Posted on 07/05/2013 1:06:42 PM PDT by greeneyes
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/johnny
That’s good news. Save the seeds of your little plants and start again next year.
I was out squishing squash bugs this morning. There is only one yellow squash plant left and four little winter squash plants. Dusted them with Sevin - that that you nasty little creatures! Not a single squash, but then there never are but I try every year.
None of the tomatoes are producing except one volunteer yellow pear. None have blooms and some haven’t grown much since being set out forever ago. About half are decent sized but not a bloom in sight. Last year, nothing but the yellow pears produced until the fall and then a freeze got them before they did much. Looks like it’ll be the same again this year.
Also, weeded (again, still, forever). You’d think eventually the weeds would cry uncle but they get worse ever year so it’s usually me whimpering in the corner. Did find another little tomato plant (probably ANOTHER volunteer yellow pear - geez, they’re prolific) amongst some weeds so he’s free to grow.
It’s already 90 degrees. We’re looking at more 100s this week. It’s no wonder the maters aren’t doing anything.
At the prospect of getting to expand the garden next year into an old driveway, I fiddled with a planting chart yesterday. Fun! I’m determined to get some berries again.
Unless the city officials object, you might try hanging some aluminum pie pans or old CD discs. They’ll flutter in the wind and maybe ward off the deer. Not guaranteeing anything but it’s free and worth a try.
We’re in the country so have tons of deer. They love people’s nice soft green lawns to birth their babies and camp out on cool shady porches. No, they’re not afraid of anything.
Also, you could pee around your plants so that you’ve “marked” your territory. Uh, maybe not do your thing in the middle of the city or you will have SWAT at your door but put it in a bottle so none of the neighbors know what you’re sprinkling around.
LOL! I’m learning that gardening is sorta like gambling. One little success provides the hook for us to go through all kinds of heartache hoping for The Payoff! Yet we persist (along with the weeds!)
I had not thought about saving the seeds. Good idea. That means I need to leave it on the plant until the pod dries up, right?
You seem to be describing the tomatoes I grew from seed. Good size (I guess! - new to tomato-ing)but a few flowers and not maters. The plants we got from Lowes are doing very well. I’m hoping we do get some kind of action from the ones I sprouted, but I surrender. Whatever!
Please keep us posted on your experiments, Johnny!
Oh, joy! Continuing prayers up for your continuing garden success!
Yes, just let them dry and pick out the largest ones. Put them in an envelope, label it with the date and variety and sae until next season. Check with your county agent or do a zip code thing on Burpee’s site to see if a plant needs to be started early indoors. Tomatoes and peppers need to be started very early indoors. Peas and squash, just plant in the ground after the last frost. It’s far cheaper to start from seeds.
:-D Thank you so much! And prayers up for your gardening efforts as well!
Thanks for walking me through that seed instruction, bgill. One of the cranberry bean pods is dry, so I can just pick it now, shell it, and place the beans in a jar with a date? I sprouted the plant from beans from the container of cranberry beans I had bought early 2013 at the health food store, so I don’t know how old those were.
I can certainly see how sprouting our own plants from seeds is cheaper, but I’m finding that the tomatoes I sprouted are just not doing anything exciting as yet. I have a few yellow flowers, but sometimes those shrivel. However, the plants we got from Lowes are going great guns!
I’d store the seeds in a paper envelope (like you’d mail a letter in) because the paper will allow air flow in case they aren’t completely dry. If they’re stored in a jar, any moisture in the seeds might cause them to mold. If you want to keep bugs out, then after a couple of months in the paper envelope you can put them in a baggie and long term store in the freezer or long term them in a jar.
I understand about the tomatoes. Mine, only the volunteers that popped up from the plants dropping tomatoes, planting themselves and overwintering are producing. My homegrown seedlings are very, very behind time because I had to start over 3 times due to two bad hail storms and 2+ floods that put gullies through the garden destroyed everything. I’m in Zone 8 so try to get tomato and pepper seeds started at Christmas. Of course, tomatoes don’t produce well in temps above about 95 and we’re looking at 100+ the rest of the week. Blah, it was already sweltering when I was watering this morning.
Oooh, the most wonderful tomatoes ever were my grandmother’s. She grew them down at the river bottom so they were almost aquaponic and fertilized with all the fishy river water. We’d go down and eat them right off the vine and wash the juice our faces in the river. She made the best tomato preserves! I think of her this time of year.
I get all dreamy imagining the idyllic scene at your Grandma’s....
;)
Major thunderstorm storm came through last night, around 2 AM. 1.9 inches in the garden gauge. About 1/4” on the basement floor. It blew in underneath the front door, and rain & small hail was bouncing off even the upper half of the door; and the door is set 3 steps up, 6 feet back from the porch eaves. We need every drop.
We have several inches of standing water in the gully behind the house, but surprisingly little damage to roads, trees, or the garden. Some of my newly emerged seeds got buried by washed dirt, rather than washed out; hoping they push back through it. I’m sure most of the unpicked peas have hail damage, so won’t be salable; breaks my heart that we’ll have to eat them. ;-) Too muddy to pick today, so they’ll be over mature “shellers” anyway.
At least the “half dollar size” hail NOAA radio said was coming stayed near Cottonwood Springs Reservoir, a mile & a half south of us. There were flash flood warnings issued with the storm warning, so I imagine the lake level rose somewhat. It was also claimed to be packing up to 80 MPH winds, and I believe it.
The high school Weatherbug station is reporting 1.12 inches in town; and peak gusts of 43 MPH; it was much wetter & windy here, but the hills between us and town must have wrung most of it out before it got there.
Congrats!
Thanks for the further instruction about seed saving! It makes sense.
I got a late start too because of the cooler than usual May.
I had not known that about >100 degrees being a problem. We have been having 90 degree weather lately, which oopses into 100 from time to time. I’m wondering if I should shade them a little.(They are easy to move, as they are in pots.)
Your grandmother’s tomatoes sound amazing. What wonderful memories.
:-D
Just getting ANY kind of harvest is a biggie!
1. Will my Sweet Potato chewed off remaining stem grow more leaves?
Two years ago rabbits (they get the blame at least) ate every single bean plant down to the ground except one I can only assume they were too full to eat—I assumed the beans were gone and would have to be replanted. But they sprouted and went ahead to produce heavily til frost— they were climbers so they produced til they froze that late fall.l I would wait a bit and see what happens. The plant ma come back.
Yes, those types of memories are rare and priceless.
As to tomatoes......I personally am behind the eight ball. I grew mine from seed this year. Having learned from my mistake the year before, I planted them in Feb - third week. HOWEVER, I underestimated the extreme importance of having GOOD soil pots ready to transplant them into, I had crap soil. The plants did little, but did stay alive. Rather static.
They are perfectly beautiful now, but about 3 weeks behind where they need to be. I will not give up hope, but I won’t expect much either.
Such a shame. They really are the prettiest plants we have had in the past four years.
We all started somewhere along the line at zero, ya know?
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