Mavis Garden Blog – Planting Tomatoes in Raised Garden Beds

My neighbor Hudla came over this morning to help with a few tomatoes plants. We bartered French breakfast radishes and eggs {mine} for garden labor {hers}. Does it get any better than that?

I’ve decided Hudla is the best garden assistant on the planet. Mainly because when she comes over, she’s only here for one hour at a time and she’s fast like lighting. It’s super easy to drop everything for 60 minutes and go outside with her and get some gardening done in between cooking, cleaning, blogging and taking care of Lucy.

Did I mention Hudla home schools her kids? Yep. So she’s totally good at juggling 20 million things at once and thinking ahead. Of course we’ve only done “fun” gardening project so far. Re-potting plants, planting vegetables and working in the greenhouse.

I suppose when it comes time to dig the well and the irrigation canals out back she might not be so eager to pop over for an hour.

We’ll see.

Our raised garden boxes are 4×8 feet and are filled with some pretty good soil. In years past I have packed the garden boxes with as many as a dozen plants and each time the results were pretty much the same. Awesome.

This year Hudla and I planted 66 tomato plants in 6 garden beds {11 in each bed}. 4 across the back row, 3 in the center and 4 across the front. Plus we still have a bunch left over.

Here is what the 6 raised garden beds looked like after all the tomato plants were in.

Now, we just have to figure out what we are going to plant around the bottom of the tomato beds. According to my Companion Planting Chart not only do carrots love tomatoes, but tomatoes love onions. Which is pretty stinkin’ perfect because I still have 2 flats of onions and leeks I’ve been neglecting in the greenhouse for months.

Looks like I have the perfect place to plant them now.

Giddy up! Summer is finally on it’s way.

~Mavis

P.S. Have YOU planted your tomatoes yet?