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TomatoNut95
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Re: TomatoNut's 2020 Garden

A small zipper pea. My family's just always called em cream peas. :wink:

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TomatoNut95
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Today I picked the first 2 ripe blackberries from my patch! :-() Can't wait for that jelly!

Worked on separating my tomato seedlings. My Velvet Red looks funny, as does my Poblano who wants to stay droopy. Don't know why.

One of my lettuce heads died a mysterious death, the head wilted up and flopped over. I suspect molded stem base.

Something crazy going on with one of my Tiny Tims... See the photo of the two small plants. Plant on right seems to be deformed, or perhaps a oddly leafed sport. Only time will tell.

My Silvery Fir Tree tomato fruits are slowly getting bigger. I'm impatiently awaiting to try this new variety and get it 'cataloged' for my scrapbook. :D

I'm hoping that after this future cold snap passes I can finally get the peas and squash and foot-long beans planted.
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TomatoNut95
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Tsk, tsk, tsk. Boys will be boys. :roll:
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TNCatHerder
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TomatoNut95 wrote:
Fri Apr 10, 2020 2:13 pm
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Boys will be boys. :roll:
Is that fighting or playing? Do they eat your plants or just bugs around your plants?

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TomatoNut95
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Fighting. They are both males. Male anoles will fight each other over their territories. They don't eat plants, but they're very effective bug vacuums!

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Can you relocate 1 to another part of your garden?

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TomatoNut95
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Oh don't worry, the fight broke up and no major damage done. :wink:

But more critters to add: baby garter I'm guessing?
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Where did you find that?

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TomatoNut95
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I found it slithering in the backyard as I was doing yard work. He was no bigger than a large earthworm. I used one of my shoprags to pick him up. I placed him in a bucket so I could get a good look at him. I knew he wasn't poisonous right away, his eyes were round. I released him in the woods and he squiggled off into the brush.

After the storm passed this morning I went out and checked my garden. Peppers and Mr. Stripey took it pretty hard. Mysteriously enough, it appeared something had broken into my greenhouse. The brick I used to block the crack at the bottom of the door to keep mice, rats and wrens outta my space had been moved and a couple of things had been knocked over.

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TomatoNut95
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The power FINALLY came back on late this afternoon, thank-goodness.

It was chilly all day today, that wind felt like 40 degrees. Covered up the peppers and Mr. Stripey and moved all the potted stuff in the greenhouse and I put the insulation foam boards over it. I'll be so happy after this cold front passes. I have a lot of planting to do.

Black Hungarian plant had a purple blossom on it, hopefully I'll get my first fruit here before long if my stuff doesn't frost. My BFF(Best Friend Forever) told me that rinsing the frost off plants before the sun hits them saves them. I'll try it if it happens, but if it doesn't work, my friend will be hearing from me.....

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TomatoNut95
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Long time no update. Here's my garden so far: Old raised bed with new raised bed attached to it. Full of sand, amended with TomatoTone, Bone Meal and a little potting soil. Old part is full of peppers, tomatoes and old lettuce. New part contains squash. Two new other raised beds full of sand amended with contain cream peas. Two other fabric 'raised beds': one on left contains yellow onion sets, one on right has various potatoes. Am sticking Romas in 5-gallon fabric pots, if they don't do they don't do. No where else to put them, all other areas are full.

Peppers all have blossoms on them, most of which are dropping due to humid weather. I have a few sweet bananas, a black hungarian and a big bertha coming so far. As for tomatoes, fruits on my older Tiny Tim's, Roma, Bradley and SFT are still green and not growing or turning. Got a Black Beauty and a Mr. Stripey slowly on the way.
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Nyan
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Nice bed construction!
Makes my haphazard concrete block beds look shameful.. LOL..

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TomatoNut95
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Cream peas are coming up and 'wild' roses are blooming! :-()
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Hello there.. I'm brand new to this site and very glad I found it! As far as germinating seeds, I start them using everything as warm as I can. Warm water to moisten the planting medium, warm spray, ect. I then put plastic wrap around the cell pack or I use the cell pack tray with NO holes in the bottom and put the plastic lid on tightly. I then put the tray on a heat mat. If you don't have a mat, try the hot water heater or a heating pad for sore muscles. I get broccoli, cabbage, and many other veggies to germinate within 3 days this way. Tomatoes take about 6 days. Peppers about the same. I planted marigolds this way and they were up in 4 days. I've eused this method for MANY years and it works great! I even germinate corn in their own 2"peat pot to insure germination and no chance of rotting in cold soil. After they germinate, which is about 3 days, I let them grow about 2 days and then transplant them in to the garden. This way I don't have to worry about soil that is to cold for the seeds to germinate. Hope all this helps!

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Hello and welcome to the forum! You'll find some very smart people on this forum. I am not one of the smart ones though. 😆
Thank-you for the information, but I don't have a seed mat and not sure if I could trust one. I always start my peppers seeds indoors in December in foam or plastic eggs cartons(cardboard ones get too floppy). They germinate within 3-4 weeks. I have a small greenhouse and that is where my tomatoes are started later, like about early March. With the occasional neat transplant I my come across, all my peppers and tomatoes are started from seed. And I tend to grow just heirlooms, I'm not a fan of fancy-smancy, expensive hybrids. The last hybrid I grew was a couple years back: Fooled You Hyrbid Jalapenos. I grew them because I cannot tolerate hot peppers, and the fool yous stayed completely heatles, even under weather stress. But since I found an heirlooms version for my Fooled Yous, good-bye hybrid!

