Applestar’s 2019 Garden

[applestar]

One of my variegated crosses — Shimofuri F6 — is productive with pretty exuberant floral/fruit trusses — I think this might be from the Whippersnapper parentage? This is the segregate I am carrying forward this year for the tendency to drape and sprawl like Whippersnapper. I’m hoping for growth traits that would make this line suitable for hanging basket cultivation.


- the plant on the left in HBR will be tied up to stake(s) (or I might put a cage over it) and allowed to grow suckers with only some directional restrictions since it is probably determinate or semi-determinate
- the plant on the right is one of a pair that are growing in the VG.SIP and will be allowed to sucker freely and sprawl and drape, but will have plenty of root space this year to see how big they will get.

[applestar]

Not counting the early experiment Pinocchio Orange microdwarf, the very first ripe tomatoes in the main 2019 Garden were these Champagne Cherry, Coyote, and the small cherry multiflora(?) volunteer in the VGA bed:




Looks like the regular size cherry volunteer and the Yellow Dwarf x Sungold F3 will be next

...Totem F1 and Cow’s Tit are growing well too, as well as others

[TomatoNut95]

Wow! All those varieties you created yourself is amazing!

I was wondering if I crossed my Black Beauty with my Tiny Tim or Micro Tom, I might get a dwarf Black Beauty. I remember you telling me that the dwarf gene is recessive, so I'd want to cross with the shortest dwarf I own, right? My Micro Tom is the shortest at six inches. I might cross my new Splash of Cream with my Micro Tom someday to see if I get a variegated dwarf.

[applestar]

Which one tastes better — or how do the flavors compare — Tiny Tim vs. Micro Tom?


BTW...just to be clear, Shimofuri is the only one that’s mine. I have other crosses I’m working on, but they had a late start and are not at fruiting stage yet, and I’m not sure if they will have the chance this year. So I haven’t mentioned them much.

[TomatoNut95]

I haven't actually tasted the Micro Tom yet, the itty bitty fruits are still green. Tiny Tim is pretty good- cherry sized fruits are of average red tomato taste.

[applestar]

Thanks! Since your tomatoes are already coming in (you are harvesting them), why don’t you post about the varieties you are growing in —

This thread
Subject: FOCUS on 2019 Tomatoes (peppers and eggplants)

Or this thread
Subject: Tomato Tasting -- compare and share

[applestar]

Random photos of developing green and just starting to blush tomatoes. My tomato garden is turning out to be just the way I like’em — all shapes, sizes, and colors.



...trying to guess the piriform (pear/pouch-shaped larger fruit) — the varieties I have grown in the past that I can remember are Ernie’s Plump, Charlie Chaplin, and Gezahnte.

[applestar]

...Charlie Chaplin I grew before looked like this:
Subject: Applestar's 2016 Tomatoes (& peppers & eggplants)

I had almost given up on him, but it turns out my Charlie Chaplin is ALIVE!

...and Ernie’s Plump
Subject: Applestar's 2017 Tomatoes (and peppers and eggplants)

I think I'm seeing color-break in Ernie's Plump

I forgot that I compiled these before. And I have to remember that Charlie Chaplin is smaller — I think most of the others get pretty big. Also, I haven’t grown these particular deeply lobed/fluted varieties recently or at all (Costoluto Genovese, ages ago in mid-90’s or so) ...so, for now, I’m tending to think those volunteers are Ernie’s Plump.


Subject: Lindsaylew's 2016 Garden

Wow so big! So definitely not Charlie Chaplin which is smaller.
-- looks like a red to me right now, but be sure to do the epi/skin test. If the gel is green then this would be a "Black"

Are you saying a double is a rare occurrence? I can't remember now.

Is it like these?

Costoluto Genovese
https://www.rareseeds.com/costoluto-genovese-tomato/




Zapotec Pleated Tomato
https://www.seedsofchange.com/quickfacts ... FirstImage




...not as ruffled as these?

