Tag Archives: tomatoes

Tomatoes

Garden,

On growing tomatoes, I am not there yet. Last year I had a plant which produced four tomatoes. A ripe one disappeared from the plant, and must have been eaten by a garden visitor. There is one for which I do not remember the fate, and the two harvested ones were unevenly ripe. The plant kept growing and flowering, and I, not knowing better, thought that the lack of tomatoes was due to a lack of bees. And I tried to induce pollination with an electric toothbrush to no avail.
This year I planted two kinds directly into the soil last spring, and purchased some plastic tomato supports. One kind gave exactly one, nice-sized tomato, and the other kind yielded many tomatoes on plants which grew tall, and branched. The first tomatoes were about two inches in diameter, but now in the last week of July, they are little more than one inch.
This producing tomato cultivar, “Money Maker”, is not one which I will plant again, because the tomatoes have a very thick skin. I understand that we can start seeds now to be planted in the fall, I intend to try several kinds of cultivars, to see if they will grow in our back yard under our conditions, and to see if we like any of them!

Garden, Pre-Trimming, August 10, 2014

Garden, Herbs, Light, Needs (Human), Plantains, Soil, Time of planting, , , , ,

The garden is producing some herbs, a few tomatoes, parsnips, and carrots.    Herbs include basil from the late winter planting, self seeded dill, parsley, oregano, marjoram, one sorrel plant, and a few sage plants.    They can hold on alive, until conditions become right for their growth, when they begin to flourish.

DSC03816 A couple of major setbacks  this year have been snails, big time, and tent caterpillars,  both of which eat a lot.

 

DSC03815 The tent caterpillars demolished the foliage on the mulberry tree which had graced the tree on the other side of the fence.  You can see how the elephant ears are returning after I  cut them back last fall.  These are  very prolific here, and grow by themselves, needing only control from time to time to keep them in bounds when their spot suits them.DSC03814 These plantains have come back to the point that one hardly sees any of the portions which died in the frosts last winter.   There is at least one small bunch of plantains.  The die back did not affect the very centers of some of the plants, and the corms are always producing new plants.  It is supposed to take one quarter to one and one half years for a plant to produce plantains

.  We’ll see what happens this year.

Lettuce grew well at times and one fourth of the green cabbages grew well at some point.  Red cabbages never grew fast enough, and neither did radishes or beets.  Nasturtiums did well for awhile, and then dried out.  Plants from seeds generally did not do very well.  Plants which I have bought already started seem to generally do better than plants from the seeds which I have bought, and may be a more cost effective way to keep the garden planted.

I learned that citrus plants are considered high maintenance.  It was recommended that they be sprayed weekly.  I will have to investigate organic ways to control their problems.  It seems that snails had eaten any initial fruits that I had from the flowers which appeared on the lime tree and the lemon tree, so we will not get any harvest from these this year.   I ordered copper foil, which may be effective in keeping snails off of certain plants.

One thing is sure.  It takes a lot of special knowledge to produce maximum crops, organically in particular patches of soil.  I need to learn a lot about the soil, timing of planting, and light.   So far, plantains are our most successful crop, needing little attention, and growing like weeds.   Vegetable have not grown very well for us.  Noo peppers came upat all.  Neither did eggplant, cucumbers, nor okra.    Lettuce, cabbage, radishes, and broccoli did not do very well.

Garden, July 10 2014

Garden, Plantains, , , , , , ,

DSC03521 Garden, July 10.  No new plantings since last spring.  I got a garlic, newly growing from cloves I planted last spring.  I pulled it up because I thought it was a weedy piece of grass.

DSC03518 It looks like a small onion, but it smells like garlic.  We CAN grow garlic.

DSC03520 And plantains.  They need attention, but they grow really well here.

DSC03505 The little feathery seedlings are dill, which self-seeded from such seed bearing flowers (below).

DSC03517 The flowers are at the upper left, and the skimpy roots are at the lower right.  After they have gone to seed, dill dries up and is refreshed by the baby plants from its seeds.  A possible project would be to see where the dill from the seeds I saved could grow in our yard in different times and places.  Dill and plantains have completed the life cycle by dying back and propagating for future crops.  These are self sustaining.

Garlic could become self-sustaining.

DSC03510 Basil (right of center)is growing well here, but not a few feet away, where it could not sink its roots in.

DSC03509 Carrots are taking off now.DSC03511 Parsnips are growing well.

DSC03514 Kohrabi (light green in front) with a tomato plant behind it.

DSC03513 More tomatoes are visible among the plants in the upper left quadrant.  The newly planted tomatoes, which had sprouted in June among the front yard plants,  have all disappeared.  I wonder if snails eat young tomato plants.

DSC03512 Cabbage has not done too well here.  Here is a barely growing cabbage.

DSC03503 Lettuce grows, and I am going to see if I can get some seeds from these plants.  Some of it may have seeded itself.  The trouble with lettuce here, is that after snails become active, I am afraid they may pass on dangerous parasites that they leave on the lettuce leaves, unless I cook it.