With friends like me. . .

. . . my tomato and pepper plants may not need enemies!

The deal is that I grow my “garden” in containers.  I’d prefer to have them in the ground, and I did have them in the ground years ago, but the place where there was sun relatively close to an outdoor faucet was back behind the the toyport and well house.  The tomatoes and peppers did pretty well, but the dear and armadillos and whatever else ate them all up.  This was VERY discouraging to me, especially since I had daily tended them with TLC for months.

Then there’s also the issue that tomatoes, especially, are subject to various fungal infections.  This stuff does great damage to your plants in the current year, then gets into the soil and dooms your plants the following year.  Again quite depressing, and the recommended solution is to NOT PLANT tomatoes in the same place year after year.  Well, shoot.  Not only do I need a sunny spot with access to water; I need a NEW sunny spot with access to water each year!  Have YOU ever tried to dig up part of a yard to make a garden?  Let me tell you that it is no small job.

Furthermore, there aren’t a lot of sunny spots in our yard.  Well, there is the far back (large grassy area in the middle of the back yard where we play kickball and various other yard games), but if you put a garden there, that kind of ruins the usefulness of the area for recreation.  In addition, trees tend to grow – except for the several that are dead and need to be removed – and when they grow, they make more branches with more leaves, and the end result of all that is that our yard is growing gradually shadier over time.

So. . . in the past eight or so years, I have grown tomatoes and peppers in tomatoes, primarily on the front walk.  Not too aesthetically pleasing, but functional, and as most of you know, I am totally into function.

Well, beginning three years ago, someone let a couple of Japanese beetles loose in Taney County.  These guys reproduced and now the Japanese beetles are rampant and causing destruction of ornamentals on a scale I’ve got to believe is comparable to the locusts in the Bible!  They decimate leaves, rendering them lacy and ugly, and I hate it.  Also, my tomatoes have for years been attacked by various “wilts” (fungal infections), and I have tried to find a product that will strengthen them against that.

At Lowe’s I found NEEM oil.  It’s supposed to repel various insect pests and be fungicidal.  Perfect!  It’s a nasty, foul-smelling liquid that you pour into a spray bottle, attach your hose and it mixes it in the proper proportions and you spray it on your plants.  For the past two years, I’ve sprayed ‘em once a week on Saturdays.  Since I do it every week, I just leave the NEEM oil in the spray bottle.  It comes in a very expensive 8-ounce bottle and I just dump it all in my sprayer and use it each week.  Except that it often seems not to come out.  As in, the stuff stinks, so after you spray it on your plants, they should stink too, right? But they don’t.  As if the only thing coming out of the sprayer is water.  And the level of NEEM oil in the sprayer never seems to go down.

But I bought three bottles of this stuff last year – because as we all know, once you find a product you like and want to use on-going, when you go back to buy more, they will no longer carry it.

Last year, I waited till the plants had beetles attacking them to start spraying, but this year I decided that I should be more proactive.  Two weeks ago, with the plants less than a foot tall, I went after them with the NEEM oil.  I went and got the spray bottle and shook it up well, but noticed that it seemed like there was some solid stuff in the bottom of the bottle that wasn’t mixing up.  So I opened the spray bottle and pulled out the tube, and it was completely gummed up with solid stuff!  I cleaned out the tube, reassembled everything, shook the bottle well, and sprayed the plants, but when I finished, I took the bottle apart again, and in those few minutes, it was again completely gummed up.  Like the walls of Jericho, nothing went in that tube and nothing came out.  GRRRRRR!

I cleaned it all up again and stored the bottle without the tube in it.

This week, when I examined my precious plants, they had already been attacked by the Japanese beetles (or something similar).  Sad and discouraging.  Actually, infuriating.  I angrily pulled out the spray bottle, but this time, I decided that it was time to be done with being too cheap to start the next bottle.  If this stuff had all congealed in the bottle and wasn’t useful, I would throw it out!!!  Well, I reasoned, that would be wasteful and this stuff does cost a small fortune.  Instead, I would stir it up till the solids were liquid add water, and POUR the result directly on the plants.  Then, NEXT week, I’d start with a fresh bottle.

