The BT Garden Thread (Page 8)

Update to the "Little Island of Life" (copyright, switch):

Overall, pretty happy so far after about 18 days or so.  We've had pretty good growing weather and a mix of temps, plus enough rain that I don't need to water 4 times a day or anything.  Going to cage the tomatoes in probably another week.

Now for some questions (problems???).  What's with the yellowing of the bottom leaves on my tomato plans, and should I prune them?  All three plants have some degree or another of this.

And what's this white stuff on my cukes??  (it's also on the beans a little bit)

And finally...a couple of the beans didn't sprout so well...should I just put them out of their misery so they don't pull nutrients from the soil and never produce?

Any and all suggestions/advice welcome. 

Sincerely,

The Black Thumbs

Looking good up on the roof!  

As for the yellow leaves at the bottom of tomatoes, that's how they tell you they are hungry.  Nitrogen to be specific I think.  I usually just get an organic vege food and spinkle it in the pots and water and that does the trick.  In pots that size, you are going to have to feed those 'maters a lot!  I do it every two weeks.  They really suck up the nutrients in pots quickly.  If you don't care about organic, miracle gro tomato food should do it.  

As for the white stuff on the cukes... probably mildew.  Has it been really humid there?  I say clip the effected leaves off.  If it's on like all of them... I don't know.  Some varieties are resistant to it, so you may be ok.

Can't wait for tonight.  I'll be picking some eggplant, and 5 minutes later it will be getting sauteed and put in a stir fry.  Really looking forward to the day where I can go get a squash, zucchini, eggplant, and red pepper from the back yard... but I'm relying on my farmer's market for now.  Not necessarily a bad thing, though.  Really good fruits and veges, they always seem to "forget" to charge me for everything, and they always make me grab a banana on the way out for my son.  Last week they actually gave my wife two bunches of really, really ripe bananas and told her to make me banana pudding  And a PSA... if you ever find yourself travelling through the South this time of year and you see a place advertising Chilton County, Alabama peaches.... stop and buy all of them.  

We're also going to get into the mid nineties this week, so my hot peppers should take off, too.  Fingers crossed.

WOW! Look at your garden grow:) You may have to turn in your black thumbs; they're looking awfully green to me.  Sweet!

Sesh and Josh--it sounds like your gardens are doing really well.

Sesh, I just can't get over how far ahead of me you are in the season.  You're making me want to move to the south, and that, my friend, is a strong statement.  I've never had those peaches, and my mouth is watering thinking about them.  Fresh peaches are one of the most beautiful tastes in the whole world.

Josh, our strawberries have come on this week.  My kids love them too--it's the first thing they go check in the morning.  I haven't gotten many yet this year, but I'm on vacation this week (at home) and when I came home from my run today, I went straight to the strawberry patch and picked and ate as I went--warm with sun strawbs, so good.

I did some work in my perrenial beds this weekend, and our leadership campers got the melons, beans, corn and winter squash put in, 3 sisters style. 

My most exciting news is that we should have peaches this year, 6 trees with fruit (cherries this year too).  Our orchard is young, and this is our first year with any real fruit. Yay!

Oh gawd.. those trees.  I can't wait till we move and I can plant some fruit trees.  I may actually see if I can get a citrus tree to grow.  I'd love to have some Meyer Lemons.  Peaches and plums grow well around here, so I plan on putting those in.  And so jealous of the three sisters.  I tried a big patch of it last year, but my back yard is nothing buy clay and a layer of sod.  I tried to till it up and ammend the soil but it just didn't work at all.  Butternut squash is a favorite of mine that I just have never been able to grow  

We had 23 straight days where the temperature hit 100 two summers ago, and last summer we went something like 5 straight days where the night time temps didn't drop below 80.  Might now want to pack those bags yet, switch.

We're debating on growing some container fruit trees on the roof...probably dwarf apple trees or something.  Not looking forward to dragging a balled tree up four flights of stairs, though.    Sounds like a fall project.

