Drew Lawson wrote:
So I went out to the garden to check on just how much of a disaster
it is (and it is), and discovered a double handful of ripe Black
Plum tomatoes.
I'd expected the tomatoes to be struggling, as I still haven't
cleared the tall weeds that are near them. But they seem to be
thriving on the neglect. Two of the cages appear to have leaf spot,
but also have healthy new growth. So now that I've sprayed for the
fungus they should recover nicely.
it's been such a strange year this season that i'm glad to see
anything on the tomato plants at all. it will be two weeks or
longer yet before we start seeing ripening. disease pressure
here also is starting off. i won't spray or pull leaves off or
mulch, i've tried all those approaches and it makes no sense for
me to bother. the plants all end up looking bad by the end of
the season but they've got fruits and we get results enough and
that is fine for me. i don't want to use fungicides in general
because all you are really doing is selecting for fungi that
can survive being poisoned and that's not a good thing. the
best soil community creatures for dealing with fungi are worms
as they are bacteria factories and the bacteria and fungi have
been in competition for millions of years. i vastly prefer to
let them keep sorting it out. :)
i hope for resistant plants enough instead and in past years
we've had some that have done better than other years. the
past two years the plants weren't as resistant as the plants
we previously (all are beefsteak varieties).
Although the plants got in the ground late, this is about normal
for first pickings for me. In a week or two I may be wondering why
I planted so many. I will probably dry some and see if I ever make
use of them. And put up some plain sauce -- I normally do a seasoned
pasta sauce with meat, but have lots on the shelves.
we had flowers pretty quickly after the plants went in the
ground but i removed the first flowers as those tomatoes are
usually very hard to pick off the plants as they are so wedged
in the branches and the tomato cages. this is the first time
in many years i did that just to see if it makes that much of
a difference. the plants are putting on some fruits now so
the bees have been doing their thing. i see some of the native
bees working those flowers, but also some good rains will ding
the flowers enough to get them to set fruits. and in a pinch
if it is hot and dry i'll give the plants a good watering as
we have to keep some water on the clay soil here or it will
start cracking and it puts too much stress on the plants
(which leads to BER later).
it's raining now so it's all working out ok so far.
I also want to experiment with some small batches of ketchup. I
bought a bottle months ago and it is so sweet that I can't use it.
Nothing yet for the beans or cucumbers, except for returning rogue
vines to the appropriate cages. Lots of cucumber blossoms, though.
And a couple finger-sized fruit. (Probably more hiding, but I
didn't look long.)
cucumbers here were always productive and ended up having
more than we could eat or give away. we decided to not grow
any this year at all as we needed the space for other things.
beans i need to pick and cook some up, but i'm not picking
in the rain. Monday it is.
the chipmunks got most of my pea seed harvest. they hadn't
bothered these peas at all when i planted them last year so i
wasn't thinking i had to keep that close an eye on them and i
had a nice crop of seeds drying down on the plants. had i
known i could have picked the pods a few weeks ago and dried
them inside where it is safer... :( ah, well, learned that
lesson...
i was really disappointed the other day when i went to
pick some fresh pods for eating and saw all the damage of the
little boogers eating all the seeds out of the pods and
leaving all those pods behind. i salvaged what i could and
got enough seeds to dry down all the way and so i can
replant for next year but i was really looking forwards to
having enough seeds to share with other people. i really
like these peas -- so do the critters. now that the pea
pods and seeds are gone to tempt them i hope they don't
switch over to the beans, but i'll have to keep an eye on
things and have the air rifle handy. i've kept the
population down to a reasonable size this year so this
caught me by surprise. always sumpthin'... :) we've had
moles running all over this year under the mulch and
gravel and it's hard to trap those when you don't really
have any open garden spaces nearby that they've gone into.
songbird
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