And that is exactly what I did, only the solid stuff wouldn’t dissolve.  It was still all lumpy and nasty.  I shoved my hand in there and mixed with my fingers.  I added water till the bottle was full to the brim.  That’s probably a ratio of something like one cup of NEEM oil to one cup of water.  The ratio delivered by the sprayer is supposed to be two to four TABLESPOONS of NEEM oil to one GALLON of water, but I was mad and I didn’t care.  I wanted those stupid Japanese beetles to take one lick of my tomato and pepper plants and NEVER COME BACK!!!

So I hand dipped this super concentrated, very messy stuff all over my plants, rubbing it on the leaves.  This morning, I went out to walk, and my tomato and pepper plants’ leaves are all shiny and turning black.  I think I may have killed them all, and that after I started them from seeds two months ago.  Sigh.

I did pray about it, as there is really nothing else to do.  I decided that if God spares my plants and they live, I will take care of them and be thankful.  If they all die, I will throw them out and we just won’t have any homegrown tomatoes or peppers this year.

I simply don’t have the emotional margin to stress over it any more!

Never done it before, honest

For one thing, I planted my little tomato and pepper plants on MARCH 30!  I don’t think I’ve ever planted that early, but when nature gives you a year with no winter that goes straight to summer in the middle of March, then you plant.  We now have some lovely pots lining the front walk with four varieties of tomatoes and one of red peppers.  May they all grow, thrive, and produce wonderful fruit!

That was on a Friday, and then on Saturday, following a morning of work at the church, we and the Long family, who had worked much longer in the sun that we had and wouldn’t even come into the house because they claimed to “smell like sumo wrestlers,” went down to Big Rock to swim.  The water was COLD, but we all braved it; Andrew and Scott diving straight in, Josiah and I proceeding more circumspectly.  Actually, I inched my way deeper and deep over a period of some 15 minutes, before eventually taking the icy plunge and bobbing my head under water.  Did I mention that the water was COLD?  Initially a lot of fish and one snake watched us closely, but the glare of our lily white skin lit up their world caused them to flee the scene in terror.

In any case, I am quite sure that I had NEVER gone swimming in March before, but now I have!

To cover or not to cover?

That is the guh-zor-nan-plotz.  The weather here is changing, and a week ago, it went down below freezing for three nights.  That’s not a problem, except that I have tomato plants that clearly have their summers and falls confused.

They finally bore fruit from the third week of July through the third week of August, but somewhere in there, we had had two weeks of 100 temps, and I think it messed up their hormones.  Since about August 21, we have had not a single tomato.  At least, not one we could eat.

The vines are loaded with green tomatoes and blossoms, but the fruit is just not ripening, or even getting far enough along to be picked and ripened inside.  So, on those three frosty nights, we covered them.  A few of you have seen our tomato “trees” in the side yard, and trust me, it was no mean feat to tarp those puppies.  The ones out front were just draped with sheets.

I have eight moderately-sized planters of tomatoes and then the two big barrels on the side, and most of them made it through those three nights okay.  Actually, the ones by the air conditioners looked puny, so I did end up picking the few on them and ditching the plants a few days ago.

The forecast had called for freezing temps beginning tonight and continuing, so I had planned to pick all the green fruit today and be done, BUT now it looks like it will only be below freezing for two nights and will rebound for at least another week. The barrel plants still look pretty good, they have the most and biggest tomatoes, and another week might be enough to motivate them to ripen, so I am considering asking Josiah to help me tarp them two more times.

However, the ones out front will be picked and the plants ditched this afternoon.

A little gardening at last

Today I planted nine tomato plants and four pepper plants.  The tomatoes are in various containers, and the peppers are in the their standard “window” boxes.  All but four of the tomatoes were grown from seeds under my nifty grow lights in the attic.

It’s been SO rainy and then SO cold that I have put off planting them for over a week.  They’ve been sitting on the porch “hardening off,” but I knew I really needed to get them into the ground.  It was warm today (60s) and sunny, so I took the plunge.  Then I heard on the radio that it’s expected to go down into the upper 30s tonight (AARRGGHH!), and in this valley it sometimes goes colder than forecast (double AARRGGHH!).  I sure hope I don’t lose my baby seedlings, after all the time, care, and (we won’t tell Scott how much) money that’s gone into them!

