Garden 2023

[F2d5thCav]

We have lavender in our garden and cut it to ward off mosquitos.

BIAD-- yeah, no end to the weeds growing among the stones.

Cheers

[quintessentone]

Meet the male tomato. ha ha  He was nestled comfortably in a basket (orgy?) of farm field tomatoes from my local supermarket. Is that a toma-toe or are you just happy to see me?  

   

[VioletDove]

That tomato!!!   

I’m so glad you shared him here. I needed the laugh!

[Ninurta]

Meet the male tomato. ha ha  He was nestled comfortably in a basket (orgy?) of farm field tomatoes from my local supermarket. Is that a toma-toe or are you just happy to see me?  

I've got tomato envy - mine that are ripening are tiny little things, about 2 or 2 1/2 inches across. None are flaunting their tomatohood like yours is. I will note, however, that yours cannot be kosher - it's not circumcised!



I'm starting to plan for next year's patch, and part of that is developing a calendar. I'm using this site to create the calendars. The calendars already have the sunrise and sunset times, and I'm adding options for latitude and longitude, moon phases (some folks around here still plant by the moon), Solar noon, equinoxes and solstices, and length of day. I added that last, length of day, in because some stuff blooms by photoperiod. For example, cannabis starts flowering when days get down to 12 hours long, meaning night is also 12 hours long. I've not yet figured out what causes the tobacco to bloom. Mine bloomed around the beginning of July, whether outdoors or indoors. The outdoor tobacco of course had to rely on whatever light the sun provided, but the indoor tobacco was running on 18 hour days consistently, but still started blooming at about the same time as the outdoor tobacco.



Beans had lovely plants, but a pretty light yield. Not even enough for a single pot of beans out of the lot of 'em. Peppers are still peppering, and haven't started ripening yet. Corn was a dismal failure. it's stopped growing at about 40 inches or so tall, and the longest ear on any of them is about 5 inches long, shucks and all. I can't even be sure it even IS corn looking at the ears!



I've got all my herbs in the ground except the mints. I'm not sure I'm even going to put them in the ground, because whatever mint s they are, they aren't the peppermint that the seed package claimed. The thyme, sage, and rosemary ought to live through the winter and for the next several years, but the catnip and the basil will have to be planted all over again next year, since they are both annuals. The catnip is blooming and setting seed, which I have collected some of for next year, but the basil hasn't even started blooming yet. The perennials - the sage, rosemary, and thyme - may not even bloom at all this year as it's their first year.



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[quintessentone]

I'm glad I bought the tomatoes from the local supermarket because the tomato plants I planted have black patches on their bottoms. Supposedly named 'blossom end rot' which is from a lack of calcium. Oh well I tried. Also my herbs were a failure too and they were from heirloom seeds. Is it the soil?

[Ninurta]

I'm glad I bought the tomatoes from the local supermarket because the tomato plants I planted have black patches on their bottoms. Supposedly named 'blossom end rot' which is from a lack of calcium. Oh well I tried. Also my herbs were a failure too and they were from heirloom seeds. Is it the soil?

Could be. Some of my tomatoes have the same black spots - I just chucked one over the fence into the woods today - and I had no idea what it was from. It seems to go along with my mom's recommendation today that I lime the soil in the garden to "sweeten" it, but it also applies as a remedy for a lack of calcium.

Most of my herbs are doing fine other than the thyme which is still less than 4 inches tall, and the fact that the sage, rosemary, and basil are still not blooming. I planted them along a concrete walkway, however, rather than at the upper end of the yard where I have my garden spots, so there is likely a difference in the soils there. The soil where the herbs are could probably still stand some "sweetening" from the lime, though, as I'm guessing it's pretty acidic - there's a lot of moss growing in that area, which is either a sign of acidity or a means of acidifying soil over time.

I popped my hemp plants in among the tobacco a few days ago, and it won't do very well if that soil is too acidic up there. It was a little wlity in the heat today, but I'm chalking that up to root damage from the transplanting that ought to fix itself in a week or so... but acidic soil won't do it any good in the long term, either.



