Garden Growing

[BB_TX]

If you were closer I would gladly give you some tomatoes. Mine have gone crazy. I only set out 4 plants. We have already eaten I don't know how many. Last night I counted and I had 41 setting on the counter finishing ripening. The plants are still covered with them of various sizes from small to almost ready. Been a great year for green beans, lettuce, and onions also.

 

[CGranat]

Bird, that reminds me of our green bean crop last year. We had about 120 feet of beans. We thought if we got 50 pints, we would be okay and, if we got 75 pints we would be in great shape. I ended up tilling the plants under with beans still on them after we put up our 140th pint! We were sick of canning beans. Along a similar line, my sister-in-law has started growing tomatoes from seed. This year she had 144 Roma and 70 beefsteak; all but 6 made it into a garden. With four families with large gardens, they all get used. As previously posted, i love growing things.

 

[Chuck52]

BB,

I'd just about drive down there for them! Here, even at the farmer's market, most of the "homegrown" tomatoes are from hothouses. I mulched the heck out of mine yesterday to help with the watering situation. They're setting lots of fruit, so I'll get some in a few weeks. At least the peppers really like this weather. It's amazing how those itty bitty plants put out so many peppers. I grew some from a mixed bag of hot pepper seed. Looks like most are jalapeno, but others are not yet decided. If my tomatoes cooperate, I plan to make some salsas.

Chuck

 

[BB_TX]

It's really amazing on the difference in the tomatoes. The ones I am getting from my plants are meat almost all the way through. Very small seed pockets around the edges. Seems the ones you buy are more seed and juice than meat.

 

[Mosey]

Chuck - "I mulched the heck out of mine".

What do you mulch with? Grass clippings? I've never tried mulching a garden until this year. I've been using grass clippings. So far no weeds where the mulch is, and the ground stays moist underneath. It takes a lot of clippings to cover much of an area though. That's one advantage of a big yard I guess, plenty of grass clippings! It still takes time, but I figure once I have it all mulched, which it almost is now, it will be low maintenance the rest of the year. In previous years I ran out of time and couldn't keep up with it, so it goes to weeds by the middle of July.

 

[Chuck52]

Mosey,

I mulched with some straw until I ran out, and then I used some old dry grass clippings. I wanted to wait until later in the season to mulch, because I like to work the soil around the base of the plants while hoeing. I've always heard that helps keep the soil loose and aids root development. However, my soil seems to set up like concrete after watering, and so the mulch. Do you use fresh clippings? I've been told to let them dry first. I'm going to side dress with some fertilizer today because as mulch decomposes it can deplete soil nitrogen. That's probably more inportant if you use something like sawdust or wood chips, but a little fertilizer can't hurt!

Chuck

 

[Bird]

We had to go to town for a grandson's 13th birthday party yesterday, so I picked about 9 gallons of tomatoes to take and distribute to friends and family while we were there, and I probably only picked about a fourth of the ripe ones that were there! We've got some friends who plan to come today to get 15 or 20 gallons of them to make salsa again.

 

[Chuck52]

My gosh Bird, I hope this isn't a zero sum game. If it is, you done used up my share of tomatoes!

Chuck

 

[Bird]

Chuck, the friends who were coming to get tomatoes showed up all right, but with only two shiny new 7 gallon buckets./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif The guy said his son was going to bring four of those buckets but that he told the boy they didn't want to take everything. Well, they filled those buckets and I told them to go get the other two (or more). So they said they'll be back later this evening or tomorrow because they didn't get half of the ripe tomatoes.

I hope yours do half as well as mine have (I don't want them to do as well as mine have 'cause you couldn't rid of all of them/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif).

 

[Steelfan]

Bird , Quit rubbing it in. I'm still waiting for my first tomatoes. Your northern friend would kill for a home grown tomato sandwich. I can taste it now with Salad Dressing, Salt, and Pepper. Glad to see you had such a good crop. I hope I do as well. Kent

 

[Bird]

Kent, if it's any consolation for you, you'll probably have nice fresh tomatoes long after the heat and grasshoppers have finished mine off./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif But in the meantime, I'm eatin' fresh tomatoes every meal./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

In '93, I spent 4 months at Sayre, PA. We got there in early April and they were having flooding problems at the time so (according to the local newspaper) planting was late and they usually had fresh corn by July 4, but not that year; it was a couple of weeks later. And down here, this year, my corn was a little late; picked the first of it June 4 and the last of it June 14.

Incidentally, while we were there I noticed a lot of poke being grown in flower beds as an ornamental plant, but never found anyone who had heard of eating it, and down here a lot of folks eat it; makes pretty good greens if you know how to cook it (parboil and pour off the first, and sometimes second, water).

 

[BB_TX]

Bird - Just curious. Did your tomatoes do better than normal this year? I have never had tomatoes like I do this year. I only set out 4 plants, but have already picked about 75 tomatoes and they are still growing new ones. I am picking 5 or 6 each day. I did set them out a little earlier than usual (had to cover twice for frost). Unfortunately, I bought the plants at 3rd Monday trades days and forgot what kind variety they are./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

 

[Bird]

Bill, I don't know that I could say the tomatoes have done any better this year than in the past, but at least as well as in the past. I've tried several varieties in the past, but this year only Early Girl and Big Boy. I set out the plants this year on March 15.

Of course, there's a lot more about gardening that I don't know than what I do know. The first year we were here, I set out a few tomato plants in the little garden spot the previous owner had and they produced lots of tomatoes; plants were loaded with tomatoes that grew to a good big size and not a single one ever ripened or changed color; just stayed green right up to the first frost. I still have no explanation for that and have never seen or heard of it happening.

And now since we're not even picking all the ripe ones, they're starting to run a lot smaller than the earlier tomatoes. Is that because there are just so many on the plants, or because we're not keeping the ripe ones picked off, or because of the hotter weather, or something else? They're still good tomatoes; just not as big as the ones we picked last month.

 

[Mosey]

Chuck - "Do you use fresh clippings?"

I've let them dry a day or two, or used them right away. It doesn't seem to make any difference. My lawn sweeper seems to have an easier time if they're dry though.