What Scott said

I spent most of the afternoon gardening.  At this stage of the game, it’s mainly a matter of hauling, mixing, and dumping potting soil to fill various containers, so Scott did the hauling and dumping (nice guy that he is), and I did the mixing, largely with my hands.  I have read that true gardeners don’t use gloves, so I usually don’t, and today was no exception, with the result that as I was changing to get ready for our date tonight, I bemoaned the dirt in my nails and cuticles.

Scott heard me and said, “Well, maybe on our date we should get you a pedigree, or something.”

I told him that was probably my grandfather’s responsibility!   = )

Strong flowers

Often, if one of my flowers grows well enough, it ends up hanging over its bed or container.  I guess those could be considered flowers with hangovers.

Today I needed to gently move some of those types so that Andrew could adequately weed-eat around the beds.  When I got to the massive marigold (one plant produced from one seed) in the mailbox bed, I was careful to lift it gently, because marigold stems can get woody and be easily breakable.

I was shocked (and perhaps slightly embarrassed?) to find that I couldn’t lift it at all. Its overhang seemed to be stuck to the ground.  In fact, I ended up actually tugging firmly on the silly plant, but to no avail.  It turns out that the little beast had sprawled out onto the grass and lain there so long – the yard hadn’t been mowed for almost a month – that the stems had evidently sent down runner roots into the ground.  It had affixed itself firmly to the ground and could not be lifted even the slightest bit.  I didn’t even know marigolds could do that!

That’s not blooming where you’re planted; it’s planting where you bloom.  = )

MORE flowers!

Last night, one of my special friends GAVE me about 18 lovely flowers to beautify our yard!  She presented me with a big tray of potted flowers, all in full bloom.  There were eight Rudbeckia (black-eyed susans) in three inch pots, four hot pink vinca, and six pale pink vinca.  She said they came from the C of O nursery, and we all know that all the plants from the C of nursery are uncommonly healthy and vigorous, so I have the highest expectations for these flowers.

This morning I planted all of them.  They are scattered among the big be, a few of the pale pink vincas are in the mailbox bed, and a few of each kind are in the pots along the front walk.  I even planted some in the “window” box where my beloved red pepper plants has died.  No sense having empty dirt when it could support something lovely.

I have also picked about half a dozen tomatoes, and, other than being cracked and therefore unsightly, they are QUITE delicious.  Considering what has been spent on their production, this is as it ought to be.  (Righteousness, but that’s an inside joke.)

In addition to that, our neighbor GAVE us an enormous, old-fashioned (that means long, striped, and with seeds) watermelon that weighs about 45 pounds (!!!) and a canteloupe that is as big as a basketball.  No, he didn’t grown them, but he was buying ones for his own family at a stand somewhere and thought of us.  I’m going to cut the canteloupe for breakfast, and I think we’ll share part of the watermelon with some 50 (?) of our friends at a cookout tomorrow afternoon.  It’s gonna be hot, but not nearly as hot as where Jessica is in SE Asia with no A/C.

Don’t look at my windowsill now, but. . .

. . . there is an orange tomato ripening there!

The first tomato was picked on July 2, but it ended up rotten inside.

The second tomato was picked on about July 6, but it had blossom end rot and was partially black inside.  It was good around the edges, however, and I did eat the edges in my Sunday lunch salad.  Quite tasty.

The one on the windowsill sports a few cracks on top, but, hey, who’s complaining?

Also, in my lazy and cheap state, I think I may have devised an inexpensive and easy cure for blossom end rot (BER) in tomatoes.  There are several causes of of this nasty condition, but the one I’ve most often heard to the be culprit is a calcium deficiency.

Normally, right after the first of the year, I spend a couple months saving, cleaning, and crushing eggs shells, which I work into the soil before I plant the tomatoes.  I have never had BER when I’ve done the prophylactic eggshell treatment, but this year, I was lazy and didn’t want to mess with the egg shells; sure enough, the first few tomatoes had BER.  = (

Generally, once you spot the condition, it’s too late to do anything about it – certainly for that particular fruit, and probably for all the fruit on that plant.  However, I have been DESPERATE for a decent homegrown tomato, so I took a gallon of milk that was just about past its prime and dumped several cups’ worth around the base of each of my tomato plants.  For good measure, I repeated the application 10 days later.  So far, so good.  I have a total of about 15 green tomatoes on several different plants, and none of them shows signs of BER!

