Oh that’s what indeterminate means

My philosophy around gardening has mostly been put stuff in the ground and see what happens. Not the best approach really.
This year is the fourth year we’ve had a garden and I’ve been trying to research more intelligently what is (and isn’t) happening in our garden.
I’ve got a few things in my feed reader that touch on gardening, like Novella Carpenter‘s blog and Homegrown Evolution. The debate this evening is dragging on a bit and I’ve been trolling threw feeds in google reader. And there was a link to a determinate tomato description.
I think most of my tomatoes this year are indeterminate…they’re not terminating their growth and their bearing of fruit is also not terminating. And the labels when I bought them all say something about determinate or indeterminate. Duh. I think actually read in the newspaper H&G section that tomatoes can grow year round as perennials here in the Willamette valley. Presumably that then is the indeterminate ones. But they sure start looking blighty this time of year when it gets raining.
I’ve also realised (at Jenn’s prodding) that I’m probably drastically over watering the tomatoes and zucchini. I’m curious to see my next water bill. I think I ended up using a lot less water this year and it seems like I got more produce once I was reducing the water. And next year then will be interesting as I work harder to water less but not kill things.
On the bright side I’ve got a composter and am pushing a lot of free compost into the garden and the soil (clay fill dirt the builder dumped in the back yard) is starting to look more like healthy soil.