Coeur De Boeuf - Tatiana's TOMATOBase
https://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Coeur_De_Boeuf




... here's a pink variety (pink = clear epi)


pink wrinkle tomato Pitanga
https://tomaten-bohnen-pfirsich.blogspot ... tanga.html

...and just for fun, here's a yellow variety

Florentine Beauty
https://heritageseedmarket.com/index.php ... ne-beauty/

Hm... Zapotec image link is broken... here’s another:

Subject: Weird Tomato

Yup, it's the variety: Zapotek pleated tomatoes:



They make very odd looking slices:


They are reputed to be "prolific" and "heavy bearers" so yours must not be liking its conditions. They don't grow well in containers and need full sun.

[applestar]

Latest view of VG.SIP. There are 5 variegated plants
— 3 in the back are transplanted volunteers — I’m observing them for recognizable traits.
— 2 in the front are my Shimofuri F6 grown from saved seeds. This particular segregate was chosen for their tendency to have weak pliable vines that sprawl, and their exuberant determinate growth habit, which I thought may make them suitable for hanging basket, window box, and raised planter (patio, balcony, and veranda) culture.


... the plant on the right is definitely showing the growth pattern I noticed in it’s predecessor — once blooming and fruiting begins, it grows a sucker with a leaf (with a sucker node) + a floral/fruit cluster that terminates. The sucker grows a leaf (with a sucker node) and a leaf + a floral/fruit cluster ...and this goes on and on spawning suckers. The floral cluster on this plant is also compound. Whippersnapper had twin floral/fruit trusses (I remember up to 8-10 fruits) and I think this plant is doing the same — I think I’m seeing 6-7 cluster twins = 12-14 per.

...I think the one on the left is doing the same, but I’m having trouble differentiating the anatomy as clearly.

... I’m pretty sure I’m seeing indeterminate growth patterns on the volunteers — each vine/sucker is growing a floral truss opposite a leaf at every other leaf or every two leaves, with continuing, non-terminating growth. I will have to start limiting some of the sucker vines soon.

[applestar]

I planted “mixed” C.pepo seedlings in VGD.PSRB (Vegetable Garden D . Pallet Sided Raised Bed)

One of them started to vine and then RUN! Today, I noticed it had grown along the top of the fence nearly past the Enterprise apple tree to the next post (That’s a 10 ft fence panel from post-to-post), then decided to hop over to an overhanging branch, preparing to CLIMB the apple tree


... based on the speckled embryo, I’m hoping it might be the Godiva naked seed squash....

[applestar]

Now that I’m starting to feel better, I’m trying to get some critical tasks done in the garden that were neglected—

- went out extra early yesterday and sprayed all solanacea and cucurbits with potassium bicarbonate solution mixed with milk carton rinse out water and dolomitic lime water.

- tomatoes were all over the place and needed to be tied to supports, and I’m going with “zero tolerance” on disease-spotted leaves this year. Also pruning suckers and growing mostly single stems due to overcrowding as well as simply to increase airflow. I’ve done this in the past and I think it does it significantly impact vigor due to massive loss of leaves, but it also slows down progression and spread of the disease up the same plant as well as to neighboring plants. I’m opting to reduce fungal spore load and reservoir in the garden this year.

- melons, watermelons, squash and cuke vines needed training, re-directing, and in some cases, pruning or tying up



...Very low in endurance though — need to build up strength again. Heat and degraded air quality is not helping. I think I will be staying inside today.

- feeling a little stressed today because I really think practically everything in garden needs booster fertilization, and I still have a bunch of spring started seedling that never got planted — I was going to make bucket SIPs and plant a good number of them when I came down with the flu in the beginning of the month....

[applestar]

Vegetable Garden area update —

-Top Left : VGCX (a volunteer tomato that will probably be culled, 2 struggling Emerald artichokes, Purple Petra basils, Rosemary (winter-rooted cutting), Sweet Marjoram) in the front
... looking through VGC bed (mixture of tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, melons, watermelons, carrots, celery) to the VGD.PSRB (C.pepo summer and winter squashes, kale, tomatoes, long/jinenjo potato)

- Bottom Left : VG.SIP with 2 variegated Shimofuri F6 in the front and 3 variegated volunteers in the back. At left — Champagne Cherry tomato (and some squash leaves) growing up from the back right corner of VGD.PSRB. At right — Coyote cherry tomato and cucumber vines growing up from the back left corner of VGB.PSRB

