More Spotted Wilt

It would seem that I am not the only victim of the spotted wilt. I was asked how my tomatoes were doing by someone at work and wouldn't you know it, he too had the same problem. And his mother. And their neighbor. And the two gardens I was working on with friends, they were also victims of the spotted wilt. What we all thought was blight, turned out to be a virus and their complaints were the same as mine. No pest management when it rains every evening at the same time.

*sigh*

It's just so disheartening. The good that came from all of this is that it really has given food for thought. That aeroponic system looks really good now, so I went down to the lone hydroponic shop in town and started really getting serious about pricing. I talked with the owner for a good long while and we shared some gardening tidbits. He liked my tums for blossom end rot (as we know most blossom end rot is caused by cal or mag deficiency, pick one, tums is nothing but cal and mag) and actually seemed thoughtful about it for a moment and even more surprised when I told him that I have not had problems with it. But I was in the presence of a giant. Hydroponic gardener for 20+ years. I sooo bow down to the master. His vast knowledge will definitely see me through.

So, between helping other customers that came in, he was coaching me on what a starting hydroponic gardener really needs and he kept it very simple. I asked lots of questions about nutrients and lighting and supplements and he was more than happy to really dish out the goodies on all of that. And strangely, the nutes he uses are actually not the stuff that I thought he'd use. I mean, there is Advanced Nutrients (loved that million dollar challenge Big Mike put out), General Hydroponics, Foxfarm and all the other giants, but he actually uses a more obscure brand of nutrient and sticks to it. Fairly amazing to me.

On top of that, he loaded me down with freebies. I have literature coming out of the yin yang. Lots of magazines and pamphlets and just a ton of really awesome advice.

I got home and went through his product catalog and my husband and I started taking inventory of hardware we don't have to build our own system (like that 3 and 4 inch hole attachment for the drill, who has that lying around anyway?) and went on a price check. Everything was reasonable that we'd need to purchase. I looked at flo tubes for a grow room, too. So, we've come to the conclusion that we're looking forward to having a hydro system set up outside for seasonal growing, but we really want to have an indoor one growing stuff all year round as well. Like the tomatoes that we've failed to actually get to eat for the past couple of years due to disaster after disaster.

This winter we'll be rather busy with raised beds, chicken tractors, greenhouse and hydroponic/aeroponic systems to be built. I'm looking forward to keeping busy. I'm thinking of trying to get first indoor system built here shortly. Nothing huge, just a 4 or 6 plant system that will be capable of handing a couple of tomatoes and peppers and maybe some basil. With the start of the school year next week for us, that might have to go on hold until things calm down.

Wish me luck!

Milk it

One way to give your tomatoes a nice boost to help fight off fungus diseases is to spray them down with milk. This also helps give calcium to them which helps them fight off disease as well. Any milk will do, just make it a 1:10 milk to water ratio and spray away. You can use other dairy products besides milk or chocolate milk, sour cream and yogurt works, too!

The Unthinkable!

My really healthy tomatoes are at this point no so healthy anymore. What I thought was fungus from everyday late afternoon rains for a while has turned out not to be a fungus at all. It isn't even the late blight that Barbara commented on (though I do thank you for the comment, Barbara). Over the past couple of days I've watched really great looking plants start withering at the base with spotted wilt virus. It's actually taken me most of the day researching to figure this one out as I've never seen it before.

I was treating the plants for fungus but that wasn't the problem at all and now the disease is spreading so quickly. Luckily, my neighbor's tomatoes and peppers are not being effected and none of the rest of the plants and trees I have in containers currently have any signs whatsoever. So far so good on that. But my beautiful heirloom tomatoes... so sad. This just strengthens my resolve for a hydroponics room. I've not really seen any signs of thirps, which is the usual carrier for this virus. The rain made it very difficult to keep any DE on the plants so I had little to no pest management at all for several weeks. This was a very serious learning experience.

Luckily, I found a lot of really awesome tools that helped me diagnose the problem, even thought I didn't want to believe it because there's just no saving my plants.

