Here’s a question for y’all … What other chef in the country besides Alex has 472 heirloom tomatoes planted in a passive solar hoop house right now on the 6th of May?  I really don’t know the answer to this query and I’m not trying to talk trash, (OK, maybe just a little) but our grand experiment of having some beautiful tomatoes by the 4th of July is well under way.  Over the last 3 weeks we’ve been busy building our hoop house - pounding posts, leveling and squaring the site, setting up ribs and purlins, bolting everything into place and placing the covering over the top and the ends.  Its 30 feet wide by 90 feet long and is about 12 feet high down the center.  Alex, Anna, Jess and I spent the last two days prepping the soil and digging holes with a post hole digger.  We planted Striped Germans, Brandywines, Mortgage Lifters, Juliets, Green Zebras, Black Cherries, Sungolds, Cherokee Purples and Buffaloes.  Altogether it adds up to 472 beautiful plants in the ground, a pretty good start for the month of May.