Tennessee 2023 Garden

[Gary350]

Sunny and 70° this morning time to tie up tomato plants that should have been tied up a week ago. Mud is not very bad this morning. Tomato plants were laying the soil with several 90° bends in the stems where plants try to grow straight up but fall over then grow another 90° bend straight up. There are so many leaves I can't find the main plant stem so I removed all the suckers and a few extra limbs. Suckers have an advantage in TN they shade 100° hot sun from sun burning ripe tomatoes. Bent and twisted plants are hard to tie up. I tied up all the plants best I could then started over and tied them up again 2 more times. Plants are not very flexibly but after being tied up 30 minutes I can tie them up tighter the 2nd time, then tie them up tighter the 3rd time and finally get the plants pull up to the tomato stakes without breaking the main stems. Celebrity tomato plants are loaded with more blossoms than I have ever seen, every limb has blossoms, even the suckers have blossoms. About 45 blossoms on each celebrity plant. Celebrity plants already have several 2" diameter green tomatoes. I bet celebrity plants will have ripe tomatoes by June 1st. I have never had any tomatoes plants have ripe tomatoes this soon. Severe storms forecast later today. I found a nice size broccoli in the row next to the tomatoes, I ate the broccoli standing in the garden. It is suppose to warm up to 87° today broccoli will probably bolt. Cauliflower is making no heads. Kale & Chard R very large I have been eating leaves on sandwiches. Camera lens steams up before I can take a good picture humidity feels like a steam bath.

[imafan26]

Celebrity is the most common local market tomato grown here because of its compact size, disease resistance and productivity. Ave fruit size here is 8 oz.

[Gary350]

Celebrity is the most common local market tomato grown here because of its compact size, disease resistance and productivity. Ave fruit size here is 8 oz.

I have seen celebrity tomato videos. As I recall the hybrid was created in 1956. It is the perfect grocery store tomatoes. They are picked green as a watermelon then gassed to make them turn red. Hard unripe tomatoes are easy to ship with no damage. I know grocery store celebrity tomatoes suck & restaurant tomatoes suck but I wonder how a "RIPE" home grown celebrity tomato will taste? Yummy I hope. I might be disappointed. Only 1 way to find out. LOL

[Gary350]

190 potato plants are 3 ft tall now. I put a 15" tall fence around the plants to try to prevent plants from falling over into the walk area. Onions are about 3 ft tall also many of them have falling over. Corn & beans are starting come up. Tomato plants are 3 ft tall. I have replaced 20 melons 3 times and still have only 3 plants. Pepper plants are 8" tall they don't like this cold wet weather. We have picked 2 gallons of strawberries from our plants so far. We have eaten 2 broccoli plants and have 3 more ready to eat. 61°f this morning and 55° forecast for the next 3 mornings. Rain every day and every night.

[Gary350]

This evening I picked 24 strawberries. 11 of them had white unripe ends. I have been picking about 1 quart of berries very day and about 50% have white tip ends. If I leave berries and check them tomorrow to see if they are ripe several are rotted. What is the problem? Wife said, pick them they get ripe setting in the kitchen. When I pick strawberries at the 20 acre field 5 miles up the road there berries don't have unripe white color ends. Maybe plants need P & K fertilizer or calcium?

I have been finding berries that look like something has eaten holes in them. Today I found a black color leach in a strawberry. I have never seen these in my TN garden before. We called them leaches 60 years ago in Illinois. I wonder if this is what some people call, slugs.?

[Gary350]

What is an easy way to save onion seeds from onion tips.? 38 of the candy onions planted from bulbs are making seed tops. If I break off the tops onions never bulb they become large green onions. This year I will let tops grow so I can save seeds. Plastic bags over the seed tops will get 150° in the sun and paper bags will get wet. ?????

[imafan26]

Your strawberries are giants mine are like peas. But, I take what I can get before the birds do. Your onions grew so fast, but your days are longer than mine.

[Gary350]

Your strawberries are giants mine are like peas. But, I take what I can get before the birds do. Your onions grew so fast, but your days are longer than mine.

If you want very large strawberries buy some, Ruby June berry plants, the berries are very large big as golf balls. Sweet Charlie, is a larger berry than mine and very sweet. Plants multiply very fast. I started with 10 plants first week of July, runners made 120 new plants by Oct. This year my plants should make about 1400 new plants. I want 640 of those new plants in a 64" x 32 ft bed. Not sure what I will do with the other 700 plants.

Onions from plants or sets are a 3 month crop. First 6 weeks the goal is to grow as many leaves as possible using 21-0-0 fertilizer. The next 6 week the goal is to grow large bulbs with 0-20-20 fertilizer. A few days ago my onion plants have 9 to 11 leaves that will be about 2½" to 2 ¾" diameter onions. Onion harvest is about June 15 every year. Our longest day of the year June 21 = 14 hours 20 minutes of sunlight. How long are your days?

