Try Wisconsin 55 tomatoes. Good for cooler climes and good flavor.

tj

Hmmmm....I have enough ideas to last me 3 lifetimes and can't pull just a couple out at the moment! I do however, have a link you may not have heard about that I find lots of fun to cruz in the winter. Just type in Gardening and see what pops up! I love it!

http://pinterest.com/

As for your tomatoes, IMO, the soil will take longer to warm in the spring if it is on the west side of your house and they won't get any sun until later in the day. I moved my tomatoe bed 2 years ago to the middle of the yard but still against a fence so they are protected. They still get full south exposure. IMO, an absolute must for tomatoes. Even with our rainy, cloudy summer last year, I got lots of ripe tomatoes. :) zone 3a Canada

And I have lots of cool climate, early maturing tomato types if you would like some seed. :)

Ginny

A raised bed might warm up faster in the spring. You could also try putting plastic down to act as a green house to capture and hold the warmth of the sun in the early spring. A small green house can also get plants going faster. It is frustrating to wait all summer and never get a delicious, red tomato.

Martha

Thank you all for the great ideas! The bed is on the southwest side of the house (the road is at an angle) but raising the bed might work. We have the combination of short frost free season and a creek behind the house...which brings the summer temps down much more than the average. Great for sleeping! Not so good for tomatoes :)

Good luck with your tomatoes LL! I plan on adding an annual bed to my blank fence line I never knew what to do with. It has drainage issues so roses aren't an option, because water sits in the winter and spring. I want to plant zinnias and chleome . Also I feel like the front of my house gardens need improved too. I'm also studying magazines and catalogs, it's soo exciting thinking spring is not so far off!!!

I'm in a new house out in the woods. We found it in November, got married and moved in. So, we have no idea what might be growing when spring arrives. It's two acres with a large portion of the back yard fenced in for the dogs. Lots of tall oaks and evergreens. The back of the property runs into a swamp/stream area that backs up to the freeway. So, it won't ever be developed and is a great place for wild life. We do know that up near the house there are beds of English Ivy, Lily of the Valley, and other shade loving ground covers. I'm a native plant fan, so we'll probably spend some time ripping out the invasive non-natives. Other than that, we'll just wait to see what pokes up through the dirt in the spring.

Right now, we're looking out the window in awe of the amazing transformation 8 inches of fluffy snow created over night. It's a winter wonderland. I may need to get my camera out. The dogs (a Newf and a Bernese mix) are in heaven. Hope I didn't blather too long.

Martha

I have a new open area but no idea what to do with it yet, may completely redesign the back gardens to incorporate this area and add more trees and shrubs.

I always plant starter tomato plants here in my zone 4, usually started from seed under lights in my basement. Tomatoes love full sun so if you can find an area with full sun you will have a better chance of getting ripe tomatoes.

Where are you in WA? My sister in Spokane has great success growing tomatoes.

I have the same problem as Lavendar Lass has with tomatoes. I have about 65 frost free days, live near a river and at the bottom of 2 hills, one on each side of me. I start my tomatoes early in my garage with heat pads and grow lights then move them outside and I use 'walls of water' with blankets over them when frost threatens. I keep the 'walls of water' on my tomatoes till mid to late June then take them off. Last year was my first year for red tomatoes! A very good growing season. I also have a really great canned green tomato pickle recipe, so I have decided to grow green tomatoes and if I get red tomato I've done really well for my growing area! As for new ideas for my garden, I want to plant a few apple and pear trees, thin out my perennials and fill in new flower beds that I made last year.

Lavenderlass, my newest garden idea is to heed the twinges of my back and wrists when I think up yet another way to expand the garden and to stop, put down the shovel, and let well enough alone.

Carol

LL - too bad you don't live near here :-) I'm always desperately seeking a source of green tomatoes in October so we can make mincemeat for our favorite Christmas tarts!

Our property is now 'wall to wall' garden so the only new things I will be adding are a few plants here and there to flesh out and/or refine existing plantings. One of these years the big ash that shades the backyard will undoubtedly succumb to Emerald Ash Borer and that will necessitate some changes - and a decision on what replacement tree to plant. But, so far at least, our tree looks healthy even though the neighbour to the north's ash has EAB. The ash on the neighbour to the south's property is also ailing but I think more from sheer old age than from EAB. That tree could very well fall on our house if the wind is from the S or W, so that tree worries me a lot.

I have always wanted to try and build a grafted arbor, saw one in a house/yard my son rented, that was a gazebo style and a grafted fence too!!! Not sure if that is the correct name but the small willows? were tied together and grafted to form/grow into a wall/roof. SUPER COOL!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_shaping

Here is a link that might be useful: sculpting

Calamity j, I can't believe how cool that project is! Seriously, amazing.

They have shaped seating with canopy (all in one) at Callaway Gardens here in Georgia. It's really neato looking! That is quite the project, Calamity!

I'm working on painting the side of the pink house, adding (well, I added one) new bed, then one behind it and putting up the trellises a neighbor gave me in exchange for plants for her new garden.

Since we have an entire "new" back yard going in hopefully this year, I don't have many plans for it yet. We are sort of relying on what will happen with the drainage when it goes in, to set us on the course for the proper, natural need of the yard and build it out from there. Hoping at least to have some new vegetable bed areas and add some more fruit.

My best idea for this year is to get a large truck load of shredded bark mulch early in the season. Had difficult getting enough last year - one of the drawbacks to living in the boonies is that not everything is easily available. I used to make my own mulch but that's too labor intensive. Still working on/planning a more easy-care garden. Waiting to see what makes it thru the winter as we haven't had great snow cover and I did no winter protection for any plants last fall. May have to find replacements for whatever succumbs but will plan that if/when it happens.

Have you heard of using red plastic mulch to help tomatoes ripen faster? Some studies show it works. Silver or blue plastic mulch is also supposed to be beneficial. Of course in cold climates it's necessary to plant in the warmest location. I used to grow tomatoes in large pots on my south facing deck and even here in zone 3 they ripened. I only grew early tomatoes which ripened in about 60 days and always bought plants which I grew indoors until they could be out in sometime in June. I have also always helped the tomato plants develop a good root system whether growing them in the garden or in pots. You do this by gradually removing leaves and adding more soil as the plant grows. This way the plant puts out roots all along the stem and has a much larger root system. The other thing with tomatoes is that they are easily stressed if they don't get enough water and too much is not good either.

I quit growing tomatoes as the squirrels ate more than we did and making the pots squirrel proof was just too much extra work when I can easily buy them at the farmers' market.