Garden 2024

Kathleen said:

Though I have not had this issue in the past, birds have been pecking my ripe tomatoes this year. Generally, one peck per tomato piercing the skin. I have a birdbath nearby and a tray of water next to the plants. Other ideas or just toss a net over them?

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That stinks. I had a similar problem a few years ago, and It kinda looks like I may have the same issue again this year. As mentioned above, the only true solution is some kind of physical barrier ( a net). I've hear people say to hang red Christmas ornaments as a decoy for the birds. I've never done it, but I cant imagine that solving the problem. The only other option is to pick them when they just start to change color, and let them ripen inside off the vine. The more they change color, the more obvious they are to the birds, and once they poke a hole in the skin, they'll rot before ripening. I picked one yesterday that was 1/2 ripe for this reason. Its not ideal, but better than nothing.

What I read about the Xmas ornaments is that you have to hang them before your plants have even started to blossom. Let the birds get used to the idea that red things hanging in your yard are not food.

I will be buying red ornaments this year to plan for next! In the meantime, I will seek barriers! My tomatoes look like they will be good!

Having a little problem with blossom end rot on tomatoes this year . Im doing everything the same as years past. Only obvious difference is Im growing a few new varieties ( in addition to the ones I grow yearly). Nice fresh compost, aged manure, tomato fertilizer , watering from the base, pruning lower branches and any that may look like they may be developing something. They're even more spaced than previous years, as I spread the same amount over 2 beds that I used to put into one. The heat is exceptional this year ( 3 heat waves in the past 3 weeks).

Stupid question, does the end rot develop initally as the tomato is forming? or can a perfectly looking green tomato develop end rot ? Most of my green tomatoes look pretty good on the vine. I discarded any that looked affected. There area few plants where only one tomato is affected out of the 10 - 20 on the vine.

@larry_stewart blossom end rot is not contagious in any way. The plant is just too immature to support calcium uptake, give it a few weeks and it will be fine. When i see it, i ignore it and it goes away once the plants are a little bigger.

The deer ate off all my swiss chard i took pictures of the other day, and the beets. We put a fence on the back of the garden, but not enough to go around. We'll put netting over the plants.

i was planning on just harvesting the mustard and a few kale plants but i ended up with 2 2-gallon buckets so i'm canning a mixed green, kale, collards, purslane, and bok choy. 8 pints.

@larry_stewart The plants usually outgrow the BER, though occasionally, I have grown varieties of which every single tomato got BER, and they never outgrew it! I was afraid that I was getting one of those when I started getting all those Negro Azteka cherries this year with BER - I almost never get cherries with it, but it outgrew it quickly, and now it is almost as productive as the Sunsugars, which are still the most productive, on those huge plants!

Two things that obviously like this heat I've been experiencing around here is that Curry tree, and the Makrut lime trees. I guess this is more like their native climates!
14 year old curry tree, showing great new growth in the hot summer. 7-17 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

13 year old makrut lime tree (a.k.a. kaffir lime), showing the latest section of new growth. 7-17 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Today I found the first Kajari melons and the first fig in my garden. Those snow melon vines are growing like crazy, and I've been pinching off most of the suckers, leaving every 4th or 5th one. No sign of blossoms yet, but these were only planted a few weeks ago.

More varieties of beans are starting to produce, but it's still early for the long beans. Soon, I'll be digging up those onions and shallots, so I turned off the irrigation timer to that bed, to let it dry out some (if weather cooperates).
1st Kajari melons forming! The largest of 3, about 3" so far, 7-18 I might plant some more, to get some later melons. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

First fig formed. 7-18 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

i pollinated tomato flowers today with a paintbrush. Some of the plants have lots of little tomatoes, all green. They have a ways to go before they are turning red or getting to full size.

pepperhead212 said:

Today I found the first Kajari melons and the first fig in my garden. Those snow melon vines are growing like crazy, and I've been pinching off most of the suckers, leaving every 4th or 5th one. No sign of blossoms yet, but these were only planted a few weeks ago.

1st Kajari melons forming! The largest of 3, about 3" so far, 7-18 I might plant some more, to get some later melons. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

First fig formed. 7-18 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

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Im actually growing Kajari melons for the first time. Its not too late to plant them ?
Also, do you know which variety fig you have ?

dragnlaw said:

ahh, rodent, I feel for you. Is it just one deer? When does she/he usually come?

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It's a buck! He was in again last night, kneeling to get his head under the netting. I was out there so fast I almost kicked him in the nether regions. The does are so much smaller the netting comes up to their chest, but the buck is big enough to just walk over the netting. I decided today to put up a real fence around my flowers. So now I'm looking at getting someone to sink some poles.

Speaking of which, two does and a young buck yearling, are now using my yard for nap time. They all lay out in the dirt that hasn't been seeded yet and they're in my yard for hours. I threaten them every time I walk outside, but they just ignore me.

