Mid-June Checkup

Here's a view of the tomato patch from the garden gate. There are also peppers, cucumbers, herbs, and squash out here, on the far side of the tomatoes, as well as some sunflowers and zinnias.




Leaf spot or no, the tomatoes are kicking butt.



So are the peppers!




Part of the "original" garden plot in Nanny's back yard.




Great Northern beans and cabbages coming right along.








Heh...Gordy's "got back."

The beans have tied up his noise makers, so he's more beautiful than functional. ;)






And my first little harvest (minus one ripe tomato and half a head of broccoli that I shared with Nanny and Pop-Pop).

How Can This Be?

When we returned from our camping trip, I rushed to the tomato patch to see how it was doing. To my dismay, I discovered that in the 4 short days that we were gone, the leaf spot returned with a vengeance. How can this be? I removed infected leaves and drowned those plants (and the soil around them) in fungicide the day before the camping trip. I thought that, even if I'd left some infected leaves - ones that had the fungus but were not yet showing damage - the fungicide would have taken care of the problem. Evidently not!

Nanny said that it had rained nearly every day while we were gone, which would have washed off some of the fungicide. But I know that the fungicide got at least 24 hours on the leaves. Does it take longer than that to work?

Another possible explanation for the return of the fungus is that I tilled around the tomatoes after I sprayed them, and I did not go back and spray the soil again. The fungus lives in the soil. I probably killed the ones on the surface, then turned up new, living monsters to attack my plants. And, with all this warm rain, fungus growth conditions have been ideal.

The frustrating part is that I can't do anything about it right now. I want to try a different fungicide - one that contains copper. The garden center only had it in expensive gallon jugs. They're ordering some quart containers, which won't be here until Tuesday. Even if I had the stuff right now, there wouldn't be any point in applying it, as it's still raining and is supposed to rain again tomorrow. But, come Tuesday afternoon, lookout fungus, I'm coming for you.

On the up side, I did discover a few almost-ripe tomatoes on the vines. I'm going to leave them there until they are perfectly ripe, then I'm going to make myself a delicious tomato & mayo sandwich on sourdough bread, if a squirrel or some other beast doesn't beat me to them.

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Time for a Break

It took about 5 more hours, but I finally finished defungusing and debugging the tomatoes yesterday. Now, I just need to run the tiller between the rows to de-grass, and, hopefully, the tomato patch can be on auto-pilot for a few days.

The "bean garden" is looking good. The Great Northern beans are blooming. The running beans - green beans and limas - are halfway up their supports, already.

The squash plants have little yellow squashes on them. They should be "eating size" in a couple of days. I planted a few zucchini seeds yesterday. Since the ground is warm and moist, they should pop right up.

The pepper plants have made a few jalapeno and bell peppers big enough to eat. I hope they save their energy and make their big crop just as the tomatoes are ripening so that I can have enough peppers for salsa.

Eggplants are blooming.

The okra is only about 3" tall. It's waiting for some serious summer heat before it'll begin to produce.

The broccoli, which I planted far too late, is making heads. So are the cabbages. Only one purple cabbage plant survived the rabbit, but it is beautiful enough to be in a flower garden.

The sweet peas, which I also planted too late, are about to poop out in this heat. Next week, I'll probably pull them up and plant more squash in their place.

Meanwhile, I'm going camping in the Ozarks. See you in a few days!

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Fungus Part 2

I went back to work in the tomato patch yesterday after the cloud passed, but even with my husband's help, I did not finish removing all of the infected leaves. After work today, we got busy and managed to cut off the rest of the freckled leaves. We were ruthless with our knives. The tomato plants now look almost like miniature palm trees - naked stalks, with little tufts of leaves at the tops.

Just as I finished fertilizing the tomato plants, another storm cloud blew in. Less than 5 minutes after we returned to the house, the bottom fell out of the sky. It's pouring rain right now. I'm glad I didn't have time to apply the fungicide/pesticide mixture, as the rain would have promptly washed it off.

The forecast for tomorrow shows more rain, but clear skies on Friday. Hopefully, the fungus won't eat the rest of the leaves before I have a chance to spray.

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A Fungus Among Us

Despite having planted my entire tomato crop in a location far, far away from last year's blight-stricken garden, the tomato plants have developed a freckly fungus - Septoria leaf spot, if my guess is correct. They also have some tiny little critters on them. Time to get out the sprayer.