- Right : VGA with a Chicago Hardy fig that is intended to be trained as a step-over across the front of the fence ... looking through VGA with all the volunteer tomatoes and a scattered remaining carrots from spring sowing
... can’t really see it but beyond VGA is the little 2x4 VGB bed with dehybridizing grow out generations of Hari and Orient Express eggplants
... VGB.PSRB [Pallet-sided Raised Bed] with volunteer burdocks, cucumbers, Coyote cherry tomato, struggling Pineapple Pig tomato, and two volunteer tomatoes in the back by the fence, [I thought I planted C.moschata squash here, but not sure now], Pink and Purple Mexican corn that are getting way too tall for hand pollinating again (picket fence is 5 feet tall at 2nd picket from the post, and the raised bed is filled with soil up to the 2nd pallet slat from the top)

...the window you might have noticed in the photos is a curb-side picked double glazed window that is used for all kinds of purposes in my garden. This time, I have it leaning against the VGB.PSRB mostly to reflect the sunlight onto the eggplants and to keep them good and warm, but also was hoping to heat the soil for the C.moschata squash which takes a long time to mature here...

[TomatoNut95]

Yeah, I know what you mean- the heat and humidity does nothing to make you feel better. I have yard work I need to do to, but when it gets super hot like this, I just don't want to anything. Right now it's already 90 at 10:00. So terrible! Feel sorry for my chickens. Saved my 'mystery tomatoes life when I came home from work and found the plant almost dead from being dehydrated.

[applestar]

Starting with a taste of little ones

[TomatoNut95]

Cherries are great! I ate a black cherry this morning! Not too sweet, but pretty good! My Black Cherrys split this year. The plant looks kind scraggly and I was going to pull it up, but when I went to do so, I saw all these green fruits on it, so I didn't have the heart. I'll wait until they ripen. Then chunk it. I'm impatiently waiting for my White Cherries to turn! This will be my first white tomato! Have you tried a white tomato, @Applestar? I've read they're fruity-tasting. I'm imagining it tasting like gum or candy. Hopefully it won't be that sweet, I don't like em' too sweet.

[applestar]

White tomatoes are basically yellow with clear skin/epi, with similar flavor profile. Many yellow varieties are mild with less of the strong front end wham! nor lingering acid, so unless they have a good middle flavor, they fall short. In my house, we like tomatoes with really strong, assertive flavor profiles in all three — front-middle-end — and DH has refused to eat any more yellow varieties unless I guarantee it is "great"!

I’ve grown whites before and grew a “white sauce" garden one year, and have identified maybe 3 white varieties that I particularly like so far. But am still looking. Also, some of my crosses are white elongated cherries. — unfortunately most of the white seedlings didn’t make it, but I have a few that are still waiting to get planted, so they will be late. Hopefully there are some whites in the volunteers.

Among those cherries harvested, the small (sometimes called currant size) 1/2” cherries — round Coyote and Champagne as well as the oval one (which I believe is one of my Coyote cross - Buttermints F5 )are white. We think these are very good, but on-line reviews are mixed — some people hate Coyote cherry. (I haven’t been able to determine the difference to Champagne cherry and think they might be the same variety.)

It has been noted, though, that there is a tendency for clear skinned tomatoes (white, frosty orange, pink, purple) to have that “fruity” flavor that enhances fresh eating flavor, whereas the yellow pigmented skin/epi tomatoes (yellow, orange, red, brown/black) to have a "grassy" (some people say "brassy") flavor that sometimes make them less tasty. On cooking though, the flavor breaks down/changes and sometimes enhances the result.


I made a collage of my recent harvests since 6/30.


- See the cucumber and the runty zucchini I picked today? The zucchini was incompletely pollinated and began to suffer from BER, so picked it and cut off the bottom end, intending to give to our veggie-loving kitties later ... well one of them was being naughty, and jumped up on the kitchen table where DH had put down the bags of pretzel hotdogs he had brought home from the Amish market. But instead of going after the hotdogs, she grabbed the cucumber out of the colander and took a bite out of it — which my DD1 confiscated. Afterwards, the same kitty saw another chance, jumped up on the table again, and this time, grabbed the runty zucchini It has been confiscated, but the zucchini will be served to them later.