So harvest this year looks to be as follows: total of 10 strawberries. No blueberries. Three teeny tiny green cherry tomatoes. Maybe three wintergreen berries. And this one's on me. I had the wintergreen plant out in direct sunlight in this heat. I found out, after all but two leaves turned brown, that it likes mottled sunlight. Why I didn't check that earlier...

More bad news. It is definitely orchard grass in the front of my yard where I wanted lawn. I could throttle that contractor. He put the lawn in the back and the orchard seed in the front, opposite of where I wanted it. I'm trying to get hold of him now, although I don't know how this can be fixed.

And in other news, those two year old Shasta daisies that are blooming like crazy. I could have saved myself the trouble. You all know I put down a couple seed rolls a few years ago. You know, water and millions of plants come up? Well, guess what came up and bloomed this year for the first time. Shasta daisies. I ask you!

However, there is one thing happening which I guess I am happy about. The wildflowers, although now planted among the lawn grass instead of the orchard grass, are blooming. I found little purple ones, an orange one, and a couple of little yellow daisies.

Tomorrow it's supposed to be 90° again, but after that the weather will moderate a little and should be nicer. So next week I'll go out and get pictures to post. Meantime I think I'm going to go drown my sorrows in chocolate.

larry_stewart said:

That stinks. I had a similar problem a few years ago, and It kinda looks like I may have the same issue again this year. As mentioned above, the only true solution is some kind of physical barrier ( a net). I've hear people say to hang red Christmas ornaments as a decoy for the birds. I've never done it, but I cant imagine that solving the problem. The only other option is to pick them when they just start to change color, and let them ripen inside off the vine. The more they change color, the more obvious they are to the birds, and once they poke a hole in the skin, they'll rot before ripening. I picked one yesterday that was 1/2 ripe for this reason. Its not ideal, but better than nothing.

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If you hang red ornaments, won't that just confuse the hummingbirds?

I bought some shiny paper strips once. They were silver on one side and red on the other and when the wind blew, they twisted around and fluttered. This was when the birds were going after my raspberries (which I discovered I don't like) and after I hung up the strips, I never had another problem.

My mother had great success using the shiny strips. I'd use those rather than Christmas bulbs. They don't particularly have to be red on the one side, any colour will do.

My mother used to transplant her tomatoes with a tablespoon of Epsom salts and a tablespoon of powdered milk to avoid BER from the get-go. It's worked a treat for me.

There's more wildflowers out there! Pink and orange ones, some blue, purple, and pink bachelor's buttons, and a couple anemones or pansies. I'm pretty stoked!

I re-potted that older Makrut lime plant today, as it was not doing well, compared to the younger one. You can see with those light colored leaves in the second photo, compared to the dark leaves to the right, and they just weren't growing much, compared to usual. I mixed some organic mix, along with about 2 gal of seedling mix I had leftover, plus some worm castings, some garden tone granules, and some more perlite. It only took a little over an hour, and tomorrow I'll make up that circle of screen, to put the hydroton on, like I did with the other one.
Severely pruned root ball of the 23 year old makrut lime tree, getting put back in the 15 gallon fabric pot. I could tell it had gotten root-bound, as it was not growing well. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

23 year old makrut lime tree, finished repotted. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I might try to air layer another one of these, like I did this one, to make that "younger" one, which is 13 years old now! I think this rootball on this old one just gets rootbound faster, and ideally, should be in a larger pot, but even this one is getting almost too large for me to be getting in and out of the house twice a year!

We had new netting put over the swiss chard and beets. The deer (we think) pushed it to the side on the chard, and ate two holes through it on the beets. It's nylon netting! Unbelievable.

We pulled out the mustard that was going to seed and picked off most of the leaves. I steamed them and ate some for dinner. More planting soon.

Today I put that screen on the newly repotted lime tree, then the hydroton - this keeps the hydroton from mixing up with the soil as much, and easier to remove, down the road.
Here's that piece of screen I cut out, to put over the soil for the lime tree, slightly off center, and it fits perfectly. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Here's the Hydroton on top of the screen, and the drip line back in place. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

What is hydrotron?

taxlady said:

What is hydrotron?

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I wondered that too pepper.
Is it those clay pellets they sell for growing without soil?

Remember the big fad of little pots (mine was on the wall) with those pellets, they also sold a special solution to water them with. The first start to hydroponics LOL.

That's what it is, @dragnlaw - and that's why I got it originally, for the hydroponics. And it was on one of those forums I found that idea for using the hydroton as a sort of "mulch" on the potted plants, where someone tested various ways of covering the soil, to keep it from drying out too fast, but not staying overly wet, like a plastic sheet would, and not attracting certain bugs, like some bark mulches tend to. I probably have more in those four potted plants than I do in my hydroponics, when I have that going!

Here's a photo of the hydroton in the hydroponics, with plants in it, started from cuttings:
Hydroponics, 10-15, two Thai basil and Epazote doing best. by pepperhead212, on Flickr