Pop-Pop said that I could mix the pesticide and the fungicide together in the same water, and knock out two problems with one spraying. I mixed up the first gallon of the concoction and had almost emptied the sprayer when dark clouds began to thunder overhead. I high-tailed it to the house, hoping it's all noise and no rain, so as not to wash off the pesticide/fungicide I've already applied, and I'm hoping the clouds will pass over soon so that I can get back to the garden this evening before dark.

The online articles I've read about Septoria and blight suggested that one means of preventing infection is to remove leaves that are close to the ground before the blight ever starts, and to thin out the foliage, overall, to improve air circulation. Next year, I'm going to be vigilant about doing that, to see if it helps. As for now, I'm cutting off all of the infected leaves, taking them away from the garden, and absolutely hosing the remaining leaves, top and bottom, with the sprayer.

I hate, hate, hate having to put this stuff on my vegetables.

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Designer Bean Poles

Early Sunday morning, between bouts of rain, when I went to the tomato patch with a cup of coffee to stroll the perimeter, I spied the yard-long beans at the far edge of the plot. While devising my tepee system for the other garden plot, I'd completely forgotten about these beans. I had planted only one pack of seeds, enough for one short row. They were old seeds, and I had expected that they would not even sprout, but, behold, every seed had come up. Presumably, they'll need staking, too. But, since there's just one row, the two-row system I'd made for the other beans would be overkill here. I'd have to come up with another plan.

After making my loop around the tomato patch, I headed back to the house. On the way, I stopped to get something from my Jeep, and ended up cleaning out all the books, cups, and receipts from the passenger seat. Beneath all the clutter, I found a pack of giant sunflower seeds I'd bought earlier in the week. Cool! Into the garden they'll go, as soon as the ground dries a little! I brought them inside and stuck them in the pocket of my gardening apron.

The next day, while I was driving and pondering how I was going to support the yard-long beans, I remembered a conversation I'd had with another gardener last year. He plants his running beans in the corn row, and simply lets the beans run up the corn.

The one time I tried growing corn, raccoons got every single ear. I have no intention of planting corn, ever again.

Then, I remembered the giant sunflower seeds.

They'll have stalks as big as my wrist.

I hurried home and, braving the mud, stuffed a sunflower seed into the ground between each bean plant.

I probably should have planted the sunflowers first, to give them a head start, but this may still work, if those sunflower seeds sprout and get busy growing right away.

And won't they look cute?

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Support System

Last week, I noticed that the green beans are putting up runners, already. In the past, I waited too long to put up a support for them, and the runners twisted themselves into thick green ropes before I gave them a "trellis" to climb. This year, I decided to get the jump on them, and so I spent Saturday afternoon cutting bamboo canes and using them to rig up a support system for the beans.

First, I drove tall wooden tomato stakes into the middle of the two rows at about 6 ft. intervals, then I wove a strand of hemp twine up one side of the stakes (looping it around each stake) and back down the other, creating a double strand of twine between each stake. The twine strands need to be fairly taut, but not necessarily guitar-string tight. It'll tighten up in the next step. (Last year, I used bailing wire instead of twine. It made for a really strong support, but was a pain to remove in the fall. Let's cross our fingers and hope that this twine doesn't stretch and sag and let the vines collapse before the season is up.)

The next step is to set the canes. I stuck each cane into the space between the twine strands, and gave it a propellor-like twist before driving it into the ground in front of (not behind) the bean plants. (This is what tightens the string.) I spaced the canes about a foot apart. The result looked something like this:



This is last year's fence, done with metal posts and bailing wire instead of wood and twine. It was guitar-string tight, and strong enough to hold an old, leaky water hose (pierced extra times for good measure) laid down the length of the upright "V" for use as a sprinkler.

I suppose if I wanted to get fancy with it, I could tie strands of twine horizontally between the canes to give the runners a more convenient hold, but the system worked well enough last year without additional strands. Training the runners up canes at one foot intervals created spaces that I could reach into to get at the beans that hung on the inside of the teepee.

I have two rows of running beans (lima) left to stake, but first I must go on another cane-hunting expedition. Fortunately, it appears that the lima beans have not yet considered putting out runners, so I may have a little wiggle room, time-wise.

However, it has rained here all weekend - not a pounding flood, just frequent gentle showers, punctuated with bouts of sunshine. The tomatoes look like they've grown a foot in the past couple of days. So does the grass between them. Though they appear to have just been sitting there, doing nothing, the lima beans may explode with runners in the next few days.

Thus, on the gardening agenda this week is to (1) set more wooden stakes and create another trellis in the lima bean rows, and (2) run the tiller in the tomato patch when the ground dries a little.

Geez...it seems like I just did that!

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