Veggie Garden Update

I got a lot done in the garden this morning, and finished up by about 2:00pm, right before it started raining.  Yay - it has been pretty dry so I am glad to see some rain.

First, the tomatoes needed some pruning and staking.   The row of tomatoes along the back of the veggie plot are supported by just a rough homemade bamboo frame (made out of bamboo stakes stuck into the ground with a couple of bamboo "cross-beams" running horizontally).  Since there is nothing to attach the frame to the side of the house, the weight of the tomatoes is starting to pull the frame over.  I should have taken a photo of it earlier - you can kind of see in this older photo how the plants are starting to list to the left.

The vines have been growing like crazy in the heat, so I needed to pinch off many of the suckers (which grow in the crooks between the main vine and the leaves).  Some of them had grown quite large, so I felt bad about pruning them but it had to be done.  I needed to figure out some way to support the bamboo stakes so they would sit a bit more upright.  So I tied the right side of the bamboo frame to a pipe that sticks out from the side of the house.

Then I took an old metal stake that I found rusting in the backyard when we  moved in to the house and hammered into the left side of the plot and tied it to the bamboo frame on that side.

So far, this seems to be working.  We will see what happens as the tomatoes continue to grow:

slightly more upright

I also pruned the tomatoes in Tomato Pot Alley and added some fertilizer to each of the plants.

The extra orange bucket you see there is filled with water mixed with the tomato clippings I pruned today.  We read that water steeped with tomato clippings makes a good insect repellant.  After it steeps for a while, we will drain it and put it into spray bottles to spray on the plants to keep bugs away.

While I was pruning and staking the tomatoes, I noticed this:

One of the tomatoes is starting to ripen!

And this:

Another ripening tomato!

Second, I continued my cleaning up of the veggie plot by removing a bunch of the marigold plants.  You may recall that when I first planted the marigolds (which I did to deter insects from eating my veggie plants), they looked like this:

But, before long, they turned into this:

In other words, many of the marigolds have been completely overtaken by the other plants.  I was planning to just pull a bunch of them out and discard them, but for whatever reason, the Moth has developed an affection for them and wanted me to save them - despite the fact that we have more than enough marigolds in containers on our front steps:

The Marigolds are just there to protect the basil plants I have growing in containers

So, I pulled four of the marigold plants out of the veggie plot and transplanted them into a pot, which is now at the corner of our walkway, leading up to the front door:

After clearing out the veggie plot, and harvesting yet more of the basil plants, the peppers are finally getting a little room to breath.  I noticed that some of the hot peppers were bowing over a little, so I hammered a couple of bamboo stakes into the ground and tied them up:

I just use ordinary twine (which I cut into pieces from large ball)
to tie up my tomatoes and peppers

More peppers being staked:

And some new teeny purple peppers on one of my black pearl pepper plants:

Kissed by raindrops (yes, I'm poetic)

Another more disturbing thing I discovered while I was doing all this pruning and cleaning is that the stems of my zucchini plant (closest to the ground) looked as though someone had been chewing on them.  After some internet research, I realized this was probably not a furry pest, but an insect.  Maybe a cucumber beetle or squash vine borer.  There's a lot of different advice on how to combat them, but this is what I decided to do in the end:

I cut into the affected area with a sharp knife.  Any disgusting insects that crawled out (of which there were many) I shmooshed and killed.  Then, I sprinkled the vine with Diamotaceous Earth (which I had purchased on Amazon previously because I read it was a good insect repellant and/or killer).  Then, I sprayed with hot pepper spray, buried the vines with moist soil and then sprinkled again with DE. This is how the area looked after all of my machinations. 

I hope I'm not too late and the evil bugs have not already killed my plant.  We will see.  For good measure, I sprinkled the rest of the veggie plot, including the squash plant, with DE and sprayed some hot pepper spray.  Of course, a couple of hours later it rained, so it may all have to be reapplied.

Finally, I pulled up some very small onions that I have interplanted throughout the garden:

I was hoping they would be a bit bigger by now, but - okay - we will just call them red scallions.  How about that?  They are supposed to cure for a while before using - at least according to the internet.  Although, since I'm not exactly planning to store them for the long cold winter (this about half of the amount of onion I use for one dish) I'm not really sure if that step is necessary.

Need Help With Problem Plants

I'm seeing some problems on some of my plants.  If anyone can help me identify the problem and what to do about it, I'd be very grateful.