The rest of the garden is doing well. I've not lost anything else. My carrots haven't sprouted yet, but there will be a few more days before that can be expected. This method I'm using seems as if it will be a good way to do it. I skipped the clear plastic wrap part because it has been so mild lately and the self watering container keeps the mixture very evenly moist without it being wet. So we'll see if my instincts are correct.

Spotted wilt virus. *sigh*

Garden Update

Aside from running around and helping to tend to other gardens, my little container garden is doing well. I'm excited that I've been able to start a new project. I got the idea to do this from the archives of Aerogarden Mastery page. It is very easy and very basic so I hunted down a self watering pot, a big one, the one I have is 20" around and perlite and vermiculite. I thoroughly mixed the two bags of medium together, watered it thoroughly and then planted my carrot seeds straight into the moist medium and then gave it a nice spray of water with a spray bottle.


The medium and the bottom reservoir held nearly two gallons of water without overflowing. The reservoir was only about 1/2 full. It will be very interesting to see if this little experiment will work. The link above actually have pictures of how it worked out over several weeks and so I thought I'd give it a shot.

The kids had a great time!

My tomatoes are doing fantastic!

The sauce tomato came up first, but isn't producing as fast as the black plum tomato below. Both are doing very well except for some expected fungal problems that I expected after it rained nearly every day in the late afternoon for three weeks. I handled the fungus problems and we've been doing pretty good ever since. Though, there are just a ton of suckers that I'm having to remove.

Black plum tomatoes are a lot larger than I thought they would be. They are actually a nice good size. I've see blushes of color on the sauce tomatoes, but nothing as of yet on the plums. But very excited because there are just a ton of flowers.

But they will be red and ripe.

The tiny little banana's I got have exploded into these beautiful long wide leaves. It's amazing how much growth they have! Right next to them is the orange and it has tripled in size itself.

The blueberry (left right beneath the orange) took a pretty serious hit in a storm, losing half the plant to hard winds, but it has finally come out of the shock and is starting to grow again. The lemon is the only one that doesn't seem to have bushed out, the very light green one in the middle, but the leaves are just growing large. The pomegrante in the red container, has a lot of blooms and has long branches. The lime on the other side of the large carrot container, has also tripled in size and has a lot of new growth.

Everything is growing so well and there have been no set backs so far. I'm just waiting for my cherry tree to come in this fall so that the last empty pot that doesn't seem to want to stay up right anywhere can be filled with its own tree, too!

Birthday Present

I went out to look at my tomatoes today, my birthday, and found just tons of little tomatoes everywhere on both plants. Couldn't have gotten a better present. I'm looking forward to the ripe red tomatoes right off the vine. Provided the make it that far. My husband and children are threatening to go right out there with a salt shaker and demolish the lot!

I like the fencing I put up around them instead of the cages. They seem much more stable and there isn't a problem with reaching the berries. Very good buy on the fencing.

The fruit trees are doing very well. The blueberry took a serious hit in one of the very serious storms that we had. Half of the plant was ripped off, but the rest of it survived and there is new growth. The banana's have tripled in size and all the citrus has a lot of new growth. Very awesome to see it.

I do have one fear. The citrus greening disease and the insects that carry them are spreading. South Carolina and Georgia both have recently been put on the infected list. Keep your eye out on that for your area. There is a link at the top!

Tomatos

Even though I'm not going to have a huge garden this year, I am, however, going to participate in the creation of a small one. We are going to grow Golden Nugget tomatoes, Roma sauce tomatoes, Black Plum, White Currant, and Heinz 1439.

I got everything started to night and 5 little cups filled with soil and seed are seated in the kitchen window waiting for sprouts. We'll know next week if any of them fail us!

Grr

As the seed and plant catalogs come in and I mourn the fact that I will not have a proper garden any time in the near future, I flip through the pages and make mental notations about checking into this or that, or asking my husband if he likes this lettuce or that corn. I have several that have been folded neatly in my mailbox in these past couple of days and am thrilled to see what new varieties there are for this season. Happily flipping through the pages, I was struck dumb by the huge amount of hybrids there are. Grrr.

