Weekly Gardening Thread – 2011 (Vol. 27) July 15

Free Republic | 07-15-2011 | Red_Devil 232

[Red_Devil 232]

Good morning gardeners. It has been another week of hot humid weather. My little garden got its small share of a 60% chance of rain yesterday afternoon. A nice pop up T-storm spent about half an hour dropping a nice steady rain on my garden. There is a 70% chance of rain today. If the percentage for rain is not above 50 the pop up T-storms seem to pass me by. I did get to harvest about a dozen ripe tomatoes this past week but they are on the small side. My replacement paste tomato plants are coming along just fine so far. I will leave them to develop in their 5 inch peat pots for a couple of more weeks before setting them out in the garden.

If you are a gardener or you are just starting out and are in need of advice or just encouragement please feel free to join in and enjoy the friendly discussion. Our Freeper community is full of gardeners, each with varying interests and skill levels from Master Gardener to novice.

I hope all your gardens are flourishing.

[fanfan]

How about nasturtiums? Or do they taste too good?

[rightly_dividing]

I knew that tomatos liked regular and even waterings, but did not know that water was the cause for splitting. Since I use drip irrigation on a timer, I’m good there. Since we only have splitting on the very largest, I thought that maybe it was because we leave them on the vine as long as possible. Things are working well as is, so I am not going to make any adjustments.

[afraidfortherepublic]

I think it is too late this year to get any bang out of nasturtiums. I’ll consider it for nrxt year, however. I love nasturtiums.

[rightly_dividing]

We really like acorn squash, also. Next year we will try acorn and butternut squash, along with more red bell peppers since they are all so expensive here.

[fanfan]

Me too. I planted “Out of Africa” Nasturtium at the end of June.

If they grow an Obama, I’m going to be disappointed.

[tubebender]

Did you say Nasturtium ?

Lady Bender is having a husband moment and can't remember the name of this dwarf Nasturtion...

The above is Moon Glow dwarf Nasturtium...

This dwarf is called Black_____?

[Bean Counter]

Hi Folks! I hope everyone is well and has as much dirt under their nails as I do...

The gardens continue to thrive here. Last Friday my water tank was down to 70 gallons, and it rained good and hard over the weekend, and by noon Sunday it was back at 300 gallons and in stable overflow into the drip system.

We've been eating squash like crazy with more coming every day, and we actually have some decent tomatoes on the vine. My potato bed is enormous, the plants are waist high and in full flower. The rain over the weekend really helped them a lot, and hand watering it was one reason why the rain barrel was low.



I've let my vegetable squash plants run up onto the tomato support, and their big leaves give the tomatoes a bit of shade on really hot days...



I've been working on replacing the mangy fence between my neighbor and me on the new garden end of the house. We are working together on it and enjoying the job as we make good progress. Last week I demolished the old fence and got it toted out front. The Neighborhood Association has an annual neighborhood cleanup on the last weekend of July, and they have free dumpsters for all kinds of debris. This will be the third, and thankfully the last, fence I've disposed of this way.

My neighbor and I got four more post holes dug today, and I got them set and concreted in place this afternoon. We're going to frame and finish the first seven sections because we can't really prune the back section yet, so we'll wait for this fall and do it then.



We were going to just pull the old posts out, clean out the holes, and cement new posts in place, but last week when I started demolition, I quickly discovered that when they built the fence in 1985, the Contractor had a 16" auger on the back of the tractor that day and that is what size all the old post holes are.

No problem, they made up the difference with concrete...



All of the old posts have been cut to length after they were placed, so we have no idea if they were 8 foot posts, or if they needed ten footers because the holes were so deep. All we know for sure is that concrete must have been dirt cheap in 1985, because they used a good bit of a truckload to set 12 fenceposts.

So I broke out "Old Painless", put in a long blade, and sawed off all the old posts level with the concrete. All of them were rotten at ground level. We moved things over and opted to dig new holes with a good manual posthole digger and what we call a spud...a sharp, flat blade on a long straight handle. It makes short work of cleaning out a posthole...



What made things annoying was on the third new hole, we found the 16" hole they dug to get rid of the leftover concrete! As a result one of the posts is only 7' away from it's neighbor, but it's no problem.

The plan is to proceed with framing the fence tomorrow and put up new 6' cedar fenceboards after that. At the rate we're going we may be almost done by next weekend....

