6/2/2019 0 Comments Tomato Hornworm found!Discovered a Tomato Hornworm eating one of my Big Boy tomato plants on 05-28-19. Can you find Waldo in the pics below? How about in the next pic? Alas, Waldo was crushed shortly thereafter by my shoe. I then cut out the damaged tomato leaves so that I could more easily see if Waldo had any brothers or sisters. No signs of siblings so far. Yeah!
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5/24/2019 0 Comments Tomatoes starting to ripenJust picked 30 Sweet 100 (cherry), 3 Big Boy, 1 Grafted Celebrity & 1 Sunmaster Tomatoes. Should be picking tomatoes daily within a couple of days. Noticed more bees in the garden … they love the Purple Heart Jew flowers … and apparently the Burpee Hybrid II Cucumber flowers too … have started to pick cucumbers this week … could be over 40 flowers have set … thanks bees!
Let's start off with the three 4 foot x 12 foot raised beds which still have lettuce growing among the tomatoes … or is it the other way around? As the tomato plants grow, I need to put the 4 foot XL Burpee tomato cages around them to hold up the plants. But those darn lettuce plants are in the way. As you may recall, I transplanted quite a bit of lettuce into another 4 foot x 12 foot bed to make room for the tomato plants. Now what to do with their siblings? The solution … give lettuce to everyone I know … friends at church, fellow employees at work, several banks we do business with, my pharmacists, about 10 of my neighbors on the street where I live, my vegetarian hardware friend where I buy most of my plants who absolutely loves lettuce … you name it (I should say them) … they got lettuce … some more than once! Now let's see how the tomatoes looked three weeks later. The tomatoes have taken over. The Big Boy & Sweet 100 tomato plants are nearing the top (approx. 50 inches) of the XL Red cages. I will need to add the 24 inch extenders so the cages will reach 74 inches. I raised the canopy for the Early Girl, Big Boy & Sweet 100 tomatoes from 6 feet 8 inches (80 inches) to 7 feet 4 inches (88 inches), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar height! Actually he was only 7 feet 2 inches. The Grafted Celebrity & Sunmaster tomato plants have 15 to 20 tomatoes that have set so far. Followed closely by the Celebrity with 8 to 12 tomatoes per plant. Could be a great year for tomatoes. The big variable is the bugs! If I notice leaves being eaten, I look closely for little brown/green worms. We'll see what the next 6 weeks bring! By the second week of June, it will be too hot for tomatoes to set. Sunmaster is supposed to be heat tolerant. We shall see! This is the first year I've planted that variety. By mid July, it will be time to take down the tomato plants. I may add 6 Solar Fire tomato plants in another 3 weeks. They are heat tolerant and should produce tomatoes until mid November or the first freeze. Let's briefly check on the Bell Peppers & Cucumbers. I covered the Bell Peppers early this year with 30% shade to prevent the sun from burning any exposed peppers. This happens when temps get above 90 degrees. Shouldn't happen for another two weeks or so … better to be safe than sorry they say. And the cucumbers are about to bloom. There are male blooms & female blooms. Need the help of bees to pollinate. Not an issue with tomato & pepper blooms which self pollinate. Enough about vegetables … how about some flowers … Let's start with the snapdragons which were literally ripped out of a friend's "A Special Garden" (see webpage on memu) May 13 a year ago and the bare roots planted in my garden. Well they survived and did fairly well last year in their new home. One plant actually survived the winter. The others reseeded and voila … you have the beauty pictured below! Alas, the white snaps didn't reseed. But all the other colors did! Enough writing … just show the pics! By the way, the pansies did look a little down after 88 degree high on April 9 followed by 89 degrees on April 10th. The weather has been cooler since & they have recovered. But their days are numbered. Fortunately, I planted some White Wedding Zinnias seeds on April 19th. They should be ready to transplant into the garden to replace the pansies by the middle of May.
