Posted on 05/15/2021 6:40:39 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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Daniel! I hope your planting does well this year!
If you can get some ez-straw (they take out the seeds!) it makes a good mulch around tomatoes!
Oh, no! Sorry for your veggie losses! At least you still have enough growing season left to recoup your losses.
I’m getting the beds ready to receive and placing tomato cages, etc. but I’m not putting anything tender out until at least the 21st of May, which is a week earlier than I usually do. I have salad greens, spinach, kale, broccoli and cauliflower planted. Everything needs a drink, today. It’s been very dry.
My ‘Critter Trouble’ seems to be an opossum and not a racoon. He showed up last night after I had taken in the feeders. My Beagle went out and barked at him for a while, but the opossum held his/her ground! All of the feeders were in, so if he/she wanted to clean up any spilled seed on the ground, that was fine with me! :)
It was pretty big, so it could be a pregnant Mama or a male. We couldn’t tell, and if the dog knew, he wasn’t saying, LOL!
I didn’t. I Did make certain that the eyes pointed upward.
My plants are currently about 12” tall. (I started them pretty early and had to cover them on a few cold nights.
I know that some people do let them dry a bit and some people would dust them with something like soil sulfer to prevent from rotting once they pot.
(I am growing mine in fabric bags this year.)
Copper is my Secret Weapon for fungal/blight issues on just about anything. AlgoFlash is my go-to fertilizer for just about everything, and a Bloom Booster (Miracle Grow) for hanging baskets, porch pots and in-ground flowers.
Also, make sure tomatoes and peppers and eggplant and zukes & cukes have good spacing; crowding results in poor air circulation and sets the stage for disease later in the season.
Bordeaux is good. I have used it in the past.
I trim off any leaves touching the ground. That helps a lot.
I like to use liquid foliar feeds. Just a mixture of seaweed, molasses, apple cider vinegar, and fish emulsion.
I also pour out out of date milk around the base and all of my used tea/coffee grounds make a good fertilizer.
And epsom salt in low doses.
I have tomatoes spaced 18” by 24” and will be trained to an 8’ wire mesh. Question is to trim secondary stems or not. Or just trim lower (3’) ones for ventilation and then let upper ones produce more flowers/fruit?
Is there some “best way” for humid summers?
Greeneyes; (I think this interests you!)
Here is a link to a post on the SHTF thread regarding Scythes, including a link to a store in Maine that sells custom fitted sythes.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3959006/posts?q=1&;page=51
It includes a video about harvesting a small wheat field using a scythe. (No point in owning a John Deere Combine to harvest your 12’X 48” patch of barley or wheat!!)
I do not have enough room in my yard to raise grain, but maybe someone else has info about sowing, threashing and winnowing. (I know there are videos on You Tube!)
No rain here, either. It is seriously dry. Last year I was besieged with crabgrass, so I put preventer down, but that needs water to activate. There isn’t enough hose in the world to take care of it all, especially with needing to keep up with some new seeding areas. Woe is me. I haven’t seen the crabgrass germinate yet, but haven’t looked too closely for fear of finding it. And the lilacs are in bloom, so .... it is probably up and at ‘em, too.
Greetings from southern New Hampshire! The weather is warmer and we are preparing planters. Busted my butt two days ago “weeding” one of our original raised beds that had laid fallow for about 4 years. Quack grass was miserable, but now, it is ready for Household Six to rake smooth, put down a layer of cardboard and then I will screen several loader buckets full of compost from the local landfill, and she will work her magic and plant a new strawberry bed.
She has hundreds of seedlings, tomatoes, peppers, herbs and flowers that have hardened-off on our back deck. Just tomatoes and peppers coming into our dining area at night, now, but it was quite a migration for a week or two.
I have put up four cattle panel trellis now. Still need to zip tie them to their posts, but they are out of the way.
Household Six planted her herb garden that I described, earlier. Just need to setup the automatic watering.
I finally completed the seven trusses for our new garden shed. Next, the walls.
I opened up our RV and have over half of the screen room platform installed. Hope to finish up, this morning.
Busy times, but really delighted to be rid of the RV Seasonal life! Home is wonderful!
I rub the taters with wood ash to help scab over and put the eyes up. I cover with a foot of leaves, then add compost. Mine are looking good so far (planted the second week of Feb).
Pruning the bottom 1/3 of the plant is a great idea. The 'blight' is in the soil and when soil is splashed onto the lower leaves from rain or watering, that's where the problem starts. A good layer of mulch helps, too.
And always pinch out the suckers at the crotch of the stems and the main trunk of the plant. That lets more air flow in, too.
Other than that, Prayer? LOL! ;)
Good tomato pruning tutorial here:
https://bonnieplants.com/gardening/how-to-prune-tomatoes/
Please note: Pruning is suggested for INDETERMINATE varieties, the ones that keep growing and setting fruit until frost. You can pretty much leave your DETERMINATE tomato plants alone, which are the ones that set fruit all at once, then are done.
How long ago did you plant yours? I think you may be a little ahead of me in growing zine, but probably not by much.
We also have grown toms crowded in the same soil for many years (a non no) and had some "blight" in 2019 but worse last year when the dozens of plants were growing great until about mid-August when the blight began and which wiped out about half or more of the crop. See here. Last year i did use a copper based fungicides and the plants were recovering but the warm weather ran out, as it does after about 5 months here.
Meanwhile, i read of
http://northcoastgardening.com/2015/05/tomato-blight/
Oxidate, made of activated peroxide, is [said to be] another safe and effective product to keep plants sterile and clean of blight. - http://northcoastgardening.com/2015/05/tomato-blight/
Me too, and while the fence would be considered substandard in many rich suburbs, in this American low-income city it looks nice.
You are in Alaska? That sounds warm for there!
My bird feeders have been undisturbed the last couple of night ..... :-)
It helps that I can buy 4-packs of veggies for $1.79 not 5 minutes from the house. I really hate to lose anything I’ve planted, though. Usually, I start my tomatoes from 4-packs, but my SIL found the Celebrities at Food Lion for $2.50 each (they would have been a couple dollars more at Lowe’s or Home Depot). They’d also been sitting outside a good while, so I didn’t have to worry about sunburn like I do with the really small greenhouse plants.
Anyway, I think we’ll be fine - peppers look like they’ve already grown a bit in the peat pots!
Nope, not Alaska! :-)
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