Posted on 06/05/2015 8:42:34 AM PDT by US Navy Vet
Will Do.
You know, I went as far as ordering the grafting clips to graft my Krims to the Beaufort / Maxi(Beau)fort but didn’t when upon reading further I discovered grafting does not stop the wilt from getting into the scion.. Seems the cultivar still passes the fungus onto the scion.. Please, please tell me I misread..
BTW - I understand the Japanese developed a “super” cultivar though the name slips my mind. Seems they’re like a buck per seed...
A blogger once said he let a Beaufort grow until it produced fruit. He said the fruit tasted like a men’s bathroom smells three days after a Led Zeppelin concert.. I thought that was terribly witty..
That’s good info.. Thanks.
My plants usually get about 12 feet tall and that’s not from lack of sun (I’ve had Black Cherry maters get 20 feet tall).
My garden gets about 12 hours sun during the summer.
I find those five feet metal stakes (you get in outdoor fencing at HD or Lowe’s) work great. I tie-wrap a wooden mater stake onto the top of the metal stake when the plant height exceeds the height of the metal stake.
I then secure the entire row(s) (of about 12 plants each row) with the heaviest gauge metal stake (8 feet tall??) - one heavy stake on each end - to the heavy gauge stakes I put about a 5 feet piece of metal pipe (the kind used for electrical wiring) -
I secure the pipe to the heavy stake with a hose clamp - I then run a (cheap - Big Lots) nylon rope from metal pipe to metal pipe (each end of the row) - and then secure the top of each wooden stake to the rope with a single tie-wrap..
(I wish I knew how to post pics.. Ha!)
These sudden summer storms we get here in Georgia can sure pack a punch of serious wind and rain.. This method never fails..
BTW - I paint the wooden stakes and the end of the both gauges of metal stakes so they last for years and years..
Yes! That stuff is awesome. I mix 2 parts dirt with one part Black Kow and 1 part Mushroom compost.. DO NOT use HD mushroom compost.. It looks like crap that comes out of your gutters. The brand Lowe’s carries is “silken”.. It’s beautiful. It comes in a yellow bag, too.
Peruse the following to see if anything suits your needs.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=western+iowa+tomato+growing
I have one right now as an experiment in a five gallon pail of nothing but compost. It’s a heritage tomato that I have been growing now for 5 years. I started this seed the first of February this year inside and transplanted to the five gallon pail in my green house in late April. I trimmed it down to three vines and keep all lower branches on all three vines trimmed to within two feet of the top. I will pick the first three ripe tomatoes tomorrow but it now has 38 tomatoes on it and over 20 flowers. It gets 1 gallon of water per day which has dissolved hydroponic fertilizer in it. I also wash it weekly with 2 tbls of baking soda per gallon of water to keep blight off. I think I will reach my goal of getting over 100 tomatoes from that one plant.
I also grow heirlooms exclusively and had that problem as well until two years ago when I started washing them weekly with a solution of baking soda in water. I use one of those miracle grow fertilizer waterers and just put baking soda in it instead of fertilizer. Thoroughly drench the plant each week as well as the ground around it. I haven't had wilt or blight since I started that.
OMG!
You’re serious?
How much baking soda in the MG container?
I have several of those MG fertilizers..
Please, do tell..!
Yeah I’m serious! The amount you put in the container depends on how many plants you have to spray. I have about 100 tomato plants so I nearly fill the container with baking soda but it really doesn’t matter how much as long as their is undissolved soda in the container it’s getting the same dosage. I start washing them one week after setting them out and do it each week until it freezes and they are dead. I also wash the cucumber and potato plants as it works on them as well. Make sure you make the ground around them wet with the solution as well. One other tip, I cut off any branches that get splashed with dirt when it rains. Just to let you know how well it worked. The year before I started washing I lost every plant by late July. The next year when I started washing I didn’t lose one plant and had no sign of blight.
Tomatoes are basically a weed. With the kind of soil and climate we have here in Iowa, about all you have to do is dig up some ground, throw in some seeds, or bury a plant in a hole, keep the weeds out, and wait for ripe tomatoes. :-)
This is the best news I’ve had in YEARS.. I’m totally stoked..
Yeah, I have about the same (100) number of plants.. I’ll start the treatment in the AM.. I am, again, stoked.. Someone once posted FReepers are the smartest people on the planet.. Maybe I need to start contributing after some 20 years of “Lurking”.
I read your FR homepage - serious inspiration.
I lost my job just this past 01May after 36 year in IT support.. (I’m in good shape having ZERO bills for 15+ years(including mortgage, etc, etc, etc).
Thank you, thank you.. I do feel the LORD (YHWH) is leading me in a new direction.. Honestly..!
YHWH never fails us.. Bless you and yours.... \\\|///
Thank you.. I’ll definitely check the FR links. Can’t wait to “show off” my maters.. :-) You should see my Alabama Black Eye Butter Beans. There’s no finer example of the relationship between beans and Kudzu than the afore mentioned variety.
I started with those black pots that landscapers get plants in. I cut the bottoms out and bury them and filled them with compost so the first year I was restricted on how many plants I could have. Now I have a pretty good system of composting and have added several raised beds. We now grow most everything we eat.
It sounds like after that many years it's time to retire anyway! I pray God will bless whatever your future holds and a successful gardening season.
I forgot to ask you what do you do with that much fruit?
Me? Well, I give a LOT of fruit away. Canning is something I started last year.. Lotta fun - lotta work. I dry (dehydrate) a lot. The dried Krims are as SWEET as raisins.
Eat what we can and can what we can't. I only grow and can what will take us to the next season. The tomatoes are the biggest because we use the most of those. I drink tomato juice about every day if I have it. Then there is chilli, salsa, ketchup, spaghetti sauce, BBQ sauce, and all the other uses for tomatoes and tomato paste. I've been canning since I was a kid growing up with mom and dad. Everything we ate was home grown and preserved. I haven't done much drying but am currently building a solar dryer especially for the herbs. I started growing all the herbs for making baloney, sausage, hot dogs, and bratwurst last year but didn't have a good way to dry them.
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