Vegetable Gardening

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I used fabric mulch and I was very happy.
No "grass and weeds rooted all thru it" whatsoever.
What landscape fabric did you use ? (link, please.)


If you want plants, even the big box stores like Walmart and Home Depot and similar are offering some of the common varieties of open-pollinated tomatoes at the proper planting times in the spring. So have you checked those sources? Plus you are almost sure to find some varieties at local plant nurseries.
As for seeds there are many online sources you can order from and the seed racks in the spring always contain at least Brandywine, Rutgers, Cherokee Purple, and a few others. It all depends on what variety you are looking for?
As for growing conditions? A tomato plant is a tomato plant. :) They all need the same things regardless of which variety you grow or where you grow it. You can learn much more about all this over on the Growing Tomatoes forum here.
Dave


Did you know that pelletized lime needs to be applied at a lower rate than bulk, powdered lime? The timing depends upon your soil type and if it was surface applied or tilled in.
Generally speaking, three to six months is considered a reasonable lag time for agricultural lime. Most gardeners or farmers that need to apply lime do so in the fall in preparation for spring planting.

Seeds sprout when the moisture and temperature is right. They don't wait until they're near the surface. If they 're buried deeply when the sprout, tough nuts. That being said, if the air is warm and the soil is cold, seeds could be induced to sprout by being closer to the surface. I suspect that won't end up being a big deal, though.

lizdh - weeding is a fact of life in gardening. Personally, I enjoy the all the activities associated with gardening, including weeding, within reason. It's just another way of getting close to the earth. But as you continue to hoe, mulch or whatever, the seed bank in the soil will deplete. If you never let a weed produce seed you will gradually have fewer to deal with.

I stored a tromboncino last year that I had set aside as an extra for seeds in case something happened to the first one. It lasted until sometime in June or July before getting soft in August. All I did was to wash off the surface dirt and put it on the counter in my coolish pantry.

The results of my soil test are in and...
i still can't get them bc the place I went won't email me the results! Haha (I'm pretty sure they just want me to come in so they can sell me some stuff). In the meantime I've started a little container garden (3 of those tarp fabric pots) and am enjoying it so thinking I may just go that direction.
Someday I'll have a day off work when the garden center is open and I'll get my test results and see what's going on :). The raised bed for now has turned into a convenient spot for a compost heap...

Wow, you pay for a test and they won't send you the result? They also sell amendments to fix soil problems? You might be careful about those results. I'd rather have an independent tester that isn't out to make money on problems that their test identifies.

Is this squash any good? We planted Table Queen Bush Acorns this year and we got early, small, not sweet but a delicious nutty flavor that we really enjoyed. We wanted to plant the same thing next year but Johnny's doesn't have it. I do see they have this bush squash. Does it have a similar nutty flavor? PM resistance is good as PM eventually killed all my acorns.
They have two other "semi-bush" varieties.... not sure what "semi-bush" is but we need these to be bush to fit into the space allocated.
What about Table Princess they have at Pinetree... what's the difference to Table Queen?
I think I am going to need to order from Pinetree.... Johnnys has some awesome varieties but too expensive to buy everything there.
This post was edited by Peter1142 on Sat, Dec 6, 14 at 11:24

In principle, all tomatoes are perennial. If you can keep them protected from the frost, they will continue to grow the next year. They are, fundamentally, non-hardy perennials. So effectively they become annuals. Certainly determinate types probably won't produce, though, in the second year. As to self-seeding, it you take a ripe tomato and plant it, you'll probably get seedlings coming up the next spring.
I've not kept them going multiple years myself, and I've heard it said that in order to coax fruit out of it the second year, you can't let temps go below 60F. Seems unlikely that would happen in SC. This is a greenhouse proposition in most places.I think EPCOT center has a tomato tree that has been growing for many years, and is enormous and enormously productive every year. I understand you need to pull the tomatoes off promptly, as once they get very ripe, they signal the plant that fruiting is done.

Agree with Dan. Any indeterminate variety tomato - of which there are literally several thousands - is a perennial IF you can provide the right growing conditions/weather/protection as needed. But most find it to not be worth the effort when putting in new plants is so easy to do.
And all tomato plants will readily re-seed themselves even under less than ideal conditions.
< The fruits were medium sized, the plants large and the fruits on the sweeter side for a tomato. Does anyone have any idea of what type this might have been?>
So unfortunately there is no way to know what tomato variety it may have been. Assuming they were red then if you scout any of the common tomato databases you'll easily find well over 500 possible varieties that are "medium sized fruit, large plants, known for sweet taste".
If indeed they re-seeded themselves and bred true year after year then they must have been an open-pollinated variety, not a hybrid. But even that doesn't reduce the possibilities by much.
South Carolina Extension recommends the following varieties but only a few of them are open-pollinated.
- Better Boy Hybrid, Better Bush Hybrid Improved, Big Beef Hybrid, Celebrity Hybrid, Early Girl Hybrid, Park's Whopper Hybrid, Rutgers, Bush Goliath Hybrid, Brandywine, Manalucie, Homestead





I grow purple for summer, and Gigante for winter. Gigante gets huge (needs one and a half foot spacing) and still does not get woody. Purple I direct seed, Gigante I seed in flats and transplant. Will be interesting to find out if in your area you can grow these all winter.
Our favorite way to eat it is peel, slice thin, and dip in Annie's Goddess dressing :)

Planted the giant variety in mid feb, morning sun till almost noon, harvested for 4th of july. Still delicious and not woody at all.
TIP: don't plant spinach near it, maybe that is why it took so long to grow as i thought it was spinach and kept harvesting the leaves for 6-8 weeks before noticing a little bulb at the base.
New raised bed, but used less organic matter to see if there would be a difference. I learned my lesson, don't pinch on incorporating the organic
This kohlrabi recipe got great reviews at a dinner party. I also used purple zebra carrots and made the harissa too.
http://food52.com/recipes/14545-kohlrabi-and-carrot-salad-with-harissa


laceyvail -- thanks very much for the planting info. I've actually been seeding and planting out even earlier, which I guess would be appropriate given the cooler temps. I'm at almost 3K feet in the Monongahela National Forest in the mountains .
I think I'll take your idea of row covers when they're young -- those cabbage worms really did a number on them this year. Or I might even think about Bt
Does it look like any will survive?
I'd be tempted to spray with clorox! (I had one of those grandmothers who did everything with clorox :) )
elisa, I use row covers for all the brassicas, spring, summer and fall; I think they work great. I'm an organic gardener and have been for almost 50 years. I don't know how we managed without row covers!