[applestar]

Mmmm ... Figgses!

[TomatoNut95]

Ah, figs! My grandmother has three trees; but having squirrel problems.

I'm not fond of yellow tomatoes either. Too bleah for me, but I have a couple of family members that like them.

[applestar]

[TomatoNut95]

Aww, sorry @Applestar. I've chunked some of my plants already to, and I'm not through yet. I keep postponing my work 'cause it's been too hot.

[applestar]

VG AREA —

TOP ROW
- Volunteer cucurbits turned out to be a melon. Waiting to see if it might be a Korean Melon/chamoe
- Yay! One of the mixed pre-germinated cucumber seedlings turned out to be a Miniature White. I found one of the dry-sown seeds sprouted over in the Kitchen Garden so I think I will have two plants to count on.
- the club-like green thing is a zucchini — harvested


CENTER ROW
- one of the biggest blushing tomato is in the VGA ...approximately as wide as my iPhone 8+ so just over 3 inches in diameter. I didn’t take pics but the biggest pleated pouch/piriform (possibly Ernie’s Plump) in VGA and VGC are also as wide as my iPhone.
- next two fruits are also in VGA — the plants have some antho in the stems and the fruits are sprinkled with antho on the shoulders. These are probably Allonz-y,DrX (I need to check on the F generation, but F5 or F6 I think)

BOTTOM ROW
- all three photos show heavily antho’d, round green, currently ping pong ball sized fruits on different plants. I can’t guess what variety they could possibly be until more characteristics like fruit color and ultimate size are revealed
- they all had some antho in the stems and leaf veins, but the left-most one is so dark that even after pushing the light/exposure level to almost extreme as seen by the leaf next to it, the stem looks nearly black


harvested these small cherry, cherry, extra-elongated large cherry or small plum which could be an Afternoon Rosé and flattened saladette blunt heart that looks very much like Shimofuri or Jack Frost’s Early Love. Not definite yet.

[applestar]

HBR (HaybaleRow) and SFH (SunflowerHouse) —

There are some serious still-green tomatoes growing here —

Cow’s Tit, Opalka (first fruit), Homer Fike’s Yellow Oxheart are not looking very oxheart-shaped — we will have to see, Prudens Black, PaddyMC’s Steelhead, Dwarf Chocolate Lightning — realized when looking at the photos that these might not be striped As they should be), Pennheart have set some fruits.



I found some previously peeled open cobs with eating size kernels, so I picked them. They are runty and/or sparsely filled, but that’s OK. The red husk AppleStar’s #sweet# Medley segregate is probably from Double Red Sweet line. I’m hoping to save seeds from the second cob.

...

Homer Fike’s Yellow Oxheart was definitely heart-shaped in 2016. I’m pretty sure I sowed the saved seeds from this fruit, so possible accidental bee-cross neighbor is Berner Rose, which could be interesting.

Prok persimmons, Kiwi Gold raspberry, White Soul Alpine strawberries, container Petite Nigra figs split from all the rain... Some runner beans have set since cooler -- maybe they don't set in 90°F temps... Homer Fike's Yellow Oxheart tomato, mytery brown/black tomato from SF&H that was labeled Cream Sausage (extra dark blue-ish foliage), Seasoning Naga peppers (or possibly crossed Bhut Jolokia)

[TomatoNut95]

Love those black cherries! Looks like Blue Berries from Baker. But I could be wrong.

[applestar]

Haven’t grown Blue Berries yet, I think? Here are the possible candidates, starting with last year’s Helsing Junction Blues —

Subject: Applestar’s 2018 Tomatoes (and peppers ...maybe eggplants)

Helsing Junction Blues — amazing antho pigmentation on red cherry tomatoes. Said to be sweeter than most antho varieties. Antho varieties tend to separate into two categories — antho pigments that carry the “blecch” flavor, and the antho pigments that are tasty and reminiscent of blueberries and grapes. I’m hoping this one has the latter flavor profile.

