>Posted on 05/25/2019 6:57:33 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Our 'Greeneyes' has been FOUND, but she is having computer issues, so I have been asked to keep the Weekly Garden Thread rolling until she returns.
That said, I will be posting once a week, and I will TRY to stick to her schedule of a Friday Night/Saturday Morning Weekly Post, but it depends upon what is going on here at MY farm. (It's Spring; it's BUSY!)
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you.
This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked.
It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table Recipes, Preserving, Good Living - there is no telling where it will go and... that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us!
NOTE: This is a once a week ping list. We do post to the thread during the week. Links to related articles and discussions which might be of interest to Gardeners are welcomed any time!
“...and here I am not even finished planting...”
I only have cool-weather crops in, but they are living but not thriving with all of this rain and overcast skies.
I’m going to wait until this coming weekend for tomatoes and peppers and all of my annual flowers. I don’t even have my potatoes in, it’s been so wet!
Really, REALLY frustrating season so far - but the grass sure is growing fast which is keeping the mule happy - and my mower is in the shop with a busted belt! Aarrgghh!
>OOO those are Japanese beetles. If you have a dog or cat, please check the roofs of their mouths, as those nasty, sticky, biting creatures adhere to our pets upper mouth roofs.
These poor, poor people who kneel at the foot of climate change, have no idea Who put climates together and has allowed the climate to do as it wishes for millions of years. I sometimes wonder if He gets a chuckle from watching these climate changers.
Lily Leaf beetle
Japanese Beetles
We get Japanese Beetles here in July, and they are not the distinctive orange that these are.
I knocked off the lily leaf beetles into a jar of soapy water as recommended, scraped off the eggs, and sprayed the lilies with Neem oil and they are recovering beautifully.
Since I only have two lily plants, I will just be vigilant.
My garlic is ENORMOUS!!!!!!!
It’s going to be a fantastic crop.
Once winter finally broke here in CNY, things have been growing like crazy. My tomatoes doubled in size the first week they were in.
My concern with them, though, is tomato blight.
I’ve had it every year and it’s hit my crop pretty good. Everyone around here gets it. It needs to let up on the rain some.
I saw a farmer mowing grass already. It’s usually June when they do that. This is very early. Hopefully it’ll be a good year for the farmers here.
I think the apple crop will be good this year as well. No late freezes to kill the blossoms. That’s their big problem.
D-R-Y in East Tennessee...no rain in sight. Container gardening rocks!
You might be interested in ‘edible landscaping’. Lots of good videos on that on youtube.
“My concern with them, though, is tomato blight.”
My tomatoes aren’t even IN yet, and I do get some blight if I don’t use a blight-resistant tomato variety, BUT - when mine at 18” tall or so, I remove the lower leaves and I make sure the plants are mulched well up to (but not against) the main stem.
The blight is a soil-born virus, so the more you can do to stop soil from splashing ON the tomato leaves, the better. Removing lower leaves helps a LOT, as does running your tomatoes so they are more ‘open’ and have better air circulation, especially in rainy weather. Also avoid over-head watering with a sprinkler - just water your tomatoes by hand a bit out from the base stem.
THEN, a number of times each season, when we have a 2-3 day period of dry weather, I use a copper spray on the lower 1/3 or so of the plant. Copper is organic; it won’t get into the fruit, and we humans have copper in our systems, anyway.
This is a barrier that keeps the blight from moving UP the plant due to soil splash.
Try it. My system works really well; have used it for years! :)
https://tomatodiseasehelp.com/copper-sprays
Lots of great books by Rosalind Creasy on that subject, too!
https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/rosalind-creasy/226104/
https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/rosalind-creasy/226104/
I would LOVE 48 hours of DRY, LOL!
I found a recipe online for fighting the blight from a nursery.
They suggest not watering the pant but watering the ground. Problem is, I can’t control the rain or the dew in the morning.
I use landscape fabric around mine but they still get the blight.
The recipe is:
3 Tbsp baking soda
1 G water
1 Tbsp cooking oil of your choice.
3 drops dish washing detergent
If the blight still grows bump up to 3 1/2 Tbsp baking soda.
Spray only in early morning or evening, not in the middle of the day.
Spray once a week both the tops and bottoms of the leaves until the leaves are dripping.
The baking soda changes the pH to just alkaline enough that the fungus will not colonize.
Yep. That works to some extent, too. I have had excellent results with the copper spray, though.
And the reason to mulch heavily and prune lower branches (that don’t produce tomatoes, anyway) IS to keep heavy rains from splashing soil up onto the leaves and spreading the disease.
If you’re always growing tomatoes in the same spot, that’s an issue, too. You can cover the soil in that area with black plastic and ‘cook’ it for a season, but then you’ll need to add compost and other amendments because cooking it kills off The Good Stuff, too. :(
With blight, as with war and football, the best Defense is a good Offense. :)
I was going to solarize my soil but then realized that as we are planning on moving next year, I likely will not have time for a garden anyways,s o I might as well do the best I can this year and be ready to skip a year of canning.
>:(
“...and be ready to skip a year of canning.”
That’s not always a bad thing. It would recharge my batteries for the following season! :)
This season I am growing these tomatoes:
Chef's Choice Orange:
La Roma III:
Heirloom Marriage Cherokee Carbon:
Black Cherry:
Defiant:
New Yorker:
Bella Rosa:
I also put in an extra Early Girl and an extra Bush Champion, as I grew those out for a friend who gardens in pots.
All of my tomatoes this season are Determinate, with the exception of the Cherry, which is in a pot and the Chef's Choice Orange and the Cherokee Carbon 'marriage.' I want to see how much space I can save with Determinates, because my tomatoes usually take up WAY too much space in the garden. All have great disease resistance needed in what I predict to be a cool/wet growing season, and all were from seed thanks to Jung's or Totally Tomatoes (also owned by Jung's!)
I did put in ONE Bonnie Brand plant and that was a Cherokee Carbon - I wanted to see how their variety did versus my home grown. To me, THIS is FUN, LOL!
This weekend I will plant out my Peppers and show you pictures of the varieties I'm planting.
Have you ever grown the Amish Paste Tomatoes you sell?
They look interesting.
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