by A.J. Coltrane
Previous post (complete plant list) here.
We decided it’s now warm enough to put out the tomatoes and tomatillos. They joined the Brussels sprouts, cucumbers, and zucchini, already in progress:
The picture is taken from slightly south (left) of the vantage point of the late-afternoon sun. The two boxes off to the right are the cucumbers and zucchini. Everything will get a trellis or cage soon. We left more room this year (for hopefully less wading through the tomato jungle), and we tried to put more emphasis on eventual size when laying out the tomatoes. Last year it was just “is it determinate or indeterminate and how long is the maturity”, followed by a big tomato wresting match.
Foreground to background, and left to right:
Mountain Princess (D, 68 days, 4′), Taxi (D, 65 days, 2′)
Roma (D, 75 days, 4-6′), Oregon Spring (D, 60 days, 4-5′)
Black Krim (I, 75 days, 4-7′), Tigerella (I, 65 days, 4′)
Sungold (I, 65 days, 10′), Glacier (D, 56 days, 4′) (The Glacier will hopefully be completely done before the Sungold gets too crazy big. Last year the Sungold got to around 8-9′, then flopped over the 6′ cage.)
Tomatillo “De Mipa” (60 days), Tomatillo “Mexican Strain” (65 days)
The shorter plants are all on the south sides of the boxes. As a bonus, all of the short-season determinates are in the two foreground boxes. In theory those boxes should be available late-season for planting something else.
The peas are blooming. It seems like forever since we planted them. [Checks notes] They were started indoors on February 5 and transplanted outside on February 16. They’re well beyond their listed 58 day maturity. I think in the future they’ll do better on the back patio. February and March front-yard sun isn’t all that awesome.
The basil and peppers are still coming in at night. It’ll be maybe another week for the peppers and towards the end of the month for the basil.
Random question/observation: Why do most people spell “tomatoes” with an “e”, but the plural of tomatillo lacks an “e”(?)
(And yeah, I know “tomatoes” can be spelled without the “e”, but I basically never see it.) Odd.
FlatbreadGarden 
Ask Dan Quayle, I bet he got multiple mails on the subject.
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I’ve never seen “tomatos” as a plural form, and I can find no resource that states it as an acceptable spelling. Tomatillos (like tacos and broncos) came directly into the language as foreign borrowments, and thus don’t have to follow crazy rules left over from the 18th century.
Here’s a list of the words that follow this odd “add an E before the S” rule:
echoes
embargoes
heroes
potatoes
tomatoes
torpedoes
vetoes
k
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