First, there are brown spots on some of my tomato plant leaves.   Interestingly, even though I planted four different types of seeds, the brown spots only appear on the San Marzano plant leaves.  Here are shots of several different plants:

Second, I planted several carrot seeds outside over a month ago.  Only one has had any significant growth and it was looking pretty good until yesterday.  Now the leaves are all mottled, like this:

Finally, I bought some succulents at Home Depot, which I planted in a container.  One of them is starting to turn an yellowy orange.  The first photo below the top part of the plant, which looks pretty much as green as when I first bought it.  The second photo is of the ends of the plant, which are now turning yellow.

Any help would be appreciated!

Probably More Than You Would Want to Know About Tomatoes

Several months ago, I signed up for a free e-newsletter from Mother Earth News.  In the issue I received today, one of the topics was Growing Tomatoes: A Collection of Expert Advice.  The link takes you to a page with dozens of articles about tomatoes.

Topics include:

• The best tomatoes to grow in your location, including here in the Northeast.  Apparently, the best "slicers" are Brandywine, Early Girl and Beefsteak.
• Vertical Gardening Techniques, including caging, trellises, etc.
• How to save your own seeds. 
• Several tomato recipes, including tomato jam and what they claim is the perfect tomato sandwich.  I think the point of that last recipe is that any sandwich made from a tomato grown and ripened in your own garden is the perfect tomato sandwich.  I'm sure I will feel the same way once I've tasted my first homegrown tomato.

For a beginner, it's always nice to find a resource that provides a lot of information about a subject in one convenient location.  I'm sure I will be returning to these articles as I continue my tomato growing journey.

Oh and if tomatoes don't rock your boat, this month's e-newsletter also includes an article on growing potatoes in a barrel.

Seedlings, and Closets and Trees, Oh My

This week, I'm taking a "staycation" from work, to try to get a bunch of stuff down around the house and garden.  Our schedule is chock full of appointments with landscapers, tree trimmers, and closet designers.

Yes, I have decided to get a custom closet in the master bedroom closet.  I will finally have built-in shoe racks!  It's quite fun - although a little overwhelming because you have to choose how you want the closet configured.  And once you decide, you're pretty much stuck with the outcome, so you have to choose wisely!  I know I need a lot of shoe space and the MOTH needs tons of drawer and shelf space for his enormous and continually expanding collection of T-shirts, many dating all the way back to the early '80s (have I mentioned he's all mine, ladies!).

We have between 4 and 6 appointments scheduled throughout each day.  We've received several estimates from tree trimmers, with suggestions on how to tame the hideous overgrowth in my backyard:

And a couple of landscapers who have promised to provide us with design plans and estimates.  Interestingly, they all tell me that the plantings the builder put in at the front of the house are all wrong for that space.  Most of them will have to be moved elsewhere, or just eliminated altogether.

The good news is, I shouldn't be too sad about the death of my poor tree:

Because, evidently, it was all wrong for that space too, and now we can just take it out and replace it with something more appropriate.  Oh, another piece of great news?  Evidently, there is a huge cluster of poison ivy growing in my backyard like a ground cover, and like a vine up the gigantic oak tree at the bottom of the yard.  That will have to go!

Any free moments in between appointments are spent on garden-related tasks.  Today, I planted some new seeds:

I also picked several clusters of disgusting tiny green insects off my Lettuce (Rosalita) and Swiss Chard:

I don't know anything about insects, but I think they were Aphids.  They did sort of look like this:

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Today and yesterday, I transplanted some of my seedlings into bigger pots.  Here are some different varieties of tomato, an ornamental black pepper, which I planted along with some parsley, and another parsley seedling that I've planted in a pot with some chives seeds.

Tomato Sweet 100 (Cherry tomatoes), which I grew from seed

Tomato Akers West Virgina, purchased at the Rutgers Garden day on Saturday

Ornamental black pepper (from Rutgers) with a couple of parsley plants grown from seed

A type of black tomato I can't remember the name of right now - purchased at Rutgers

Parsley from seed.  I planted some Chives seeds around the edge of the pot

Here is a long view of all the new pots lined up next to each other:

I added bamboo stakes to the tomato plants, so they can be tied up as they grow

These are all transplanted into organic potting mix with a little fish emulsion fertilizer.