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I can't stand not being able to put pics on here, so I had to just use my old falling apart phone.

I harvested my first SFT's and Tiny Tim's. The SFT wasn't as good as I expected, fruits turned out to be red instead of pink like the packet shows, and sweet flavor was weak and both fruits had rotted spots inside them. I saved seed from it, maybe that wasn't good to save seed out of a rotted tomato? Maybe SFT isn't suited for this area?

The Tiny Tims were excellent, I've gotten bigger fruits off them than ever before. Must be the change in soil and fertilize. I saved seed from them as well, I'm hoping to share someday.

The Black Hungarians were also not as good either. Not any heat and no flavor. Really blah, I might say, as well as that sweet Italian pepper I can't pronounce.
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Silvery Fir Tree tomato: For what it's worth, we grew it a few years back. Judged it a nice plant and an interesting novelty but not much of a tomato. Didn't grow it again.

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Can't stand not being able to put pics on here from my tablet so I had to use my dilapidated phone.

Slow garden progress, lots of peppers on the plants: Italian pepper I can't spell or pronounce, Poblano, Black Hungarian, Nadapenos @Gary's Chili pepper, and Big Bertha. My Black Beauty's are turning black as the fruits grow, my squashes are about to bloom.

Whoops I forgot to take a picture of my Fish pepper plant, it has slight variegation and a little pepper with no variegation on it yet.

I picked off the infected Roma fruit. No other fruit seems to be infected....look closely at my Roma pic and you'll see one of my little friends on the left-hand side. :wink:
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Nyan
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Wow, your peppers and tomatoes are far more advanced than my poor little frostbitten stuff!

Good looking plants!

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TomatoNut95
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Thank-you! And hey, your stuff will perk up! 🤗

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My Scallops and Zucchini are growing, so I guess my hand pollination worked!
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TomatoNut95 wrote:
Sat May 16, 2020 2:21 pm
Can't stand not being able to put pics on here from my tablet so I had to use my dilapidated phone.

Slow garden progress, lots of peppers on the plants: Italian pepper I can't spell or pronounce, Poblano, Black Hungarian, Nadapenos @Gary's Chili pepper, and Big Bertha. My Black Beauty's are turning black as the fruits grow, my squashes are about to bloom.

Whoops I forgot to take a picture of my Fish pepper plant, it has slight variegation and a little pepper with no variegation on it yet.

I picked off the infected Roma fruit. No other fruit seems to be infected....look closely at my Roma pic and you'll see one of my little friends on the left-hand side. :wink:
Those peppers are big you must have got them started several months ago.

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I started my pepper seeds back in December, in egg cartons indoors. Then keep them in my greenhouse until warm enough to transplant in-ground.

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I took the screen lid off my barrel to dip my watering can down in it when I noticed all these specks floating around in the water...... :roll: Using my outdoor measuring cup I scooped them all out and put them in a small pail. If I missed one, I'll keep it handy as a bucket cleaner.
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....frog eggs and tadpoles?

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Just eggs. They were laid overnight, because they weren't there yesterday. I'll have to stick them in a pond somewhere. They are probably those grey tree frog eggs. 🙂

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Sign of a good ecosystem for sure!

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The little tadpoles are already working on hatching this morning. That was awfully fast if you ask me! I came across two adult frogs yesterday, one silver tree frog and a giant leopard frog. I wonder which is the mother?

Right now it is raining very hard outside. Yesterday evening I raked around the squashes and placed some hay
that I scrapped out of the pasture around the plants to prevent soil backsplash. The first set of squashes I pollinated don't seem to be growing any bigger; I'm concerned they didn't get pollinated good enough.

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Guess my tadpoles are dead. I checked them this morning and they were all laying at the bottom of the pail, motionless. I picked up the bucket to give a gentle shake. One and only one little squiggler swam lively about. All the others must be dead.

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So all the tadpoles I removed from my rain barrel died. But it seems I missed an egg.... :roll:
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I finally built the pizza of my dreams: sauce, black pepper, sliced bell pepper, sliced garden tomato(SFT) chopped onion, onion green, garlic chives, basil leaves, pepperoni, a sprinkle of oregano, and shredded cheddar cheese. :D
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TomatoNut95 wrote:
Tue May 26, 2020 7:42 pm
I finally built the pizza of my dreams: sauce, black pepper, sliced bell pepper, sliced garden tomato(SFT) chopped onion, onion green, garlic chives, basil leaves, pepperoni, a sprinkle of oregano, and shredded cheddar cheese. :D
Did you make your own pizza sauce?

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Nope. Hunts made my sauce for me! 😆 I've never made my own sause. I never grow enough tomatoes, paste types especially, to do so. This year I want to attempt the tomato powder. That is why I grew 5 or 6 Roma plants this year, also 1 San Marzano.

