My tomatoes are growing like a jungle, too, and have about a ton of little tomatoes on them, maybe 2 or 2 1/2 inches in diameter. Beans are doing well, and just about to ripen and be ready for the picking and drying out. Peppers started bolting and blooming, and the dragon cayennes have little peppers on them, still green, but a couple inches long now. Bell peppers are just starting to bloom.
Despite all that, the corn is dismal, and I planted it in the same plot. I dunno yet why it's wrecked. It got "knee high by the 4th of July", which used to mean a good crop was coming, but then it stopped growing and started going to tassels and silks. So now, my corn is about the same height as my tomatoes - about 3 feet or so - and won't be getting much bigger since it's going to ears. Other folks around here have corn that is about chest high, although one plot I've seen has chest high corn on the south end of the rows and knee high corn on the north end of the same rows, all going to tassels now.
One ear on the corn is some kind of mutant - it's not got any shucks covering it, just a developing ear, and has silks coming off of it every-whicha-way with no shucks to contain and direct it.
Tobacco is anywhere from about 10" tall to about 2 or 2/12 feet, and blooming. This kind of tobacco only gets about 3 feet tall on a good day, so it's about par for the course in some cases, under developed in others. I probably ought to have shot more fertilizer to it, but got sidetracked and couldn't get up there to do it when I threw my back out for a couple weeks.
My experimental tobacco, growing in containers on the deck, doesn't seem to much care when I top it - it doesn't make the leaves any bigger or cause suckers to sprout out, so I've not needed to sucker it, but topping it isn't increasing leaf yield, either. This is how we learn - that variety of tobacco doesn't respond to topping, it seems, so why bother with it?
Basil is growing well, but one plant has some kind of blight or blackish rust on it. I cull those affected leaves when i see them and toss them away.
The "peppermint" is growing like crazy... but the problem is, it ain't peppermint. It IS some kind of mint, but I have no idea what kind. I just know it's neither peppermint nor spearmint. I've had experience with both of those, and know how to recognize them, but this ain't either of them. In researching peppermint, everyone seems tho think it's some kind of hybrid, but I call bullshit on that because it used to grow wild all around the house I grew up in, and so did spearmint. The spearmint was a dark green all over, with rougher leaves of a different shape, where the peppermint had a purplish cast to the stems and leaves, especially at the leaf edges, and a narrower and smoother leaf. You could confirm by shredding a leaf and smelling it - the peppermint smelled like peppermint, and the spearmint smelled like spearmint - simple. This alleged "peppermint" smells lightly minty, but neither peppermint nor spearmint. I'm guessing this is one of those hybrids the internet was talking about that they are just trying to pass off as peppermint, but it ain't. It ain't even anything like peppermint.
The thyme never really took off at all. It just kind lays there, all tiny. Too tiny for any serious use.
Catnip started blooming on schedule, but it never got to a size that I recall it growing in the wild. I'll probably leave at least one plant to complete it's life cycle like it does in nature, and see if it sprouts regular sized catnip from the seed it spreads next year. It's only knee high, and I recall it growing waist high or a little higher in some cases in the wild.
The sage is growing slow, but that is what I expected it to do since it survives as a bush for years and years. I figure it'll slowly get bigger by the year until it gets up to a bush around 3 feet tall and 3 feet around, but that isn't all going to happen this year.
Next year, I'm planning to grow the corn and beans in the Indian way, planting them both in the same hill with some squash that I need to get seed for. The corn grows up and provides a "pole" for the beans to climb, the beans fix nitrogen into the soil for the corn to grow, and the squash spreads out as a ground cover to keep weeds down and moisture in the soil. It's a symbiotic kind of thing, and may help the corn to reach full development if I do it like that... or everything may choke everything else out. We'll see how it does here, but next year. I remember that it worked pretty well when I was a kid.
For next year, I plan on expanding the garden plot from what it is this year, and if I get ambitious, I'll connect both the garden and tobacco plots into one big plot I can watch from the kitchen window. I may also take a trip down to the homestead and see if I can locate and grub up some wild peppermint and some goosefoot to bring back and get started here. I'll also have to pick out and get some squash seeds. I don't know much about squash, since I was never interested in growing it before, because I've no idea how to cook it, and never had any interest in eating it.
I also plan to keep trying to get my hands on some "Trail of Tears" beans and some Cherokee White Eagle corn for next year. This sweet corn was a flop. Better luck next time with bread corn. That means I'll also have to get a hand-cranked corn mill to grind it into meal and flour with.