— 3/21 seeds started
— 3/26 sprouted
— 6/1 planted out

Subject: Applestar’s 2018 Garden

I just love how cute the stem-end sun-print looks on antho cherries — I try to grow at least one variety every year — these are Helsing Junction Blues.



...

Subject: Black tomatoe ID

FYI -- Here are some of the different antho varieties I grew last year:

Subject: Applestar's 2015 Tomato (and Pepper and Eggplant) Garden

8/24 Harvest Photos

Today's tomatoes totaled 7-1/2 Lbs. On zeroed for 2-gal bucket and clear bowl scale:



GROUP PHOTO
- (not pictured -- colander of Purple Ruben Basil and Sweet Dani Lemon basil, some Drangon's Tongue wax beans)
TOP RIGHT:
[large beefsteaks and hearts]
- light antho top pink Alonzo's Medals might have been
- green striped red Girl Girl's Weird Thing
- pink Fish Lake Oxheart (2)
- dark antho top and stripe Pink Siberian Tiger (2)
[salads and saladettes]
- striped purple Sailor's Luck (4)
- green striped red Lyn's Mahogany Garnet
- dark and light antho top yellow striped Purple Dragon (2) -- 2nd one was shaded
- sweet pink Whippersnapper x Faelan's First Snow less variegated F1
- dark antho top Brazilian Beauty not (3)
- runty Diamond eggplant (2)
- Mini Paprika Yellow pepper
- tiny red Bolivian Rainbow pepper (2)
- Vernissage Yellow
- Juicy Saladette (5)



WHITE BOWL
- Prelude raspberries,
- White Soul alpine strawberry
- tiny loose Coyote hbr (3)
- normal cherry size antho top Amethyst Cream (forgot to take topside pic)
- small Petite Pomme de Blanche (1)
- over exposed pile of Maid of Orleans Jasmine blossoms
- trusses of Champagne cherry
CLEAR BOWL
- fire engine red with antho Fahrenheit Blues (5)
- smaller Rose Quartz Multiflora not
- medium not Carbon Copy not
- large round mottled with yellow Idyll
- yellow pear-shaped Ildi
- large green when ripe Samocvet Nefritovy
- brown pear-shaped Stormin Norman

- Pink Siberian Tiger
- Fish Lake Oxheart
- Whippersnapper x Faelan's First Snow less variegated F1
- Fahrenheit Blues

[applestar]

Starting to find itty bitty hornworms on pepper plants. One pulled off of a tomato leaf today was 1 inch long.

...in addition to the paper wasps and yellow jackets, as well as nesting birds that feed them to their young, I have these help...

[TomatoNut95]

Yep, I have found hornworms as well. I usually handpick. I do have the mantis, but they are too small. I also have putting oddles of itty bitty toads in my garden when I find them in the yard, but never see them again.

[applestar]

This one’s turning red. Helsing Junction Blues is becoming very likely...

[TomatoNut95]

I'm madly in love with that gorgeous deep color!!! May I ask where you got those? Is that a stable heirloom?

[applestar]

It should be stable — not heirloom status yet but recently developed. I got mine from Bunny Hop Seeds

Helsing Junction Blue
https://heritageseedmarket.com/index.ph ... tion-blue/


...and according to the description, it should be Blue not Blues and she changed the labeling. I guess I’ll have to change my Mater Master List

...She mentions that the original breeder is Tom Wagner. He has been known to release his crosses before they are stable. But she usually checks for stuff like that so this one is probably stable. As I mentioned this year as well as in previous year’s posts, there will be variation in the level of antho expression among the seedlings. So grow extra and select for/save seeds from the ones that turn darkest in full sun if you want to keep them that way in the subsequent generations.

Bunny Hop Seeds is where I got most of my micro dwarf varieties too.

[TomatoNut95]

Bunny Hop Seeds? How cute, never heard of that company. I have heard of Tom Wagner, I think he has stuff in Baker Creek. Cosmic Eclipse must not be a stable creation either. This one I had turned pink, solid pink. Nice flavor, but disappointed in the incorrect coloring.

This year I saved seeds from my Blue Beauty, which I believe is a Brad Gates creation. I'll see how true to type it will come. I have to ensure my varieties are stable because I sell the plants. People might come back to me with complaints of their fruits color not being as described.

