Middle: During.
Bottom: After.
So, I've already broken my word about being hands-off with the third plot. No one is surprised. I had two grape tomato plants that couldn't fit in the main plot, and were just plain suffering in their tiny unfertilized pots. So, on my recent mental health day, I took a bread knife to that weed-tree and started hacking.
I cut down the tree, broke up all the big roots, and dug out that decorative grass in clumps. I thought about guerilla-planting in somewhere else in the yard - but realized the tomato plot could use buffer zones on either side of it, and decided to repurpose. (Our trash cans sit just to the left of the plot, and the flower bed is just to the right of it. Everyone needs boundaries.) I broke up the soil, worked in some fertilizer, replanted, and crossed my fingers.
Both plants have already perked up and gotten nice and dark green. The recent heatwave probably helped as well. And the plant on the left (which to be perfectly honest, I thought was going to die) has a little baby tomato bulb on it now.
We'll see.