It seems that the quick fix, prepackaged, uniformed color, size and numbers will always be spreading. Not that some hybrids aren't good. My father swears by the flavors and growing prowess of better boy and early girl tomatoes but he can't save those seeds and I have grown them myself but... the plants must be purchased every year. I'm trying to save money. I don't want to be a slave to the system why would I want to buy a hybrid?

So some of them have great flavor and some of them are resistant to whatever diseases plague their species, but I just can't bring myself to grow hybrids in my garden. I've recently come to this decision, too. It was this past spring while I was talking to my father and he was telling me that they were eagerly awaiting the next pay day to go out and buy more flats of tomatoes. That started me thinking of how he could have just saved seeds from last years crops, planted them himself and he wouldn't have to wait and he wouldn't have to fight to get the ones that aren't droopy or down right dehydrated with the danger of never fully recovering.

He could have saved just a ton of money by not having to purchase them at all. Buy the seeds, plant them, save the seeds. If your crop fails, you can buy more, but if it doesn't, you don't have to buy them again and leaves the door open to try new varieties. Not to mention you know where they came from, what they have been exposed to and you can make the choice on saving the seeds from the tastiest and best of the crop.

So with a smirk of annoyance in the trash goes the catalogs with all the hybrid varieties I really just don't want to buy and I pick up the phone to call my father to taunt him about his favorites and pick a fight about hybrids and seed saving. Wish me luck, I usually end up losing this argument with him. He usually puts his foot down and snaps "I don't like change, so I won't do it!"

Oy!

Green Tomato

Aunt Ruby's German Green Tomato

Green tomatoes are not necessarily unripe tomatoes, there are a few out there that when fully grown and mature are no other color but green. When the green tomato does ripen, it does change color, it just happens to be another shade of green.

Green Grape Tomato

While the tomatoes roots come from a small yellow berry from South America, the green varieties emerged during the 18th century or so. Green tomatoes were a favorite in the 19th century for pickling but this was more for the unripe fruits than for the green tomato varieties. Now mostly, they are prized for their flavor and the fact that they are heirloom varieties.

Green Zebra Tomato

I know more than one gardener that are completely anti-green tomato, but I believe they add texture and color and flavor to whatever salad or meal with which they are paired.

Black Tomatoes

Black Cherry

Black tomatoes are native to the Ukraine and didn't make it out of a small area in the southern part of the country until the 19th century when Russian soldiers took seeds home with them. Up until them, there were very few black tomato varieties out there but by the the seeds spread through Russia, there were all sorts of them. Now there are over fifty black tomatoes to choose from, ranging from black plum tomatoes, to Black Prince, Black Zebra and Southern Night. Germany, former Yugoslavia and also the US have been credited with new versions of the black tomato over the years.

Black Krim

Black tomatoes are noted for their very earthy flavor and are noted to have the strongest flavor of all tomatoes. They are prized for their lovely colors ranging from deep mahogany (Brandywine) to dark purple (Cherokee). There are many places to sell seeds for these tomatoes, but the safest bet is to go to a place like Seed Saver's Exchange who actually know the lines of the heirlooms (for the most part, they don't always get full histories when they get seeds).


Some varieties:

Kumato

Black Prince

Black Plum

Black Russian

Basil Tomatoes

Basil Tomatoes

10 lbs tomatoes
6-10 teaspoons fresh basil, chopped
bottled lemon juice

Directions

1 Wash tomatoes and dip in boiling water for 45 seconds.

2 Plunge in cold water, peel, core and quarter.

3 Put 4 cups wedges in a pan and crush.

4 Quickly heat to boiling.

5 Add the rest of the tomatoes and bring to a boil.

6 Reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours, stirring frequently.

7 Remove from heat and add basil.

8 Stir well.

9 Put 1 T. lemon juice in each sterilized pint jar or 2 T. lemon juice in each sterilized quart jar.

10 Ladle tomatoes into jars leaving 1/2 inch head space.

11 Remove bubbles, seal, and process 35 minutes for pints, 45 minutes for quarts.

12 If freezing product leave 1 1/2 inch head space, seal and freeze.

Tomatos, Pumpkins and Carrots

Disaster. Complete and utter disaster. The upsidedown tomato that I did produced like three tomatoes. That's it and it has withered and died with no hope of spawning anymore. The tomatoes were the most delicious ever, but we got only three from our pathetic little plant. My father laughed at me when I told him of the disaster. But its better than nothing!

