Weekly Gardening Thread Vol. 24, June 15, 2012

Free Republic | Red_Devil 232

[Red_Devil 232]

Weekly Gardening Thread

Good morning gardeners. JustaDumbBlonde has been very busy lately and asked me to post this weeks thread for her. She felt bad about not being able to respond to posts on last weeks thread.

I hope all of your gardens are doing well. My little 6 x 6 raised bed tomato patch is coming along fine. It has benefited from a couple of good rain showers in the last couple of weeks.

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This picture was taken at about 3:30 pm yesterday. The shade starts moving on to the tomato patch at about 3 pm and it gets full sun, 8 hours, up until then. I think the shade will be beneficial as the summer heats up.

Come on over and visit me at Beer Thirty (5:30 CDT) on the Homebrewing thread.

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.

Weekly Gardening Thread

Good morning gardeners. JustaDumbBlonde has been very busy lately and asked me to post this weeks thread for her. She felt bad about not being able to respond to posts on last weeks thread.

I hope all of your gardens are doing well. My little 6 x 6 raised bed tomato patch is coming along fine. It has benefited from a couple of good rain showers in the last couple of weeks.

">

This picture was taken at about 3:30 pm yesterday. The shade starts moving on to the tomato patch at about 3 pm and it gets full sun, 8 hours, up until then. I think the shade will be beneficial as the summer heats up.

Come on over and visit me at Beer Thirty (5:30 CDT) on the Homebrewing thread.

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.

">

[Red_Devil 232]

Weekly Gardening Thread (Catalog Fever) Vol. 1 Jan 6, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Seeds) Vol. 2, January 13, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread Vol. 3, January 20, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (U.S. Hardiness Zones) Supplemental Vol. 1
Weekly Gardening Thread (Soil Types) Vol. 4, January 27, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Vacation) Vol. 5, February 03, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Vacation) Vol. 6, February 10, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Vacation?) Vol. 7, February 17, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Home Sweet Home) Vol. 8, February 24, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Soil Structure Part 1) Vol. 9, March 2, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Transplanting Tomatoes) Vol. 10, March 9, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Useful Links) Vol. 11, March 16, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread -- Vol. 12, March 23, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread -- Vol. 13, March 31, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Happy Easter!) Vol. 14, April 6, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread Vol. 15, April 13, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread Vol. 16, April 20, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread Vol. 17, April 27, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread Vol. 18, May 4, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread Vol. 19 (Getting Projects Done) May 11, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Harvesting Wheat) Vol. 20, May 18, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread Vol. 21 (Keywords) May 25, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread Vol. 22 (Keywords 2) June 1, 2012

[Gabz]

Good morning, Red! I’m in need o more coffee this morning, then I think I’ll go do some work outside before it gets too hot!

[CynicalBear]

>> I think the shade will be beneficial as the summer heats up.<<

Last year the only tomatoes that produced through fall were the ones I put a shade cloth over. I planted a total of 24 tomato plants last year. By July they were beginning to look pretty bad. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong but thought to try shading some of them to experiment. The six plants I put shade cloth over returned to healthy vibrant fruit bearing plants and those that were not covered pretty much died. Those that were covered produced well until the first frost. This year I’m covering them all. It was 60% shade cloth. I'm near Aiken, SC to give a perspective on latitude.

[Ratman83]

Good morning Red, my lettuce bolted and became bitter so I yanked out about ten plants. Last weekend I planted the rest of my raised beds with peas, beans, carrots, beets, celery, cucumbers and melons. Planted late this year, I hope everything does well in the soon to come heat.

[Red_Devil 232]

Last year was hot and I had to provide shade for my tomatoes also.

[rightly_dividing]

Good morning Red, Your maters are looking good! Hope you had plenty of rain as we did, 5in last weekend and 6in Wed.

I have a problem on one of my tomatos, since I have only one sucessful tomato season under my belt, I do not know what the affliction is or what to do about it, but I do have a picture:

[MissMagnolia]

Anybody had any experience with this stuff? I like the fact that you don't have to reapply every 30 days or whatever. So far this year, we haven't had too many problems (deer didn't eat the day lily buds before they bloomed); however, there was a big doe in the back yard last night & there has been some nibbling on the hostas so that signals the beginning of the deer "invasion".