We had some crazy rain here yesterday and last night...probably about 3-4 inches' worth and we also had a mini-tornado/water spout about 1/2 mile from us near Fort McHenry.  One of the tomato containers flooded, so obviously the drainage holes aren't working probably.  I fiddled with it and got it working, so hopefully no major rot damage.  Sunny, windy, and dry today. 

Plucked a couple of lettuce leaves (leaves?? is that what they're called?) and they tasted awesome.  Beans are growing like weeds.

Walking from the pool back to work, I passed a mass planting (~20 shrubs) of Serviceberries on the verge of ripeness (on University property).  I don't usually do brazen urban harvesting, but I may go back tomorrow and get enough for jam.  Do any of you either urban harvest?  Do any of you eat Serviceberries?

Thanks Pitt :)  I look at them each day, waiting for the shoe to fall, as it often does with fruit trees, but so far, so good. 

Booty Girl--That's a good looking fence you've got there!  And the garden part looks great too.  Look at you go!  You've had some big, big project this year, girl!

I took my boss over to the Serviceberry hedgerow for a snack on Friday.  They were SO good.  If you're anywhere north of Iowa (I think all the SB south of Iowa will be done bearing now) and can locate some shrubs, GO TRY THEM.  Lots of cities use them in urban plantings.  They're really awesome.  Serviceberry has many advantages over traditional blueberries.  They don't taste "exactly" the same, but they are very good.  Serviceberries can grow in nuetral soil (blueberries really need 4-4.5 pH, which takes quite a bit of ammendment in most areas), they're incredibly hardy, can grow to be 20' tall, are beautiful, and, as you can see from the above pic, can be prolific.

How's everyone's garden growing?

We're eating lettuce, peas and radishes from ours now. Strawberries are going buck wild.  My kids have gone from being elated about picking and eating them to running and hiding from me when I ask them to go pick, lol.  We could probably harvest 500/day right now, but it is hard to keep up with.  What a "problem" huh?  Raspberries are next.

I have made caprese three nights in the past week with basil from our garden (cheated and started with plants).  I am so excited to be able to harvest the tomatoes from it from our garden too.  Counting. Down. The. Days.  

I could eat caprese every day for the rest of my life and never get sick of it.  Caprese and ribeye?  Perfection.

Really love your peaches wanna shake your tree..... lovey dovey lovey dovey all the time. :^)

Agree, those are awesome peaches!  

I keep forgetting to take pictures of Mrs Moondawg's "pumpkin patch"   She's determined to grow pumpkins on our balcony.  They're growing, but no pumpkins yet.   A TON of blooms though.  The containers the vines are in are pretty small.  It's going to be a challenge to get them enough water, I think.   We'll see.

Thanks a LOT Moondawg, now I've got that song stuck in my head;)

Pumpkins from containers?!?  You have take pics.  What kind of pumpkins is she growing?  I have never heard of someone growing winter squash from a container, but that would be a real coup. An you have lots of blooms!  Awesome.

Bootygirl--We grow a lot of plants, an so our staking system is a little different than your avg home grower, but, FWIW, we do a version of the Florida weave, which basically consists of two sets of t-posts staggered horizontally and about  6 yds apart down the length of a tomato plant row.  The we weave twine from t-post to t-post and as the tomato plants grow up, they are sort of braced--cats cradle style--between the twine and the t-posts, support the twine.  Kinda hard to describe.  Works well and is an inexpensive, easy-ish solution for long rows of plants:)

Pitt--those look awesome, and your recipe sounds delicious.  Butter, OJ, cumin and carrot would never have crossed my mind, but it sounds heavenly. 

I wonder if the curly Q is because you have a soil change (I'm thinking harder soil) 4-5 inches down?  Carrots like loose, even sandy soil.

Is that part of your beautiful new kitchen underneath those carrots?!?