The carrots were coming right along and were getting *huge*. Last week something ate every single one of them. *sigh*

And the pumpkins. Don't get me started on the pumpkins. The plants were healthy. They were producing beautiful blooms.

Something ate them, too. I have little stubs where my pumpkin vines used to be.

How utterly depressing. All week it has been just depressing.

But I learned something important. I can grow stuff and grow it well enough for critters to take a chance that my dogs will eat them alive if caught sneaking into my fenced area. That thought lifted my spirits.

And there is always indoor gardening. I've been thinking more and more about hydro, aero and aquaponics. I suppose we'll have to see about a aeroponic system. I've been browsing around town and finding very little support for such things in Knoxville. Something that irritates me more than I care to mention. I'm going to figure out something to get on track with an aeroponic system.

More on that later!

Funky Luck

The storm that blew through yesterday with cracks of thunder so close to us that you didn't register the flash of lightning before the thunder was shaking the house, managed to knock out the electricity. Again. And once again, our neighbors on all sides had electricity but we, of course, did not because our power is run from a different pole from everyone elses. We called and they told us the truck that came out to fix it when it first happened (an hour before) was in a horrendous accident and they sent another truck. Last time, the truck they sent out broke down. The time before that, the truck they sent had a flat. The time before that... *sigh*

While I don't mind being in the dark and we found ways to amuse ourselves after the hour long storm past, like cleaning up the ashes where the grill was blown over (yes, I'm serious, a 75 pound grill that is behind a tall cedar tree on our deck was blown over), its annoying that we lose power like every month for hours and hours. And hours. And it is always in the middle of cooking dinner or washing clothes or me taking a shower. I was burning a disc off when this storm just hit from out of no where and the thunder was on us while the sun was still shining through the living room window. Luckily, I have a laptop so my system just kept right on burning. I'd just started preparing for laundry and dinner was in the oven when all of a sudden...

*snarl*

We were without power for just over six hours along with 2.3 other people behind us somewhere in the bushes. Everyone else up and down the street had electricity...

Dinner was served at midnight. Laundry wasn't done until 2 in the morning and the electric company that provides our power (occasionally) was out a few hours of power from 3.3 people on the back lot of... whatever.

Amazingly, my light bill will probably be higher because of this outage.

My carrots survived it would seem. The soil doesn't seem to be too hard on the top, still moist from yesterday's downpour. I hope that they will be able to break through. I topped them with a good layer of peat moss so they would be able to pop right up. We're eager to see some green poking through!

I'm looking at my upside down tomato plant and don't know if it plans to produce much of anything or not. I talked to my father about it and we were wondering if it is because I only have one, but I looked it up and the variety I have self pollinates so that shouldn't be an issue. I've had blooms on it for weeks but not one tomato. I'm at a loss and, strangely, so is my father, who has been growing tomatoes since he was my youngest child's age. We'll see what happens. As long as it is blooming and still green, we have a chance!

My neighbor looks like he'll fair better than I. His plants are large and bushy. And my landlord came out and planted some in the field out back. His are looking a lot like mine. This is strange because when we moved in three years ago, he had a thriving garden back there with tomatoes, beans, corn, squash and a bunch of other stuff that wouldn't stop producing at the end of the growing season. The field has been fallow up until this year when I planted a pumpkin plant and he planted six tomatoes. There is still a lot of field to be filled but it doesn't appear that our plants are going to do much of anything.

