Stovepipe
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Everything posted by Stovepipe
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Well, my tomato yield is down to about a third of what it was in June as the plants are starting to look a bit rough. I'm sitting on 45 quarts of whole tomatoes. There is still enough coming in every 3 or 4 days to can or give a bunch away. I think I'm going to switch to canning juice now in half gallon jars. It's nice to bust out a jar of that in winter and make pasta sauce in a crock pot. It has been a busy and fairly productive summer. I'm going to miss having the fresh produce around but am also excited about the fall/winter plantings. It's about to be collard season, yay! This fall I'm going for the following: - Garlic and Onions (for early summer harvest) - Potatoes in ground now for fall harvest - Lots of spinach - Lots of collards - Maybe some lettuce I will probably start the collards and spinach within the next two weeks.
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My wife and I went to see the Dead play their final shows in Chicago over the weekend (best concerts I've ever seen in my life hands down btw) and came home to this: A bushel basket plus another small bucket or two of maters. There were probably 30 fallen soldiers in addition that over ripened or got pecked by birds etc. Canned 14 quarts the first night back and need to do twice that. We're blowing up over here with the pattern shift that brought more rain. This is the earliest and biggest yield of tomatoes we've seen since we started gardening. Getting more than we can eat, can, or give away. Nuts dude!
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Ah ok, I recall my mom using that in her garden many years ago. Good for you not harming the bees. Well said my friend! I just placed an order, thanks Carvers!
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This is a new variety of paste tomato I tried this year, the Goldman's Italian: I harvested the German Red garlic this weekend and planted red potatoes in it's place.
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I'm very happy with my system overall. The hose in the second kit that I bought does have some "sprayers" that keep the bottom leaves of some plants wet and yellow. The original kit doesn't spray at all. Not a big deal, the system has done a great job at keeping my soil nice and wet. It saturates a nice large area. We'll see how the hose holds up over time. Thanks for sharing photos of your stuff, it all looks great! Love that purple cabbage. John, how do you deal with the white fly worms on your cabbage? I've given up on brussels, cabbage, and broccoli due to them. Last year I tried some organic spray but it didn't really help.
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Getting one or two of these bad boys each day. The flavor.... is ridiculous.
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Oh no! Was it the bear that was running around town? lol
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Picked my first two tomatoes of the season today, big ol' Pink Brandywines. Two or three days in the windowsill and they'll be perfect. The surge is coming. I expect to be canning by early July.
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I got my soaker hose system setup this weekend and it seems to work perfectly. I was so impressed with it that I went and bought another 100 foot kit to expand it further. This is the product I got at Lowes for $25: http://www.swanhose.com/product-p/celslk38100cc.htm What I like about this kit is you can customize it to your needs and it is super easy to work with. You just measure and cut the lengths of hose you need and hook it up with the various fittings. So far I've not covered the hose with soil and I'm not seeing much reason to do so. I've just got it anchored in spots with landscaping pins. There has been zero spraying, just a constant dribble which is perfect. After an afternoon, the soil was visibly wet at least a foot on both sides of the hose. I've got a few more expansions I want to do to get it up into a couple raised boxes but at this point 80% of my garden is covered. I highly recommend it.
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Kettle River Giant garlic is in. Not as big as I'd hoped for but bigger than last year's grocery store variety. Still waiting on the German Red to fall over. Green bell peppers rolling in. Cajun Bells coming in early, time for a summer chili!
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I still haven't had time to fool with it yet but I'm thinking I'll cover it loosely with soil. The main thing is to ensure the kids won't trip over it. It won't be a permanent installation though. This fall I'd like to run it down to the plot where I plan to build a hoop house.
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All the talk about blight and rot got me paranoid about running the sprinkler so I figured I'd go for the soaker hose. Got something that looks like this from Lowes for about $24, it's 100 feet long and I plan to run four 25 foot sections: I may add an additional 50-100 feet to cover another set of raised rows depending on how dry we get. I have no love for hoes! I covered my garlic in wheat straw last fall and the wheat seeds germinated. It's been a pain pulling all of that out of the beds. That and all of the little tomato seedlings that come up from the home made compost. I need to go back to burying my plants in woodchips. I've never tried pumpkins, keep us updated on how these turn out for you this year.
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I broke down and bought a soaker hose system. I should have it up and running by Sunday, just in time for the rain to actually start lol.
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I say use em if you got em. Just be mindful of the tomato plants getting top heavy, you'd hate for the containers to fall over and break the plants. You may have to stabilize the pots with something if they end up super tall. If you need to tie the plants to the cages do it gently. I cut up old tee shirts into thin strips and tie with them. A very thin string that is tied too tight can cut into the plants. Of course you could also let the tomatoes just sprawl out on the ground but you'd want to keep straw down for them to lay on and that might not be ideal. Also you have to be careful to not let them get ground rot in that scenario.