Then, I snapped a shot of this little Arugula seedling, which I direct sowed in one of the garden beds in front of the house about two weeks ago.  I sowed about 6 seeds at the time and around 4 of them are coming up.  I previously started some Arugula seeds inside, but they did not do well -  I think they "bolted" because they were on heat mats and were probably too warm.  So, after that I started several more Arugula seeds inside (without heat mats) and these ones outside.  It will be interesting to see which turn out better.  However, since it looks as though my plant beds are all going to be disrupted in the landscaping process, I won't be direct sowing any more seeds in those beds for now. 

Finally, I planted this guy on the corner of my house.  I have no idea what or who he is.  I went to a  meeting of my local town garden club a couple of months ago and several people brought in plants from their gardens to exchange.  I ended up taking home this guy - the person who brought him could not remember his name, but said it is a flowering plant and grows well.  He has been sitting in his little pot for that whole time while I tried to decide where to put him.  Again, he will probably have to be moved in the landscaping process, but according to his original owner, he transplants very well, so I'm hoping he'll be fine.  If not ... well ... easy come, easy go?

Unknown plant from a stranger

 Tomorrow, we make another trip to home depot for more  pots and potting mix. 

Started My Seedlings

Yesterday, I finally started some of the seeds I bought last week.  I used the Jiffy 72-cell starter pack. Here is the layout of the seeds I planted.  I had to soak the flat parsley seeds overnight, so I added those today.  I ended up soaking too many to fit in the last remaining cells of the starter pack, so I improvised and planted the extra parsley seeds in some tiny plastic cups.  (We have a bunch of these that the MOTH uses to collect urine samples from Ghost and take to the vet.  This enables us to test Ghost regularly without the disruption of a vet visit.  He is 17 years old and has CRF, along with various other ailments so we like to keep him as comfy as possible in his old age).  Anyway, so I punched holes in the bottom of four plastic cups, stuck in some moist peat that I bought to amend the soil in the veggie plot, and plopped in the extra seeds.  I then put the four cups into an old Chinese food container that I use for storing leftovers and covered it with a plastic cover that I bought to cover plates in the microwave, but which I've never actually used.

Here is a photo of all the seeds, taken today:

72-cell starter pack on the right; circle of Parsley on the left

I have ordered a grow light and heat mats from Amazon, which should arrive in the few days.  I probably should have waited for the heat mat to arrive before starting the seeds, but I am keeping them in a warm place for now.  After much discussion with the MOTH, we decided to set up the seed starting station in the walk-in closet, since that is the one room the cats are not allowed into.  It is plenty large, so we dragged up an old coffee table from the MOTH's bachelor days (Oh yes, particle board covered with  marbleized laminate and fake brass legs - hands off, ladies, he is all mine).  It may be UCTU (the ugliest coffee table in the universe), but I think it is the perfect size for my seed starting project.  Once the grow lights and heat mats get here and the seeds have started to sprout, I will move them up to the closet.  Pics to come!

My First Seeds

I went to Home Depot yesterday to pick up some more gardening supplies.  I hadn't planned on starting any seeds indoors this season (I figured I would buy transplants and direct sow seeds, since I'm not really set up to start seeds).  Of course, once I got there and saw all the pretty seed packets, I couldn't resist.  I guess I'm a sucker for glossy marketing, even in the gardening department.  So, I bought a bunch of seed packets and one of those indoor seed starter thingies.  I didn't have time to set it up this weekend, so it will probably have to wait until next weekend.

I bought pretty much anything that said it could be started indoors and transplanted later.  I am holding off from buying anything that says "Direct Sow," since I can't do anything with them yet.  I got several different kinds of tomatoes and peppers, so I can see which ones grow best and/or taste best.  Anyway, here is my very first set of seed packets:

My First Seed Packets - March 2012

•  Martha Stewart Brand:
• Basil Genovese
• Basil Sweet
• Chives
• Parsley Moss Curled
• Tomato Beefsteak
• Burpee Brand:
• Rosemary
• Sweet Pepper Carnival Hybrid Mix
• Hot Pepper
• Sweet Pepper
• Tomato - Super Sweet 100 Hybrid
• Tomato - Early Treat Hybrid
• Tomato - Best Boy Hybrid
• Tomato - San Marzano
• Sage, Common (oops, I accidentally bought two packs of this)
• True Lavender