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[Ninurta]

Just to give you an idea of how brown my thumb is, here is my first "ear of corn" for the year:



It looks like a cross between corn's ancestor "teosinte" and corn. To verify, here is a picture of tesinte (top), the cross between the two (center) and actual corn (bottom):



That ear never grew and covering "shuck", but upon examining it closely, it appears to have a shuck on each individual kernel, and the kernels are about the size of small popcorn.

Maybe better luck next year!

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[GeauxHomeLittleD]

Blossom rot! Just with my beefeater tomatoes. I water the hell out of them so not lack of water but Kdog suggested maybe it's because of all the crap they add to the water. Never had this problem before, so far hasn't affected my other tomato varieties.

[quintessentone]

Just to give you an idea of how brown my thumb is, here is my first "ear of corn" for the year:



It looks like a cross between corn's ancestor "teosinte" and corn. To verify, here is a picture of tesinte (top), the cross between the two (center) and actual corn (bottom):



That ear never grew and covering "shuck", but upon examining it closely, it appears to have a shuck on each individual kernel, and the kernels are about the size of small popcorn.

Maybe better luck next year!

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Maybe it's just nature's way - a way we don't fully understand.

[ABNARTY]

I'm glad I bought the tomatoes from the local supermarket because the tomato plants I planted have black patches on their bottoms. Supposedly named 'blossom end rot' which is from a lack of calcium. Oh well I tried. Also my herbs were a failure too and they were from heirloom seeds. Is it the soil?

Yes. Lack of calcium. You can try a couple of things next time.

Old school: bury egg shells around the tomato plants. 

newer school: you can buy blossom end rot spray and spray the plants. It's mostly just calcium that gets absorbed by the leaves and stems much faster. Do it when you first notice just a hint of that dark spot on the tomatoes. 

I have used both and they both work.

---

Well I persevered with the Avocado that I accidently ripped up last week.  Repotted on the sunny verandah.

Shortly after potting 



Later



Finally growing



Potted with flowers and a couple of Dragon Fruit Cactus cuttings replanted



One of the Vege gardens



So, a little success.  Hope I live another 5 years to see it fruit.  I'll post some pics of harvesting the Dragon Fruit cuttings which I intend to move when they establish.

Kind regards,

Bally)

Edit to add,  Pics are small for some reason.  But when clicked open up.

Beautiful garden and yard. 

My in-laws live in Panama. They have a bunch of Dragon fruit trees among other things.

I have though about moving down there. The growing season is way better than northern Wisconsin 

[quintessentone]

So it's strange that the tomato plants I planted their first crop had that blossom rot on the bottom of the tomatoes, but the second and third crops are just fine, in fact more than fine, perfect.

[Chiefsmom]

Well, this has been a terrible growing season, here in MI, and I've been a bit lazy.

Carrots never got very big.  So far neither have the watermelon or pumpkins, but we have had more rain lately, so maybe there is still a chance.

Still ended up with blight, even though I slowed it with copper sulfate.  Thankfully I had so many tomato plants, (31) that I have already put up 28 quarts, and probably have another 2) 5gal. pails worth to get out of the garden this week.  I'm hoping at this point to put up enough to not have to grow but maybe one plant next year!  Then I can work on the soil.

We had monster storms last week, even had 2 tornado's south of us.  The wind we had knocked down 2 of the remaining 4 cannabis plants.  Hubby staked them up, so I am hoping they survive.

I did get lucky last week, and one of our customers invited me to pick blueberries for free, and he only lives a few miles from our house.  Hubby got bored with that quick, but I still froze up about 5 quarts.  And, the man is wanting to sell some of his plants!  I will have to "fix" the dirt in a  few spots for them, as we are mostly clay.

More to add as figure out what is left in the mess.  Haven't weeded as well as I should have, nor mowed around the edge of the garden.  Uggh.

[Ninurta]

I did get lucky last week, and one of our customers invited me to pick blueberries for free, and he only lives a few miles from our house.  Hubby got bored with that quick, but I still froze up about 5 quarts.  And, the man is wanting to sell some of his plants!  I will have to "fix" the dirt in a  few spots for them, as we are mostly clay.