The Grafted Celebrity & Sunmaster Tomato plants have little tomatoes on them. The California Wonder Peppers though small are blooming and the pansies have been stunning the last couple of days. Enjoy the pics below. Cucumber update - 6 of 9 seeds on the left side and 5 of 9 seeds on the right side of the trellis have sprouted after a week. Almost there on the snapdragons which are finally starting to bloom! ... and the bees seem to be enjoying the tiny Purple Heart Jew flowers.
3/20/2019 0 Comments The Daylilies are Coming!Note what a difference four weeks makes … the "evergreen" varieties now have lots of company! Looks like Earlybird Cardinal, South Seas, Always Afternoon & Joan Senior have some new recruits. Actually they were just taking a brief nap!
3/18/2019 0 Comments Tomatoes & Peppers are finally InAfter three cold nights Mar 4-6 where the lows were 36, 31 & 36, I finally started planting my spring garden beginning with tomatoes, bell peppers & lastly cucumber seeds. You'll note I started planting the afternoon of the last cold night … tired of waiting for warmer weather combined with a favorable 10 day weather forecast!
I had previously transplanted on Feb 18 some of the lettuce in Beds 1-3 into Bed 5 (I have six 4 foot x 12 foot raised beds) to make room for the tomatoes. So you'll note from the pics below the tomatoes are planted among the lettuce … which by the way is working out just fine! This year I did something a little bit different. I first dug holes & removed the soil where I would plant each tomato. I took the soil & mixed it: 2/3 soil, 1/3 Cow Manure plus some Miracle Grow Tomato Fruit & Vegetable Shake & Feed in plastic green pots. Then I put the mixture back in the hole and planted the tomato. In the past, I would try to mix the manure & fertilizer in the beds surrounding the tomatoes & peppers as I planted them. We'll see if this more methodical method makes a noticeable difference this year. My soil is very loose … I did use a spade to loosen the soil, but was able to remove most of it with my bare hands. Won't comment on how dirty my hands got! We did have several days of high winds just after the tomatoes were planted. So I covered the tomatoes Mon Mar 11 for three days. When I uncovered them on Thu Mar 14 ... the tomatoes had weathered the 15 - 20 mph winds just fine. The Bed 1 plastic covering did come undone on the north side, but I was able to recover it the next morning. There were a few gaps, but no more total failures of the plastic coverings (2 mil 9' x 12' painter's plastic) during the 3 day wind event. Of course, this was nothing compared to Colorado & Nebraska who were experiencing record winds … no way I could deal with that … of course I don't live up there for a reason. Then again they don't have hurricanes ... How about some pictures of flowers in the rest of the garden. Note the new addition … Sophia Angel Wing Begonia!
2/22/2019 0 Comments My Garden in 90 Seconds - 02-23-19Please excuse my shameless borrowing from CBS This Morning Eye Opener ... Your World in 90 Seconds. It has been almost 40 days since my last blog. So … here's my garden in the last 3 plus weeks in 30 pics, more or less. It got down to 34 degrees the morning that the Four Season showed signs of frost. None of the other lettuce varieties showed signs of frost. Why the Four Seasons only? I guess we'll never know! Lettuce will handle temps down to the upper to mid 20s before showing damage. Broccoli can handle the low 20s. I'm down to the last couple Bell Peppers from my 01-19-19 final harvest. Those Yolo Wonder Peppers were planted almost a year ago on 02-24-18. I started picking peppers in late May 2018. So that's 8 months of tasty Bell Peppers available for the picking whenever I wanted. Not bad huh? Comparing the pics on the left to the same beds on the right … what a difference three weeks makes! You can clearly see the Four Seasons, Yugoslavian Red and Sunset seedlings which are finally starting to grow. Most of the larger lettuce in the left hand photos has been picked for salads or given away to neighbors, fellow (please ignore the sexist language) workers or friends at church. Also, note how there is very little difference in the Four Seasons & Yugoslavian Red lettuce in the early grow stages. I might note, the Sunset lettuce grows much slower than the other two varieties. You can see a mature Sunset with the deep crimson red leaves in the top left picture of bed 1. The purple Ageratum has bloomed all winter. It hasn't grown much, but has survived! And the Euryops are blooming again. There's something special about these yellow African Daisies. Just takes one or two blooms to cheer you up. And the Sun King Broccoli is done for the season … initial crowns picked as well as larger side shoots … time to remove in preparation for spring planting. I think Cucumbers will go in that spot this year. How do like the cute little water feature for the front porch? Heckle & Jeckle always on the go … when the power cord is plugged in of course. Friendswood Hardware has a number of delightful small water fountains and wind chimes as well. www.facebook.com/friendswoodhardware/ Picked up some Geraniums for the front porch. With the mild winter, it looks like the Hibiscus will make it. Generally, it just takes one light freeze to take them out. Didn't happen this year so far … and in another week or so winter is in essence over! The main difference between Four Seasons & Yugoslavian Red is that Four Seasons will not ball up in the middle as it matures. Yugoslavian Red does … almost like Iceberg lettuce in a sense. The lettuce in the center of the ball is white and not as tasty. So next year it's Four Seasons & no Yugoslavian Red! You will note that some of the Daylilies are starting to reemerge now that spring is near. But not all daylilies die down during the Houston winter either! Some daylilies are evergreen (don't die down in the winter), semi-evergreen & dormant. I have all three types. By early April the Daylilies will start to bloom. Then this website will be 75% daylilies for the next two months or so. This will be second season for the backyard daylily bed than runs along the brick wall. They were gorgeous last year … could be even better in year 2 if that is possible … pretty please! For a neat article on daylilies, click on the link below. www.finegardening.com/article/desirable-daylilies Last but not least … You'll notice there are now not 4, but 5 beds of lettuce. You might also notice that there are some green stakes in Beds 1, 2 & 3. What gives? In this case, some Four Seasons, Yugoslavian Red, Salad Bowl & Green Ice seedlings that were transplanted to Bed 5 (formerly a Broccoli bed) to make room for 6 Big Boy, 6 Sweet 100, 9 Early Girl and 2 Grafted Celebrity tomatoes to be planted on March 2! The plan is to plant the tomatoes among the lettuce. It won't take long for the tomatoes to take over … hopefully the lettuce will have been picked by then. Time will tell. Next blog will be after the tomatoes & bell peppers have been planted.
1/13/2019 0 Comments Let Us Plant More Lettuce!It's been almost 3 weeks since the last blog on Dec 24th. Let's bring you up to date as to what is going on in the garden! First or should I say last, on Jan 12th I decided it was time to replace the existing landscape timbers surrounding Bed 1. The first two layers of landscape timbers were installed back in the spring of 2013 … so it has been almost 6 years. Bed 1 is the far bed with the tomatoes in the picture below from 2013. I replaced the four layers of rotten landscape timbers with just two layers of fence post. Hopefully the fence posts will last longer than the landscape timbers. I did add a layer of Colorado River Rock under the new border so the bottom fence post won't sit in wet soil. Six years is not too bad though. The landscape timbers in the other 5 beds are also 6 years old and will probably need replacement within the next year or two. I was able to use a ratchet to remove the lag screws which held the 4 layers of landscape timbers together in Bed 1. Looks like I will be taking a load of rotten wood to the Greenhouse Landfill next Saturday. Should be fun! By the way, one side benefit was that I got 20,992 steps in yesterday according to my Fitbit Surge! Also on the non-lettuce front, the Yolo Wonder Bell Peppers continue to produce. There haven't been any new blooms in a number of weeks, but I'm still picking great tasting peppers (albeit a bit small) for my salads with home grown lettuce of course. I pinched off spent pansy blooms about a week ago and we've seen a resurgence of blooms this past week … and the Euryops and Hibiscus have started to bloom again … some of the daylilies have shown new growth … could be the warm weather we've had the last week or so. The Sun King Broccoli are doing quite well now. I mixed up some Miracle Grow about a week ago and the larger broccoli crowns are now 4 to 5 inches across. Not bad for a vegetable I use to take up space (in lieu of pulling weeds from barren soil) during the winter before I plant Tomatoes, Peppers & Cucumbers in early March. So what up with those Four Seasons, Sunset, Yugoslavian Red, Green Ice and Salad Bowl seeds I planted indoors back on 12-08-18. Well, most of the seedlings have been planted this past week. I put the Four Seasons in Bed 1 and Sunset in Bed 4 on Jan 06 followed by the Yugoslavian Red in bed 2 on Jan 08 and lastly the Green Ice and Salad Bowl in bed 3 on Jan 13th. Now I wasn't sure on my 09-27-18 planting which lettuce seedlings were Sunset versus say Lollo Rossa (from a Looseleaf Blend mix of seeds) or which plants were Four Seasons vs Yugoslavian Red. We'll know this time around because I planted these three (no Lollo Rossa this time) in separate beds. The Sunset & Four Seasons seedlings look pretty much the same starting out. The Yugoslavian Red seedlings initially are green then develop black spots. See below for lots of pictures of the four beds of lettuce starting out with a ground level view. I tried separating the seedlings which sometimes were four per cell when I transplanted them into the garden. Needless to say, each of the four beds probably received 80 plus lettuce seedlings. We should be swimming in lettuce (if we haven't been already) in another 45 to 60 days!