On another note, one of our cherry trees dropped an enormous branch in the yard on Friday, and upon examination it is clear that the core of the tree is rotted, and is going to have to come down, and soon. I did some stress relief on it over the weekend between showers, but a friend of mine is going to help me take it all the way down, salvage what we can for stove wood and dispose of the rest.

On yet another note, I have a big, nasty, stinking, filthy opossum under my deck, and I had to rent a trap to to catch that nasty bugger and send him someplace where both of us will be a lot happier....I baited it with catfood and covered it with a tarp, and I have no doubt he'll come out eventually. This will be the seventh 'possom I've dispatched since we moved here...

Cheers everyone, and I hope your gardens are all doing well!

[satan69]

South FL Update: I just did a 2nd spraying of Roundup.. Getting ready for our Sept 15th planting date.. It will be rototilled by sept 1

[satan69]

try these.. I had really good luck with them in the spring garden, Huge vines and fruit

http://www.ferry-morse.com/product_detail.aspx?id=1970

[greeneyes]

What I have read, is that it often has to do with watering. If tomatoes don't receive much water for a while, and then all of a sudden receive a lot, the extra water can cause splitting.

Consistent watering of equal amounts avoids the issue, but hard to do when you have a variable climate.

[rightly_dividing]

Thanks for the info
I use a drip irrigation system on a timer, and in the Tx drought, there has been no rain to add to this. The splits are not affecting anything except their appearance. This was just a curiosity for me. This is my first ever crop of RIPE tomatos, so I am just a newb mater grower.

[greeneyes]

Me too. Last year was the first year I grew anything. All my tomatoes were in pots, so I watered them pretty consistently. Hubby’s maters were way out in the back, and got no extra water.

He had lots of cracks, and I did the research to see what was happening. Most of what I know is just from research.

[tubebender]

You do good work and take great photos! How are you chickens doing? I catch 3 skunks for every possum I trap and a occasional raccoon. We had rain all around us but just a drizzle in the yard that totaled 2/10 in two days.

It’s been maddening here as our ISP has been down for 3 two hour periods today because they are “upgrading the system” but they never give you credit for the down time.

[Bean Counter]

The chickens are doing very well, and we are well over 900 eggs so far this year. I’m particularly pleased with how well my on-ground composting of chicken straw and waste is doing. No smell, no flies, and some of the best compost I have ever had access to.

The only problem this year is the lack of heat. We have had exactly 3 days this year where the temps exceeded 80 degrees. This week it will stay in the high seventies, and we are getting unusual amounts of rain this month. No complaints about that, but it is unusual....

[rightly_dividing]

Your garden is looking good. The side of the house area came out great.

A sawzall is a life saving tool. With the proper blade, few things with stand in it's way. I have taken down some trash trees with mine and have several that are going to go under the blade at our present location.I have even cut a car in half with a metal cutting blade.

The neighbor that you are building the fence with, is that the problem neighbor that you have written about in other posts? If it is, what brought about his change of attitude?

[rightly_dividing]

I tried to grow tomato in pots one time after being frustrated with my attempts in the ground. I did not have any success, but with all this talk on this weeks thread of growing cuttings from tomato plants, we are thinking of growing a few in pots in our garage using our grow lights. Maybe we can get fresh tomatos in the winter. Wouldn’t that be a treat?

[Eeyore4651]

Thanks for the tip on cutting's. We have done that with philodendron's for years but didn't think the tomato plant would do that, so we just made a cutting to try it. We have never grown tomato's before this year and we decided to try the topsy turvy just for fun.

We are getting lots of blooms but no fruit. The temp is over 100 degrees every day here in Kansas. Any other tips that you have would be greatly appreciated.

[Red_Devil 232]

Wow! Deja vu to last year when I reported about 40 or so law enforcement vehicles speeding past my house. It just happened again but maybe only 20 or so vehicles this time - moving very fast sirens blaring!

[greeneyes]

Home grown tomatoes in the winter are quite a treat, as I found out last winter. I grew mine inside in the basement in front of my patio door which faces south west.

My computer and work desk are in that same area, so when the days were short, I turned on a T5 grow light for the plants, but it was good enough for me to use at the work desk too, so I did not need to turn on the incadescent bulbs.

Our garage would be too cold for tomatoes, and we would have to have the grow lights on for a longer period, so it works out better for us in the house.

I wish I had a garage size green house with solar and wind power to provide the right temps - Then I could grow everything all year round. LOL.

[Augie]

Is it the variety with the Green Shoulder and cracking near the stem end?

PC will do that some, but typically not so much as a Brandywine.