomato babies and blooms around the deck. On Sunday afternoon I asked Wayne if he had seen Ricky since I hadn’t see her all day. A second later she jumped out of her burrow with two babies! This is the third time she has made us happy grandparents!