[applestar]

Identity of this VGA volunteer IS STUMPING ME



It’s a little over 3" in diameter — maybe as much as 3-1/2 inches now. And despite this unfinished looking color, it seems to be ripe or just a day or two from full ripe. I kept feeling it this morning wondering, is it ripe? It feels velvety to the touch -- this is usually when I harvest them. But I left it for one more day.

Here’s an earlier photo of the entire plant. The foliage doesn’t look Regular Leaf to me, but not really a full Potato Leaf either. Does it look Dwarf?

... leaves are not as rugose as the obviously dwarf plants in the front with rugose leaves, but I’m suspecting those are 'Tim' [Dwf Pink Passion x HOZO F3] F3 (since I grew F2’s)?

Subject: Applestar's 2017 Garden
July 9, 2017

Kitchen Garden Patio SIP progress photo and the Purple Coneflower in bloom (big one was originally a gift plant from a member here plus seed-started babies)


...yep, that's "Tim"F2 there...

{After reviewing the photos below, I’m tending to think Dwarf Blazing Beauty.....?}


The color of the fruit sort of reminds me of Dwarf Orange Cream, but This looks more flattened with lobed shoulders (also leaf shape seemed wrong)... ooh or maybe this is Amana Orange? (Amana Orange has Regular Leaf though....)

Subject: Applestar's 2017 Garden
August 23, 2017

Today's harvest:

If it was pinker, I might think it’s Amy Sue ....
Subject: Applestar's 2017 Tomatoes (and peppers and eggplants)
Aug 03, 2017

Big fruited tomatoes are starting to ripen and trickling in. So fun to see what kind of colors, shapes, and sizes they turn out to be.

Dwarf Blazing Beauty is another possibility —
Subject: Applestar's 2017 Tomatoes (and peppers and eggplants)
Aug 05, 2017

Today's tomatoes -- I'm having critter trouble



Harvested these not quite ripe and even just blushed to keep them safe from the chipmunks

[TomatoNut95]

It's a pretty tomato whatever it is. I have a potato-leafed yellow variety called Yellow Perfection, but I doubt that's what yours is. Maybe it'll come to you when you're sure it's ripe, and taste-test it. Did you give you're tomato a little squeeze? If it's a little squishy, I'd say it was ripe. I squeeze mine when I'm not sure.

[applestar]

My test for harvesting is to feel if they have changed from the “shiny hard slick” feel to what I call “soft velvety” feel — I think of it kind of like ripe pear to ripe peach — if you apply pressure with your finger, it will give, but if really ripe, then it will bruise. So I try not to actually “squeeze”.....

[digitS']

I used to grow Dagma's Perfection - a very pretty light-yellow with a red blush, a soft and tender fruit. As I understand the story, Perfection was a UK commercial variety and this was a selection from that. Two years running, I had big problems with slugs on those plants! I later realized that the location beside the lawn was the problem with the slugs invading from the grass. By that time, I'd become discouraged from having the variety ... should probably order more seed .

Pests can sure upset the apple cart ... or, the tomato basket, right AppleStar? However, it is said that the biggest danger in the garden is a gardener dragging a hose.

One of my Amy Sue plants is potted and with 3 other tomatoes at the foot of my backsteps. All are outgrowing their cages and doing better there right now than the plants in the open garden. I was out yesterday trying to push a final branch back inside the cage before I put some tall stakes in the pots. Wouldn't you know, I broke it! Oh well, other parts of the plant are doing just fine and there are 6 remaining fruits, green. I think that I broke off many of the late flowers ...

Steve

[applestar]

Today, the stumper is looking like it is going to be red after all, even though it’s a bit wishywashy still.
(patio table slats are 2” on the center)
...you can see the difference among the cherries — two leftmost fruits are red, the rest in the row are pink, in the next row, the one on the left is a yellow, the rest are white. Later, I will check the epi on this one to see if it is yellow = red, clear = pink....

That being the case, here is the likeliest possible to my mind — a Mikhalych. The first example I have is a double size/boat she-, but it also has that funny puckered dimple. It’ll be great if Mikhalych, because it’s one of the varieties DH liked a lot before.

