Pruning Tomato Plants & a Trip to the Farm Store

I feel like this past week or so has been a lot of clean up in the garden. I've been trimming the grass along the raised beds, pulling weeds, and trimming back wild vines and such, so that our vegetables have plenty of room to breath and grow. 

While inspecting one of our tomato plants, I noticed these voluptuous red tomatoes just waiting to be picked and devoured until I turned them upside down and spotted the rot underneath. A total bummer! I jumped on the Google to see what I could find, and that's when I discovered you could prune your tomato plants. I did read where some people are opposed to it, but I followed my gut and grabbed some shears. I worked from the bottom up and started clipping away. Before I knew it, tomatoes that I never even noticed were popping up from beneath the greenery that I was cutting off. I could tell the tomatoes were much happier. I think now they have better air flow, and they won't be sitting on wet leaves. And guess what happens when you prune the jungle of tomato plants? You discover some goodies ready to eat! They were delicious in our lunch salad. 

It was a lot of work to sit and cut back the leaves, but obviously very worth it. Not only was it better for the health of the tomatoes, but now I have space to get in between the plants to pick the tomatoes which is a must with square foot gardening and ten tomato varieties!

Another surprise we came across this week was at our local farm store, my favorite place to spend a ridiculous amount of money on the homestead. 

We needed some rabbit food and hay, but before we picked those up, the kids and I had to make our usual round of visiting all of the farm store animals. They have a cat, chickens, ducks, and pigs. These are animals that live there, not the ones they are selling. I do plenty of 'oohing' and 'aahing' at the baby chicks for sale. As we peeked in the pig pen, we spotted three baby pigs! They were so sweet. Their little tails were just twirling around while they waddled around their mama. The babies paid absolutely no attention to us as we talked to them and took photos, ha!