It pains me but I know that my neighbor will be hanging shopping bags full of tomatoes on my door this year like he did last year (he loved my tomato relish) while my own tomato stubbornly refuses to produce not a single berry.

Such is life. There is always next year. You can't win them all. *insert your favorite cliche here*

I heard sad news as I write. George Carlin past away peacefully in his sleep today. It is a pity, I grew up listening to his comedy. I certainly will miss him.

I have the day off tomorrow so we're going to plant some of our salad mix and see how that goes. We've been slowly working our way up to having a small but respectable garden and I'm hoping that next year will see us doing better than this year. After all the reading and research and phone calls to my father asking questions about everything, we've learned a lot. And I hope that my sons will be geared up to make it all happen next year.

We are going to spend this winter purchasing seeds, choosing our favorite local garden shops, saving and purchasing containers for our garden and reading up on gardening techniques all over the web and in books. I was considering trying a cold frame to get a jump on the season, but there is a possibility that we may be moving so until I know for sure, that is on hold. But it will give me a chance to make a decision on what type of cold frame I want.

So many projects, so little time!

Very Very Yay, Baby!

Chocolate Bell Pepper
























Ivory Bell Pepper

Red, Green, Orange, Yellow and Purple

White Cucumbers






Solar Yellow Carrots












Cosmic Purple Carrots

Atomic Red Carrots

Lunar White Carrots

Black Cherry Tomatoes

Green Grape Tomato

White Cherry Tomato

Yellow Pear Tomato

And of course, Red Cherry Tomato

Not a bad little expansion from our tomato and pumpkin (plus herbs I'd been growing in the kitchen window for over a year). I have two different salad mixes, too. Man, this is going to be the best salad. We're looking forward to expanding on our salad year after next, too.

Yay Pictures!

Alyn was on me the other day for not getting pictures posted. I hadn't had the time and when I did finally get photobucket to load, it was time for new pictures. So I took some today!

The white stuff, before I get comments, is DE. I dusted and then it sprinkled like two hours later making it look like it has an infestation. Trust me, the plant is ok, it just is covered with DE dust. I am a little concerned, however, I pinched two dried dead leaves off the plant and it doesn't seem to be growing all that well. I gave it a good drink today since it hasn't rained in the last two, but I thought with all the storming we've had over the last two weeks that it would have plenty of moisture. My neighbor commented that she thought it could use a drink so we packed down some water and gave it a healthy dose. We'll see what happens.

I guess I've been container gardening for so long that I am ground gardening deficient. Having said that, we're going to watch this guy a lot closer and his siblings that are going to sprout any day now. I'll get pictures of them as soon as they do. We planted the last four pumpkin seeds we had so that we can be sure to have enough to share with our neighbors on both sides and in front. We're looking forward to carving them up with them! Not to mention we'll be giving something back to one of our neighbors that kept placing full grocery bags full of tomatoes and other stuff on our door last year. We just used the last frozen bag of those tomatoes last week and here we are going to probably inhereit a crapton more.

Everyone that I gave the tomato relish to last year has been silent about it but for one lady who said she loved it. This year I'll give her two jars...

In the Garden

Occasionally, lightly sprinkle baking soda around flowerbeds to prevent rabbits from nibbling at your buds.

Sprinkle baking soda on slugs to get rid of them without having to resort to costly and toxic pesticides.

To sweeten your tomatoes by reducing their acidity, sprinkle baking soda lightly on the soil around your tomato plants. The soda from an old box used to absorb odors in the refrigerator is fine for this purpose.

Tomatos and Pumpkins

Our planted pumpkin is doing well in its new home outside in the ground. We had a cause for concern when one of the true leaves whithered and died, but the rest of the plant is thriving and just moving right along. All the rain has been helpful for this. The tomato plant is slowly growing. My neighbor who swore he wouldn't plant tomatoes this year, planted two little plants and they doubled the size of mine in a week. I know this could be due to the type of the plants he has are different from mine but I can't help feeling that with mine being upsidedown in the pot and getting less sun due to it being hidden under the pot during the noon hour is the reason mine isn't as large as his. It is definately healthy and I expect that it will produce well, but next year, I'm thinking a four way post with long hangers for the hanging basket will do better. More sun, better thriving plant. We shall see next year!