Last post was on Dec 6th. A lot has happened in just 18 days. First on Dec 8th I planted 5 types of lettuce seeds indoors under grow lights. So let's first check how they are doing. Four Seasons on the far left 4 rows was the first to germinate after only 2 days … followed closely by Salad Bowl on the right 6 rows. The 4 rows in the middle left are Sunset. Note the difference 9 days make. Still have another 12 days before I transplant the seedlings into the garden. Green Ice and Yugoslavian Red took longer to germinate. I also had to add some more seeds to cells about a week later for which no seedlings had sprouted. It could be that I didn't sprinkle seeds in those cells. It helps if you are far sighted like me after cataract surgery to wear your No 2 readers when sprinkling lettuce seeds while planting. Lettuce seeds are very tiny. I try to get 3 or 4 seeds per cell. That way at least one or two seeds will germinate. I can separate them later after they are planted in the garden. Moving on to the lettuce in the garden … I've had more fun giving lettuce away to neighbors, co-workers, church bible study participants and relatives at the family Christmas celebration. You can see in bed 3 I have picked quite a bit of Salad Bowl (light green) and in bed 4 Antares (reddish oak leaves) & Yugoslavian Red (wider reddish leaves) I really have enjoyed growing the Yugoslavian Red. I also love Green Frills Hybrid which isn't very prolific. It just looks good. See pics below. The Sun King Broccoli is beginning to form heads … they are a bit small this year … suspect I should have added some Miracle Grow every 2 weeks or so to get bigger plants … More focused on the lettuce this year. Lastly, the Ageratum continue to slowly grow out front. The number of purple blooms continues to multiply! Each bloom lasts 3 or four weeks which is nice.
12/6/2018 0 Comments Lettuce Doing Great!Let's check on the 4 beds of lettuce and see how they are doing. This was the first bed of lettuce seedlings planted back on 09-28-18. I've been picking Four Seasons, Salad Bowl, Simpson,Red Salad Bowl & Lollo Rossa for about a month now … and replacing picked lettuce with transplanted seedlings (which were growing in clumps of 3 to 4 plants) from the other lettuce beds. Second bed of lettuce seedlings was planted three weeks later on 10-19-18. I've started to pick Green Ice (dark green) & Lollo Rosa (dark red lettuce from the Loose Leaf Mix). The Salad Bowl (light green) and Red Salad Bowl (light red) is ready to pick now. It's amazing once they finally get going how quickly they grow! Third bed of lettuce seedlings was also planted on 10-19-18. I've been picking Curly Oakleaf (dark green) & Sunset Hybrid (dark red). The Salad Bowl is almost ready to pick. The dark red lettuce varieties don't grow as large or taste as sweet as the green varieties. Fourth bed of lettuce seedlings was planted on 10-21-18. I've started to pick some Antares (light red). The Four Seasons (might be Yugoslavian Red … at least that is what my notes say it is) has a way to go. There is also some Simpson (light green) in the bed.
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