There are knock-off brands, I think I have 'Schultz' brand on hand. 10-52-10 formulation. I used it on my hanging flower baskets and they look GREAT all season. I use it on Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Peppers - anything that blooms and sets fruit. Usually one dose when they start flowering is fine, then I go back to the 10-10-10 as needed the rest of the season. Good stuff!
In the future, I'll have to start using a little bone meal along with a bunch goat manure when readying beds. Ought to give me a good balance.
Sun should be out any time now, yep, sure thing, any time now.
Like Paul R, I got woken up by a thunder storm. Sounded like a half stick of dynamite going off right above the house at 2:20am. I started some coffee and laid back down until 3am.
Think I'll set up the rain bucket today. Anything to help make it stop raining. Would have been a good Spring to record the insane amount of rain we've had.
Reconfigured my drip lines again and managed to do a single line down both new beds where bean/melon seeds are sown. Once the 50' roll of drip line comes in, I'll turn those single lines into double.
I set up a drip schedule for 10 minutes run time at 8am, noon, 4pm and 8pm too keep those seeds moist. The bands where the seeds are were nice and moist this morning but not sopping wet. Will monitor today. I have shut off valves for each leg and have the double line to the established plants shut off because ... they don't need any water for a while - oops.
Didn't set a timer, clicked the On button and told myself I'd turn it back off in 45 minutes.... 24 hours and 240 gallons later.... pump still running .... I removed the On button and added the Pulse button and the pulse timer is now set for 45 minutes.(then I went and got more water) Now if I want to water on the fly, I can just hit Pulse. Something I just hadn't set up yet since moving the gadgets from the house to tunnel.
I decided I'm definitely building a shed against the NW end of the tunnel. Sat in the tunnel yesterday in full sun and decided I want some shade where I can sit and still be right there. Needs to fit my little tractor, a potting bench and this will end up in it. Gasket, some shelves and maybe a fresh coat of paint.
Circa 1949 - [Made Only by General Motors]. Being a Chevy/GMC fan, I had to save it from the dump about 35 years ago. Beer fridge was the plan but 35 years later, some gasket/paint/shelves seems more doable than transplanting modern fridge components into it.
The fridge will be something to keep all my electrical components and tunnel PC in and use for storage for tools, drip stuff etc. I'm sick of walking back and forth from shed to tunnel and this will solve most of that. If I want cold beer down there, I've got a little cooler and blue freeze packs.
I have 2 plum trees that blossomed early when there were no pollinators around. I ended up with about 20 plums. I have little coverings to put on them, but when I went to put them on I found that something had done something to them and they had congealed sap on the outside. Plum Curlio or Stink bugs, something like that. I just removed them and put them in the compost tumbler. (Figure the 110F temp should kill any pupating larvae of whatever it was.)
I have, well, had, some Schultz “Bloom Food” that is 12-24-12. Mice ate most of it.
https://www.amazon.com/Schultz-018065-Spf48270-Slow-Release-Fertilizer/dp/B01KKIJNVI
(I got mine on clearance at, IIRC, Wal Mart, or possibly Menards.)
Outside of the mice, this seems to work best, as expected, well in advance, and doesn’t promote “quick” blooms. For quick blooms I use the 10-52-10 stuff, or for, for example, Opo, which seems to be hard to coax into FEMALE blooms, I use straight “Super Phosphate” once the plant is over 10 ft. long, and maybe some ground up egg shells when planting, more a month later, and a bit more approx. when I apply the Super Phosphate.