The milk was much cheaper and much easier than buying, mixing, and spraying the recommended chemical treatments on all the foliage, and it took all of 30 seconds.  = )

Now, we just need a cold snap.  With nighttime temps staying above 70, the flowers on my tomato plants are not setting fruit.  Boo hoo.  However, if I can bring these few tomatoes to a successful conclusion on a sandwich or in a salad, I will truly be happy gardener.

Communication

We have a saying in our family that, “communication is the key to life, marriage, and ministry – and bridge.”  Realizing that, I’m not sure why I completely failed to communicate on this issue.

I have become somewhat of a fanatic at planting seeds and trying to grow things.  About three weeks ago, when I realized that I had some various flower seeds still unplanted and so went out to plan them, I also came across some sunflower seeds I had saved in 2008.  Not wanting them to go to waste, I shoved a few of them into a some spots of dirt in the entirely unprepared LAWN beside the smokehouse (a.k.a. “Mom’s Garden Shed).

I watered the ground there every few days, and it a week, I had three nice sunflower plants popping up.  I was pretty jazzed.  Last time I watered (four or five days ago) they were almost six inched high.  Not too shabby for absolutely NO prep and NO care besides a little water!

This morning, it was time to lightly water my garden.  I call it my garden, even thought it’s really two flower beds out front, one dogwood twigette next to the driveway, and a series of mismatched containers spread all over the side yard and front walk.

I went first to water the sunflowers and as shocked and slightly embarrassed to discover that they were GONE.  Completely invisible.  No evidence (there in the grass and weeds) that they had ever existed. That was rather discouraging, especially coming on the heels of my killing one of the dogwood twigettes a few days ago.  (I went to pull back the mulch which keeps trying to slide down around its little base, and I bumped the twigette, snapping it off in my hand.  Boo hoo.)

Upon closer examination of the place where the baby sunflowers used to be, I noticed that someone had evidently mowed or weed-eated the entire area next to the smokehouse.  This is supposed to be done each week with the mowing, but obviously hasn’t happened in recent weeks.  I called out our lawn care experts and pointed out that there HAD been some tiny sunflower plants in that very nondescript section of yard.  I told them I was going to replant said and put a piece of PVC pipe (doesn’t EVERYONE have pieces of PVC pipe lying around his yard?) along the area in question to delineate the potential sunflower home.

They were agreeable, so this afternoon, I actually took trowel to turf and dug up a a tiny “bed” for my second sowing of sunflower seeds.  They are watered, set apart, and happy.  May they sprout, and may I remember to communicate clearly to those I love on the matters that matter to me!

Hope. . . deferred?

One of the tomato plants I grew from seed has three small tomatoes on it.  Yippee!  However, it also seems to be dying from the bottom up of the same disease that I have struggled against in recent years.  I suspect it’s Early Blight, about which nothing can be done.  Sigh.

Once again, in my never-ending quest to grow – and actually get to eat – my own tomatoes, we have gone all-out this year:  lined the barrels with Visquine, used all new soil, started plants from seeds that were resistant to as many beasts and diseases as possible.  And this year, I am also trying other extreme measures:  planting lots of different varieties in different containers in different places.

We have tomato plants in all the large containers I could find.  Well, I do have a few more empty five gallon buckets, but I ran out of soil and didn’t want to buy any more.  I have tomatoes on the front walk, because it’s the one area of the property that actually gets the eight to ten hours of sunlight that tomatoes supposedly want.  It turns out that the barrels in the side yard are now so well shaded that they don’t get any direct sun till about 12:30 PM!  I also learned that tomatoes wants several feet of space between them (helps keep their leaves dry and prevents disease spread), so having four plants in each barrel all intertwined with each other was probably not a good idea.  I did reduce it to three plants in each barrel this year.

Anyway, it doesn’t look good for our tomato harvest yet, but I refuse to give up hope.