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Looks good Marietta! My only concern would be the tomato plants getting root bound in those pots. Even if they do you should still have yield, but the plants might be constrained. The peppers and other things should do awesome. Put a little fertilizer on them from time to time and keep them mulched with wheat straw or wood chips if you can. I came across some large plastic containers that previously had tree saplings in them, a friend was going to throw them away. I snatched them up and planted sun sugar cherry tomatoes and basil in them. The buckets are about 2 feet wide and 2.5 feet deep I'm guessing. These plants are growing like crazy and are as big as ones planted in the ground at the same time, at least so far. I'd suggest being on the look out for these as you might even be able to find them for free at somewhere like Lowes. Large pots are expensive so tree buckets are a nice free alternative if you are doing a container garden.
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My garden is blowing up, even with us being unlucky on storm tracks lately. We've got several big fatty tomatoes, I'm hoping a few are ready to eat within the next couple of weeks. The garlic has started to lay down so it'll be ready to harvest within a week. Basil is bushy and smells amazing. Cauliflower heads are getting noticeably bigger each day, I think it's about time to tie them up. The real fun will begin in mid to late June when we can start slicing up big Cherokee Purples and Pink Brandywines to eat with mozzarella cheese and basil. And the fresh salsa, pasta sauce, and the canning... can't wait!
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Wow you're not playing around John, nice work! Yes we need some pics.
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I had 100 in the ground last year. I lost count of how many jars I canned but we ran out around February. The withdrawals have been rough. Love me some maters. So John, has the mountain top turned green yet?
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^^ Lookin good guys! I got the rest of my warm season plants in the ground last week. Aside from a few miscellaneous things like an herb here or there and replacing a large bed of garlic with potatoes, I think I'm set til fall. Ended up with right at 75 tomatoes which is significantly less than last year. But, this time I spaced things out much more so hopefully I can baby them better and get better yields. Here is what is in the ground as of May 12: 75 tomatoes (pink brandywine, cherokee purple, goldmans italian, early girl, sun sugar) 17 peppers (green bell, cajun bell, jalapeno) 7 sweet basil 8 cauliflowers several different lettuces which are about done spinach kale garlic (german red, kettle river giant, elephant, and some random grocery store variety) onions (yellow, red, white) leeks shallots oregano cucumbers 3 half rows of sweet corn (3 more half rows in 3 weeks) It's no fun having to run the sprinkler in this drought, but so far everything is growing nicely. Corn came up in about 6 days. I have a few green tomatoes. The fall planted garlic is looking good, maybe another 3 weeks and it'll fall over and be harvested. The kale went nuts this year. I ended up with freaking giant plants, way more than I could eat so I've been giving it away. The cauliflower is huge but not making heads yet. All in all the season is off to a good start over here.
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I put 24 mater plants and 5 basils in the ground last weekend, with about 50 more maters to go. I'd planned to put in another 25 this coming weekend. At the moment I could probably cover everything up if frost comes knockin. Any more and I'll have out kicked my coverage. I don't know what to think at this point. It's tricky this early but the payoff of early tomatoes is huge. Not sure yet if I'm going to roll the dice or not. It'll probably come down to what the models are showing Saturday morning.
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If anyone is looking for mushroom compost in east TN, take a drive over to Monterey Mushrooms in Loudon. They sell it for $50 a truckload or they'll fill up a utility trailer for $35. That is a heck of a lot cheaper than what landscaping services or dirt companies sell it for. It can be as high as $230 for a 1 ton dump truck load and those companies get it from Monterey Mushrooms anyway so might as well get it from the source yourself. http://www.montereymushrooms.com/about-us/company-divisions/fresh-division/loudon-facility/ Call ahead to confirm what days and times it's available. I got a trailer load yesterday and it's dank. Can't wait to get it in my garden beds. It really is black gold, plants love the stuff.
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TN Valley sub-forum picnic sounds like a great idea! Your flowers and peppers look great, nice work! I expect to see lots of pics John!
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Yikes! That sucks but it might be worth sifting through the mess to find some slightly damaged plants. I've gotten free plants from them before that were in rough shape but were brought back to healthy in my garden. Yesterday I got a few more things in the ground: White onions Red onions Elephant garlic Shallots Leeks I'm thiiiiiis close to taunting mother nature by putting 10 or so tomato seedlings in the ground. My wife is going to pick up a trailer load of mushroom compost from Monterey Mushrooms tomorrow. I can't wait to start playing with that. I also found a free source of donkey manure that will come in handy later on. I can almost taste the heirloom tomatoes now... it's been too long!
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Awesome, I will definitely look into that place, got it bookmarked. Feel free to pass along any other great spots you recall. We've mostly stuck to state parks since the kids are young and the conveniences there are nice at this stage. As they get older we will branch out to more out of the way places. Big South Fork is next on the list after Easter.