Earliest to ripen, according to this —

Subject: Applestar's 2017 Tomatoes (and peppers and eggplants)
Jul 25, 2017

First of the large fruited varieties to ripen -- 
Mikhalych (tb 2016) in the Sunflower House
-- it's a lumpy fused blossom fruit -- red and almost full ripe on one side but not on the other ...


(...oh yes, those black-looking --actually very dark brown-- things to the left are seriously mite damaged but ripe Pasilla Bajio peppers fruits from overwintered 2015 plant.)

Subject: Largest tomato of 2017 thread
Aug 07, 2017

My current largest is not quite 1 Lb -- 15.6 oz Mikhalych picked today blushed -- it will be a few days before it will be fully ripe.

Subject: Applestar's 2017 Tomatoes (and peppers and eggplants)
Sep 04, 2017

- Ramallet D’es Figueral (gerardo'Nov 2016)

Gerardo also sent the seeds for
- Mucha Miel
- Mikhalych (...but I grew the seeds from tillyboris)

[applestar]

DigitS’ — haha you posted while I was composing my novella. Tomato vines are so unwieldy! They seem flexible, and they are near the end — and soft and easily bruised or torn, but they become less pliableand it’s not easy to tell where the change occurs ... the angle of the leaf and stem branches are important — as are fruit stems — push in the opposite direction and snap! I keep breaking off way too green and tiny to be any good fruits, every time I try to adjust or reach in or tie up to a support....

Amy Sue and The Witz — I have to grow them again.

[applestar]

I’m harvesting lots of blackberries now even though I’m only picking ones that I can reach.

Also had to show the “mushroom that could” — another shiitake popped up from my home made substrate. ...I picked it even though it could have grown a bit bigger in another day, and chopped it up and cooked it into a pasta sauce with the lopped tops of the Brussels Sprout stalks. The tender baby cabbage that forms at the top always gets eaten up by the caterpillars, so I decided to go ahead and lop them off now — the sprouts are already starting to button, so — even though it’s the middle of the summer — I’m hoping to hurry up the process. I’ve Also cut off the leaves from the sprouts that are about pea to marble-sized.



The Brussels sprout tops were full of tiny little caterpillars — dunk and swished in 3 changes of water in 2 gallon buckets, then just for our peace of mind, par-boiled them in salted boiling water and looked (no worms ), then chopped and sautéed in sweet pepper oil and butter with sausage and meatballs, onions, and the shiitake before adding the tomato sauce.

[applestar]

Funeral song for the (not so dear) departed ....

...left one is an obviously spent cabbageworm with parasitic wasps larvae emerging to pupate.
...right shows a blackened cabbageworm hanging — most likely due to Bt infection (I’ve been forced to use it since I haven’t been able to get out and work in the garden in the way I would have wished), but could have been sucked dry by a predator. 2nd tiny caterpillar looks to me to be diseased, and I’m not sure what that is but there is an insect lurking in the shadows....

[TomatoNut95]

I picked my first Garden Peach tomato today. It was a runt, but wasn't gonna waste it.....but it was wasted anyway. Wouldn't you know a WORM WAS ON IT??? AARRGGH. Had to throw it out! There has been some kind of green grasshoppers eating in my garden. I hand pick them and send them to their death in the chicken coop. Heh-heh, they don't last five seconds in there!

Speaking of fragile tomato plants, my Ketchup tomato is pretty bad. It's not a vining type, it's a pretty short determinate type. But boy, it's branches break so easily! This spring I had a young plant in a pot ready to be transplanted and a gust of wind knocked it off the table, causing the plant to shatter into a million pieces as if it were made of glass!

[applestar]

Here are two of the Hestia F1 Brussels Sprouts in a KG.Patio SIP that seem to be starting to form sprouts. These are two of the plants that I lopped the top from as mentioned above.

...the white powdery stuff is Surround kaolin clay mixed with thuricide/Bt. I usually end up with milkweed growing from between the patio bricks in this corner, but I pulled them all when I realized I was going to end up having to use Bt so the Monarch butterflies won’t be affected From using them for their babies.