Protect Plants with Sweeney’s Deer Repellent

Sweeney’s Deer Repellent is packaged in a patented, weather-proof container that is specially designed to allow the scent to escape but keep rain and other elements at bay. Homeowners simply stake the containers in the ground or hang them in shrubs four to eight feet apart throughout the desired protection area. There’s no messy mixing, spraying or reapplication necessary.

Sweeneys Deer Repellent

[Red_Devil 232]

That could be damage from a bug feeding on the tomato, like a stink bug?

[greeneyes]

Thanks for the thread RD. Nice looking raised bed you have there. The only tomatoes that really produced anything last year for me also had shade.

May was unusually dry this year, so it looks like we are in for another long hot and dry summer. My tomatoes are doing well. Rest of the garden is doing well. I still have a final planting to do, but may cut that in half due to water concerns.

I only have about 30 gallons of water left in my rain barrels. Usually I have 3 or 4 - 30 gallon containers full going into July. So unless it rains, I will have to haul water if I plant all the beds.

May just throw out some clover seeds to use for soil improvement and forget some of the beds. We will get about 5 gallons a day sometimes 10 gallons from the air conditioner, when we turn it on.

This is the time I really miss lettuce. It has been so nice to just go out and collect enough for a salad each day, but the last lettuce was pulled a couple of weeks back after collecting seeds, which I will plant in the fall.

I have harvested all my garlic, and plan to plant more this fall. We have green onions out the wazoo, but we don’t use that many, so we are discussing whether to try and dehydrate them or not. We still have a lot of dehydrated green onion powder left over from last year.

Have a great weekend everyone. God Bless.

[Augie]

We got a nice rain shower this week here in Central Missouri. Not enough to catch us up, but better than nothing. We’ve had a whopping 1” at my place since the 5th of May.

[rightly_dividing]

I am clueless. By posting early I am hoping for an answer and a fix. We have a number of maters ripening so we are on eadge about this. The same thing was happening in Mobile to our maters when they were still green. I never got a ripe mater in Mobile.

Anway, I am off to Lowes for the last supplies to finish my long needed utility trailer re-flooring. Then I will have no excuse not to haul all of wife's landscape project materials! I am trying to get all of her projects up to date so that I can spend some time next year refinishing my old car.

[djf]

Might need calcium.

Tomatoes are very sensitive to not getting enough calcium, which can be a problem if you gave acidic soil, that leaches the calcium away.

[Red_Devil 232]

Beautiful morning sun.

[VF-51vnv]

Sometimes wasps bite into a ripe tomato to cause that. There are two ways to fix that problem. One is Seven (7) dust,just sprinkle on veggies and leaves. Just be sure to wash them before eating. Second trick that I found was get them before the bugs do. Once they starting turning color, pull them off the vine and sit them in a window sill that gets some sun. Be careful though they, do ripen very quickly.Hope this helps

[trisham]

Nice work!

[MtnClimber]

G’morning. The apple trees are growing. I had chipmunks get into the house and eat much of what I started early. Time to get the surviving plants planted. It is really dry this year. A big forest fire about 40 miles north of here.

[rightly_dividing]

I had a soil test done before the season, and added the recomemended amount of Calcium.

[bgill]

That spot looks like a bug has been dining on your tomato. Nothing to worry about unless he’s got a bunch of friends.

Most of my garden is shaded but that doesn’t really help in 100 degree weather. Tomatoes, corn, onions and beans are doing fine. Lettuce and greens have bolted. Gave up on the squashes and pulled them up so the garden is looking bare already. Maybe I’ll try again for fall.

Tip - don’t throw out the spring onion tops. Chop and freeze them. It’s so easy to throw in a handful when cooking.

Was given a bag of little cling peaches so there are now 6 quarts of chunks in the freezer. The pits and skins yielded 6 half pints of peach butter and 7 half pints of jelly. Hubby sampled the foam and says the butter tastes like Christmas, yum!

[TASMANIANRED]

Very nice looking raised bed.

Leveled and everything.

I built 2 more yesterday , but ran out of daylight before I could get them filled.

The promised rain slipped past us so I had to get out and water.