Posted on 08/07/2021 5:31:07 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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“You’ll be swell, you’ll be great
Gonna have the whole world on a plate
Starting here, starting now
Honey everything’s coming up tomatoes!
Clear the decks, clear the tracks
You’ve got nothing to do but relax
Blow a kiss, take a bow
Honey everything’s coming up tomatoes!”
(The resource area is posted at the end of the the July 3-6 Gardening Thread beginning after post 112!)
This is the result of the 2 hours spent in the garden yesterday morning - heavy watering & most of the rest of the time was climbing in/out of cherry tomato branches, trying to get all the ripe ones picked.
We are actually having a nice rain day - flash flood warnings & there will be some downpours, but we've had a nice, steady, decent rain since I got up this morning (almost 3 hours now). That's the GOOD news .... BAD news is I hauled 2 large trailers full of trimmed maple branches (used a pole saw - some were pretty big) and evidently, where I was dumping them was chigger territory - I am just seriously eaten up with chigger bites .... as the saying goes .... "this too shall pass".
I am picking tomatoes and prepping for canning my first batch of sauce. I did buy some blight resistant seeds for next year.
I got all my garlic dug and it’s curing nicely.
The pumpkins are finally producing baby ones.
I have little mesh bags I made over my onion seed heads to save the seed for next year. The ones I’m most excited about at Stuttgarter. I got some onion sets last year and let a bunch go to seed.
Holy cow!! Did those onions store well!!!
I’m picking and drying herbs. Going to start prepping the used garlic bed for next year’s crop of whatever I plant there.
We’re also clearing invasive brush, autumn olive and invasive honeysuckle, and I”m buying native plants to replace them with.
I had a family of raccoons on our back porch last night. time to figure out how to permanently get rid of them.
Hot weather in Southern California - not unusual. The hot winds will set in soon and remain through September - so everything now is about preservation.
Still, harvesting wonderful figs and apples.
This is my Lucifer canna lily (hate the name):
My SIL sent me a package of giant zinnias for my birthday back in May - I scattered the seeds in the garden and got this:
Purple Jack plumeria is blooming (bought as a cutting for $40 about 10 years ago):
Not sure what this one's name is - I've had it for so long. It's putting on a show right now and smells wonderful:
Happy gardening!!
Holy Moly...Those look wonderful!
WE got that many lemons off of our relatively small lemon tree last year - so many lemons the trunk broke in half.
We put out 9 large bags of lemons at the end of our driveway and those disappeared quickly - we couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. My sister says where she lives lemons are around $1.00 each, but they are expensive to send.
I don’t think tomatoes would handle the shipping at all.
Here's are some examples of high tunnels.
Commercial Gothic style
Commercial hoop style
Small homemade version
The info I have is in a folder called High Tunnels inside the Agricultural folder here; https://permasteader.com/cloud/index.php/s/H8iLwmfLHiGFyjG along with a lot of other AG and Gardening info.
hightunnels.org is a good resource but doesn't want to load for me this morning.
I’m going to be packaging the cherry tomatoes in gallon zip loc bags & pick out the nicest large tomatoes to put in boxes & will then deliver to the 2 nearby fire stations. My brother’s cherry tomato plants did not do well this year - he’s 2 hours away, but will be here this weekend for a family event & asked me to save him some of the cherries, so they should all be gone soon. We’ll save some for my dad to snack on - he can’t help but grab a few every time he goes by the counter top since he has a sweet tooth & these are really sweet ... “Sungold” variety - first time I’ve grown them.
http://www.tomatodirt.com/sungold-cherry-tomatoes.html
“Sweetest tomato ever” and “Like a party in your mouth.” More than one gardener sings the praises of Sungold Cherry Tomatoes, a hybrid golden orange cherry tomato variety.
It is considered to be a cherry tomato classic because of its sweet and tangy flavor – “So sweet that even kids like it” says one gardener.
Add to that the fact that Sungold (sometimes written “Sun Gold”) produces abundant fruit until frost with very few vulnerabilities to disease and you may just want to try this tomato variety in your garden.
Pollard; Thank you!
I will if it’s suitable for Southern California gardens.
My dad tried for years to grow tomato verities he grew in Indiana - with little to no luck. We are too dry with little humidity. When he switched to verities more suitable to our climate he had tomatoes pouring out from everywhere. After that, he never had to plant cherry tomatoes again, they came up every year as volunteers and produced so many small, sweet tomatoes that we gave them away by the potful.
My brother grows the unusual types - purple, yellow and orange - with great results, heritage tomatoes too. They make a beautiful presentation when he slices them up and puts them on a plate.
Past example of contrast btwn a diseased plant on left and healthy on right (7-20):
And now:
Past (5-15):
6-6-1:
Present:
Thanks and glory be to God. Praying for a warm and sunnier August thru Oct.
Tremendous crop, praise God. Location?
If you in that spot where you have more than you can eat, but not so much that its worth your time and effort to can your produce its fun to give your produce away!
Good to hear. They can only help your health. Meanwhile as regards prepping: ‘Preppers’ Quietly Stock Up for the ‘Perfect Storm’ (thread)
So far, the bags/boxes of tomatoes have been met with smiles. One of the firefighters told me “this WILL get eaten!”. We’ve had to call them for my dad a couple of times so it’s nice to be able to do something for them and they do seem to appreciate home grown tomatoes.
Good crop this year! I have raised beds & initially filled with some good topsoil from an old brush pile in the back field. I have been amending with Leaf Gro compost for years & using Milorganite fertilizer in general & some Tomato Tone & dried milk (calcium to prevent blossom end rot) when I plant tomatoes.
This past year, I decided Leaf Gro was getting too expensive ... when I first started using it, the price was a bargain at about $3/bag ... now it’s over $5, so I started a leaf compost pile. I cannot turn it enough to keep it a “hot” pile, but as a “cold” pile, it should be decomposed enough to go in the raised beds this fall & by Spring, it will have decomposed even more.
The cherry tomatoes have taken over the 4’ x 10’ bed they’re in ... they’re out into the walkway & over the fencing I have to keep the crows/deer out. Trying to get to the ripe tomatoes requires some interesting contortions & stepping into/around the branches. The plants are so prolific, I may even cut some of the more “inconvenient” branches back for easier access. My Celebrity (full size) tomato plants are doing well, too.
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