When I tried to sprout some pampas grass this year, none of it sprouted in the container I was trying to sprout it in, but something else did. I thought "huh. I thought they sterilized this dirt, so where did that come from?" I decided to let it grow, since the pampas grass was a bust, and I wanted to find out what it is.

A couple of weeks ago, when my son and his family were in for a visit, he saw it and said "when did you start growing blueberries?" I've never seen a blueberry bush, and had no idea that's what it was - if that's what it is. My son said it looks an awful lot like a blueberry bush he has on his place, but I reckon only time will tell.

We're pretty clay-ey around here, too, and I have no idea what kind of dirt to pop it into in the ground, so it's still living in a container. Don't know what kind of light it want's, either, so I don't even know where to try to prep some ground for it.

Nearly all of the tomatoes are out of the garden now. I think there are just 4 left out there, either green or still turning. Nearly all if the beans are out, too, and there wasn't enough of them to make a single meal. Corn is ridiculous - I'll post some pictures if I ever get over the shame of it all.

Peppers are doing a bit better, but not a lot. The bell peppers look like real peppers, and have the right size to them, but so far there are only two - and a couple more developing. The Dragon Cayennes are fairing better. There are 7 or 8 to a plant, two have ripened so far and a couple more are turning now. They're about 5 inches long, as big around as a pinky finger, and hot as the dickens.

Roofers came by last week, and removed the gutter guards and tossed them to the ground. In the process, they broke the top out of one of my basil plants, but I reckon it'll branch out more now, so nothing lost. Sage is doing well - might have a bush or two in a tear or two. It grows slow, and grows long - lives 30 years or so. Same for the rosemary. It's not as bushed out as the last plant was by this time, but it still has time, as it lives 30 years or so, too.

The tobacco is doing better than last year, but still needs to be staked up to avoid falling over. Never knew any kind of tobacco that was a creeper, viney plant, but this seems to be.It's pushing out seed like nobody's business. One plant, that I'[ve harvested all the seed pods from, got pissed off and is blooming all over again - it's like it's trying to tell me "take that! You'll never get all the seeds... NEVER!". Curing is going better than last year, too. I'm learning what it takes to make it brown instead of curing out green. Humidity seems to have a lot to do with it, which I guess is why none of the tobacco barns around here were ever sealed tight, but had gaps between all of the boards in the walls to allow humid air to circulate among the curing tobacco. I'll not know how it effects the taste until a few months from now. Just curing the dirt leaves at the moment, not hanging whole plants to cure yet.

The outdoor hemp is starting to bloom. it started about a month early according to my calculations. It probably needed a sunnier place to grow - that walnut tree is throwing too much shade on it I think. The most developed on is a male, so I'm eyeballing it for twine production - won't be getting any seed off of it. The other three are still too young to sex out yet.

Onions died out this spring - so I thought. One of them bloomed, but never went to seed. I popped 3 into the dirt last year, 8 came back this year, then all died long before harvest time. Much to my surprise, one of them seems to have been pretty game, as it's sending up new blades now.

That's it for this update. Time to go  make a tomato sandwich out of what's left of the tomatoes. They're so tiny that it takes a whole tomato to make one sandwich. I probably need to work that dirt over this winter to get it into shape for growing stuff. It didn't do it's job this year.

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[Chiefsmom]

Well, the garden has gone to the chickens.  They do a wonderful job cleaning up.
The last thing out of it, is a mammoth sunflower head, which is hanging in the dining room drying, and the 4 pot plants hanging in the garage, that will need a lot of trimming, since I slacked off this year.

I hate this time of year.  So dark and dreary.

[quintessentone]

Well, the garden has gone to the chickens.  They do a wonderful job cleaning up.
The last thing out of it, is a mammoth sunflower head, which is hanging in the dining room drying, and the 4 pot plants hanging in the garage, that will need a lot of trimming, since I slacked off this year.

I hate this time of year.  So dark and dreary.

Now is the time to buy flowers or indoor plants for a pick me up.