Those will be projects for the winter between the gardens, as will be the expansion and connecting of the plots.
.
Despite all that, the corn is dismal, and I planted it in the same plot. I dunno yet why it's wrecked. It got "knee high by the 4th of July", which used to mean a good crop was coming, but then it stopped growing and started going to tassels and silks. So now, my corn is about the same height as my tomatoes - about 3 feet or so - and won't be getting much bigger since it's going to ears. Other folks around here have corn that is about chest high, although one plot I've seen has chest high corn on the south end of the rows and knee high corn on the north end of the same rows, all going to tassels now.
One ear on the corn is some kind of mutant - it's not got any shucks covering it, just a developing ear, and has silks coming off of it every-whicha-way with no shucks to contain and direct it.
Tobacco is anywhere from about 10" tall to about 2 or 2/12 feet, and blooming. This kind of tobacco only gets about 3 feet tall on a good day, so it's about par for the course in some cases, under developed in others. I probably ought to have shot more fertilizer to it, but got sidetracked and couldn't get up there to do it when I threw my back out for a couple weeks.
My experimental tobacco, growing in containers on the deck, doesn't seem to much care when I top it - it doesn't make the leaves any bigger or cause suckers to sprout out, so I've not needed to sucker it, but topping it isn't increasing leaf yield, either. This is how we learn - that variety of tobacco doesn't respond to topping, it seems, so why bother with it?
Basil is growing well, but one plant has some kind of blight or blackish rust on it. I cull those affected leaves when i see them and toss them away.
The "peppermint" is growing like crazy... but the problem is, it ain't peppermint. It IS some kind of mint, but I have no idea what kind. I just know it's neither peppermint nor spearmint. I've had experience with both of those, and know how to recognize them, but this ain't either of them. In researching peppermint, everyone seems tho think it's some kind of hybrid, but I call bullshit on that because it used to grow wild all around the house I grew up in, and so did spearmint. The spearmint was a dark green all over, with rougher leaves of a different shape, where the peppermint had a purplish cast to the stems and leaves, especially at the leaf edges, and a narrower and smoother leaf. You could confirm by shredding a leaf and smelling it - the peppermint smelled like peppermint, and the spearmint smelled like spearmint - simple. This alleged "peppermint" smells lightly minty, but neither peppermint nor spearmint. I'm guessing this is one of those hybrids the internet was talking about that they are just trying to pass off as peppermint, but it ain't. It ain't even anything like peppermint.
The thyme never really took off at all. It just kind lays there, all tiny. Too tiny for any serious use.
Catnip started blooming on schedule, but it never got to a size that I recall it growing in the wild. I'll probably leave at least one plant to complete it's life cycle like it does in nature, and see if it sprouts regular sized catnip from the seed it spreads next year. It's only knee high, and I recall it growing waist high or a little higher in some cases in the wild.
The sage is growing slow, but that is what I expected it to do since it survives as a bush for years and years. I figure it'll slowly get bigger by the year until it gets up to a bush around 3 feet tall and 3 feet around, but that isn't all going to happen this year.
Next year, I'm planning to grow the corn and beans in the Indian way, planting them both in the same hill with some squash that I need to get seed for. The corn grows up and provides a "pole" for the beans to climb, the beans fix nitrogen into the soil for the corn to grow, and the squash spreads out as a ground cover to keep weeds down and moisture in the soil. It's a symbiotic kind of thing, and may help the corn to reach full development if I do it like that... or everything may choke everything else out. We'll see how it does here, but next year. I remember that it worked pretty well when I was a kid.
For next year, I plan on expanding the garden plot from what it is this year, and if I get ambitious, I'll connect both the garden and tobacco plots into one big plot I can watch from the kitchen window. I may also take a trip down to the homestead and see if I can locate and grub up some wild peppermint and some goosefoot to bring back and get started here. I'll also have to pick out and get some squash seeds. I don't know much about squash, since I was never interested in growing it before, because I've no idea how to cook it, and never had any interest in eating it.
I also plan to keep trying to get my hands on some "Trail of Tears" beans and some Cherokee White Eagle corn for next year. This sweet corn was a flop. Better luck next time with bread corn. That means I'll also have to get a hand-cranked corn mill to grind it into meal and flour with.
Those will be projects for the winter between the gardens, as will be the expansion and connecting of the plots.
.