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TomatoNut95 wrote:
Tue May 26, 2020 9:26 pm
Nope. Hunts made my sauce for me! 😆 I've never made my own sause. I never grow enough tomatoes, paste types especially, to do so. This year I want to attempt the tomato powder. That is why I grew 5 or 6 Roma plants this year, also 1 San Marzano.
Good luck with Roma. Every Roma I tried plants made 20 tomatoes then died they must be determinate. Most of the Roma tomatoes were rotted. Last year I had 2 Roma tomatoes worth keeping. TN is the mold & mildew state with 100% humidity and 7 months of rain. Plants get blight about July 20 and die few weeks later. I'm not planting anything determinate I want plants that will produce 200 lbs of tomatoes in 3 weeks.

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Sad about the tadpoles. Its odd they were all scattered, aren't they all usually together in a gel like substance?


I never grew Roma's but I am trying Amish Paste for some canned tomatoes and salsa's
Everything in my garden is about two weeks behind, I'm assuming because of the polar vortex we had.

The pizza looks awesome!

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SQWIB wrote:
Wed May 27, 2020 7:43 am
Sad about the tadpoles. Its odd they were all scattered, aren't they all usually together in a gel like substance?


I never grew Roma's but I am trying Amish Paste for some canned tomatoes and salsa's
Everything in my garden is about two weeks behind, I'm assuming because of the polar vortex we had.

The pizza looks awesome!
I grew Amish Paste last year. I hope you have better luck than me. I had 4 plants each plant made 25 to 28 tomatoes each, all ripe about the same time then plants all died. Tag said, determinate. Tomatoes were small like Roma about 4 oz each. Tomatoes had a rot problem, my other tomatoes never get that rot problem, most of my Amish Paste were bad. TN is a bad place for blight the rot did not look like blight. My plants were dead by July 15. You could save seeds replant 50 plants you have more tomatoes in 2 months.

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I've heard of Amish Paste but never came across seed for it. I am testing out San Marzano, which is also a paste tomato. Can't wait to see how good it is. It is the large @Gary, I would LOVE to grow plants that gave 200lbs in 3 weeks to, but it is the Beefsteak types I have trouble growing, 'cause the fruits never get as big and fat as I would like them. Huge types like Beefsteak and my Mr Stripey tend to stay at a medium size. I have better luck with cherries.

Sun seems to be staying out I think I will attempt drying!!! YIP-EE! I have two Poblanos I can begin with.

@SQWIB, you're right; frogs to tend to lay their eggs in clusters, I've seen them before. These were spread out across the water barrel, and not stuck together in one place. It makes me wonder if the mother frog was perhaps too young to produce healthy children, or sickly from eating contaminated bugs that got into the Ortho bug barrier. I know it can't be my rain water or my plants would be sick.

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Had 2 nice sized Poblanos so I stripped them and got them laid out! I found my piece of black plastic and laid it across underneath to help.
Hope this works!
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Looks like fun. Expected, but your gardening “season” is way different from ours her. You probably have a mid-summer lull due to excessive heat like many places, but have 2 Good growing seasons, 3rd if you count the winter cold-weather crop.

I was wondering about the taddies, too. sevin, Ortho ... amphibians are very susceptible to chemical toxicity. Would not base on condition of PLANTS.


FOOD FOR THOUGHT ...right now, it’s spring allergy season with many trees shedding pollen here — my car window shield is yellow and so is my front doorsill. — no doubt my roof is covered, too. IF these trees had been treated with systemic chemicals, then they could be present in the pollen — sure minute quantity per pollen grain, but the sheer blanketing effect of the pollen suggests the density — and could easily wash down into my rain barrels.

Fortunately, I’m on the fringes of the Pine Barrens so they do regulate excessive chemical use around here. But 2 public nuisance issues I can’t do anything about are seasonal control of mosquitoes and gypsy moths. When they go after the Gypsy moths, Monarch butterfly count declines. And when they go after mosquitoes indiscriminately, beneficial pollinators and predatory insect can decline ... and environmental groups have to work extra hard to make sure they don’t endanger the native amphibians.

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applestar wrote:
Wed May 27, 2020 11:25 am
Looks like fun. Expected, but your gardening “season” is way different from ours her. You probably have a mid-summer lull due to excessive heat like many places, but have 2 Good growing seasons, 3rd if you count the winter cold-weather crop.

I was wondering about the taddies, too. sevin, Ortho ... amphibians are very susceptible to chemical toxicity. Would not base on condition of PLANTS.
I;m still wondering why my hot peppers are not hot. The two Poblanos I stripped weren't hot either. Oh they smelled like they were hot, but no heat and tasted grassy-like. Makes no sense whatsoever. This is the first time I've WANTED my hot peppers to be hot, and they're 'flat'.

Yeah, I felt sorry for the tadpoles. I don't put a single thing in my rainwater, so the mother must have eaten a sick bug. Unfortunately there are just too many bad bugs that they simply outweight the good bugs and I have to spray or dust with something to control them. The garden helpers I do have either aren't plentiful enough, they don't do there job, or they're too little too do a good job.
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