23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Tomatoes will surprise you! They can withstand mighty close quarters and still deliver. If you don't have space in the ground, but you do have a hanging planter or a bushel basket and a sunny spot somewhere indoors or outside, prepare to grow your own tomatoes!
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zensojourner - They may be our plants, but it is we who are living in their world. I remember back when she was just a cute, cuddly little tomato seedling. She is so demanding now, always talking down to me...
Drew51 - Thanks for the information. Can I assume that if those two varieties are thin-skinned a person does not have to remove skins as part of the processing?
Yes I would be interested in a trade sometime this winter. I am always on the lookout for varieties that would impart a more robust flavor for my sauces. Modern hybrid types such as are in that last photo I posted are wonderful for their production and uniformity, but I find their flavor to be quite bland and insipid. Not that I am complaining about getting free stuff...
I use modern hybrids as well as my own oxheart paste types that I have been developing as bulk ingredient for processing. I add heirlooms for flavor. Seems to work. The meaty and dry/hollow oxhearts and large pastes really cut down on processing time regarding evaporation/thickening of sauces.
What I am always on the lookout for are varieties with above average concentrated flavor. I am starting to think it logical to seek out authentic Italian varieties.
As for naming that tomato variety, I never get around to thinking about that, plus for all I know it already has a name and I just do not know it. It does get old having reference names such as "Unknown Tall Indeterminate Cherry Type that Produces 1.75 Diameter Fruit that Compare Better to Beefsteaks than to Cherries, Grows Well in Containers". LOL
Just for fun, how about the name "Icarus"?
-Tom
Bad genetics in that plant -- your others look great. What variety did you grow? I have never gotten off types in hybrid BS seeds, but with an OP variety from a major seed company, I grew out one plant that turned out to be a rutabaga, and another that looks like a B sprout but has a naked stalk, no buds at all.
Deer will eat the Jerusalem artichokes... only reason why mine are only 5 ft tall is because the deer had been grazing on them.
My deer don't touch my garlic or onions... (in the dead of last winter only thing green was my garlic and they didn't come close to them of course they ate up the arborvite in my front yard).
I'd try hot peppers and cherry tomatoes... cherry/small fruited toms can tolerate a less than ideal amount of sun. I have small thai chillis that I planted in the wrong spot one year and they got shaded out pretty badly... the plant did fine though. (BTW these are two that I grow out in the open not in my deer protected area)
If you able, buy new seedlings, plant them in more sunny location, but keep old ones where they are. You can compare how they do and will know for next year what to do. In my experience morning sun is the best sun plants can get, but I still plant in the areas that doesn't have it - I just give a better spot to the plants I care more about.
It isn't uncommon to notice a second wave of squash. What happens is the plants grow to a certain size to support fruit, then the fruit are set and most of the energy of the vine is directed to maturing the fruit. Once the fruit are either removed or the fruit are fully ripe and no longer an energy drain, the plants will attempt to produce more.
That seems reasonable. It may be just a coincidence, but I notice that in this "second wave" I have a lot more female flowers. In my original crop the M/F ratio was probably around 10/1, while now it's about 2or3/1. Not sure what would account for that. My plants seem a lot happier making female flowers.
It is definitely chickweed, not just similar to it. There's absolutely no doubt about it. Chickweed is a widespread weed around much of the world. It's capacity for spreading by seed is the reason for its global success. It is not at all surprising it's found its way to your garden. It could have come in the soil of your transplants or arrived from neighouring areas. Or it might have been in the seedbank of your garden already.
I would like to grow melons next year, I tried a regular Crenshaw this year but it just grew too slowly and the weather wasn't very cooperative. The pumpkins were turning orange and I had one tiny melon. Any other recommendations for next year? I will check out the Galia ones, thanks for the suggestion.
Galia's have flavor more like Honeydews and are my favorite type of melon. Passport is the earliest variety that I am aware of several days earlier than Visa. 75 day Maturity is about as fast as they get. An option is the Earli-dew honeydew melon at 80 days. The Alaska muskmelon has a 65 day DTM.
Here is a link that might be useful: dill's melons
I haven't had good luck with bell peppers so I seldom grow them but this year II used free seeds. I took seeds from a beautiful yellow bell pepper bought at the supermarket. The two plants I grew had 7 peppers each, one had red and the other yellow. They were thick walled but smaller than the original. They are still flowering so if I had started them sooner I would have gotten more.
Next year I'll try some of the posted suggestions.
Sunnibel, the growth in my garden is mostly 2-3' tall, over 6' in some places, with a lot of tall bushes & vines. If I didn't mow before tilling, the growth would just clog the tines. The flowers I allow to grow throughout the garden have some really tough stalks, especially the cleome.
That is very pretty! Do those self seed or do you plant them each year (the flowers)? I guess I mostly remove the bigger stuff by hand and compost it, till in the smaller stuff after its mostly brown. But my winter comes on a lot slower than yours! :)
I picked Jewel sweet potatoes yesterday and they turned out nice. I have a few plants that I planted late in the season and they are well behind those just harvested. Can I keep then buried through the winter and use them as a source of slips for next year? Will they last? Any special protections beside a thick mulch?
Tom -- I think generally sweet potatoes are not very good when first dug, especially from a zone 4 or 5 garden. (in NC I've had them fresh dug and sweet.) I believe that if you cure the potatoes (80 degrees and high humidity) for a couple weeks, then store in a cool place, they will get MUCH sweeter. I actually have to keep my sweet potatoes more at room temperature after curing because if I put them in cold storage they get too sweet.
I'm glad you resurrected this thread--good info. I'm determined to grow my own slips this year -- I always end up with the mail order ones half dead before I can plant them.
Are you not allowed to use organic pesticides either? Because neem, spinosad, and pyrethrums will pretty much take care of nearly anything trying to eat your garden, bugwise.
If its squash bugs row covers will do the trick, if you can be sure they won't be "borrowed" away from your plants. I think by the time they start blossoming and you have to remove them, most of the squash bugs are gone.
Indeed I find DE is effective on a small scale. It also adds Ca to the soil which rarely goes amiss in the east.
Those who subscribe to the notion that malnourished plants are easily susceptible to insect attack sometimes pinpoint low S as the main issue.
Another strategy is to grow a crop in the general class but different enough that it may not suffer as much predation. Examples: cowpea is less favored by MBB than common beans; some kales and collards less favored by ICM than heading cabbage/broccoli/cauliflower; edible gourd is less susceptible to pests and some diseases than the three main squash species.