Woo Hoo!

I have my very first bloom on my tomato plant!



I'm very excited. Upside down tomato gardening is beginning to become a nice success.

Pumpkins and Tomatos

It's been a few days since I last posted. We've been rather busy spring cleaning and getting various things set up for the summer months. But I did get to take some pictures!





They are both doing nicely.

Sprout Day 9

There is something to be said about a good sprout. Our second true leaf has come out. It's looking very nice and it appears that I didn't kill it after all with the hot water. Phew!



The tomato plant is doing well, too. At least, now that I've decided on a place to put the poor thing. I must have moved it a half dozen times trying to find the place with the best sun. In the end, I had my husband put up a hook in the right spot. Meanwhile, the tomato plant has been growing.



I find that all the worries that I had with starting a garden this year have melted away. After reading horror story after mortifying horror story about destroyed crops, insect infestations, and bad fruit, its enough to make anyone think twice about trying to grow their own. But my gardening instincts have kicked back in and I'm remembering all the little things I used to do with my parents when we planted a much larger garden in Louisiana when I was a kid.

Most of the time, the plants tell you what they need if you just pay attention. It's much more simple to just sit back and let them do the growing.

Though, I am looking for new and interesting ways to garden. My father told me about a particular way he was considering growing his tomatoes. A five gallon bucket with three tomatoes coming about of the bottom and then holes about an inch above the bottom with more planted on the sides.

I that that was a good idea, but I think I'd have four or six coming out of the sides about half way up the 5 gallon bucket or perhaps varying heights from the bottom to help with root growth. We were thinking that the tomato plants would snap at the hole in the bucket after they got so large, but I think a nice two or three inch soft support like gauze or maybe a loose weave cotton would do the trick nicely and it would tie off on the bell of the bucket. We'll have to see, I'm not ready to dive into such a large undertaking just yet, I don't have the counter space to can tomatoes on that scale.

Sprout Day 3

Amazingly enough, we haven't killed it yet. Yay! Anyway, the pumpkin sprout is getting up there.



On another note, my father pestered me into doing this.



Yep, that is a hanging flower pot. Yep, there is a tomato hanging out of the bottom of it. Remember that space age technology from a few posts ago? It came back to bite me on the ass. My father wouldn't let up until I agreed to give this a shot.

So here it is.

I took a regular hanging pot like you can get at the dollar store or filled with flowers at Wal-Mart. The pot needs to have an one inch hole in the bottom, this usually has a pre-built in screen that is easily cut out. After that is cut out, get some freezer paper or at the very least wax paper and cut a 3 or 4 inch circle. Cut to the center and take out a circle large enough to fit the 'neck' of your tomato plant, but small enough to keep all the water from going straight through taking all the soil with it. This does not have to be beautiful as it is only a functional piece.

Put the collar on the plant, slip through the hole. Careful not to bruise the leaves or damage the stems. The collar you made should stop it from slipping too much. Add your soil. Water, then top off again with soil, repeat until soil is even but not compacted. I bought a bag of soil specifically for hanging baskets because it is designed to hold moisture (meaning less work for me) and it will fertilize for 9 months. I figure that will get me through until the frost kills the plant and I'll have to make plants for next year. Muwhawhawhaw!

Speaking of plants, the CAC gives them away for free and seeds, too. You'll need to go see if you qualify. Quote: "THE GREEN THUMB PROGRAM promotes home gardening and provides free vegetable seeds and plants to eligible gardeners in Knoxville and Knox County. The COMMUNITY GARDEN PROGRAM encourages individuals and families to garden together in public housing developments and provides gardening assistance..." If you wanna garden, they can hook you up. I think as of this posting that the end is June 30. Check out the website and look for the Green Thumb Program.