[Gary350]

I am using empty food cans on this other row of strawberries to keep birds from eating berries. This also keeps berries out of the mud and makes good markers to find berries to look see if they are ripe. I bought 25 Allstar plants last summer 3 plants died this winter. Now some of the plants are growing berries and some not. Plants are growing lots of runners that I need to deal with very soon. Rain forecast all day then 5 days of sun and 80+ degrees. These berries are larger than the Heirloom berries with same flavor and same sweetness. I hope to have a 600 plant bed by Oct. With this many plants I am none going to worry about winter & spring swamp killing the plants, not sure what else to do. Allstar plants are loaded with several green strawberries that are getting ripe much slower than the Heirloom berries.

[applestar]

If the upper part of the berries are fully ripe, then I’m guessing the tips were buried in mud or in whatever mulch you are using. I’m pretty sure strawberries need light to turn red. (I guess those berries in cans may prove me wrong — but if they’re silver metal inside, reflected light may be sufficient.

…tiny “leeches” could be baby slugs … smaller damage to my strawberries tend to be damage by slugs, then the scraped dimples are occupied later by pillbugs and also tiny black beetles.

Using white plastic or silver mulch is supposed to ensure 360° full color — a technique used by market growers.


… fishing line cross-crossed over the berry beds might help with birds. I’m going to try that with one of my strawberry beds that is completely surrounded against rabbits but is open above.

…also, just remembered —what about those wind spinners — do you still have them?

[Gary350]

If the upper part of the berries are fully ripe, then I’m guessing the tips were buried in mud or in whatever mulch you are using. I’m pretty sure strawberries need light to turn red. (I guess those berries in cans may prove me wrong — but if they’re silver metal inside, reflected light may be sufficient.

…tiny “leeches” could be baby slugs … smaller damage to my strawberries tend to be damage by slugs, then the scraped dimples are occupied later by pillbugs and also tiny black beetles.

Using white plastic or silver mulch is supposed to ensure 360° full color — a technique used by market growers.

… fishing line cross-crossed over the berry beds might help with birds. I’m going to try that with one of my strawberry beds that is completely surrounded against rabbits but is open above.

…also, just remembered —what about those wind spinners — do you still have them?

I planted strawberry plants on soil hills last summer trying to keep strawberry plants out of spring swamp, it worked, no mud. No mulch either. Most of the empty cans are rusty they were in the garden all winter. Spinners are in a large box in the shed. Big chickens are in the shed too. I bought bird net for strawberry plants on Ebay $10 for 13'x33' net. I went to Farmers Co-op this morning and bought more Roma Flat Pod beans 1/2 lb $5. I also bought 1/2 lb Sugar Snap Pea seeds $5. I talked to a man buying bean seeds too he said, I planted beans then it started raining day & night for 12 days no plants came up.

My garden soil is turning green with algae. Rain stopped about 2 pm.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/204170879222?var=504751298697

[Gary350]

I planted 344 corns and about 250 corns came up. I replanted 94 seeds.

I planted 128 Blue Lake bush beans 5 came up.

I planted 100 Roma Flat Pod beans 10 came up.

Our night time temperatures are 15°f below average forecast is 56° to 57° for next 6 nights. We should be having 90° to 95° every day but 79° to 82° forecast for a week. Frustrating but no problem I will plant beans again. Garden soil is green algae in several places. A few days of hot sun green soil will be dry then I till soil and wait for warm soil to plant beans. Beans might be a month late but, so what.

[Gary350]

We have 5 nice side broccoli. I thought net keeps bugs out? There are several white butterflies inside the net trying to escape. Some leaves have a few holes, some leaves have 40 holes. No cauliflower.

[applestar]

For the net to be effective, you have to make sure all edges are secure —
(1) dig trench along row and bury entire side edge
(2) use pipe clamps to secure side edge to pvc or metal conduit
(3) use ground U pins (best with somewhat hard ground
(4) if you have board sides to rows or beds, several options.
(5) if needed, prevent netting from being blown around by securing with zigzag tie down or hoops

ALSO VERY IMPORTANT — no plant part should be pushing against the netting — bugs will lay eggs on leaves THROUGH the netting.


So first sign that there’s been a break in, thoroughly examine and eliminate eggs and pupae as well as any adults and caterpillars.

…From what I’ve seen listed in seed catalogs, most cauliflower varieties take a little longer than broccoli to mature (55~75 days for broccoli, 65~90 days for cauliflower) But most cauliflower varieties can take warmer temps than broccoli.

[Gary350]

This morning I harvested 3 nice size broccoli. Our weather has changed already, 5 days of sun are cancelled, more rain & cold night temperatures. There are a few more small broccoli heads in the garden so I will risk leaving them longer to grow larger.

Wife use to grow cauliflower in Michigan 50 yrs ago she said, their last frost is June 7. She planted cauliflower seeds June 15. Sept when weather forecast is very hard frost she wrapped cauliflower heads with the plant leaves up over the heads then tie leaves in place to protect heads from frost. A very hard frost that kills cauliflower leaves will make the no flavor hard cauliflower sweet and soft. Leave frosted cauliflower heads in the garden several more days to become soft & sweet. We will be having 100°f temperatures in 3 weeks there is no way to get a hard frost on our cauliflower. Bugs have eaten cauliflower plants up there won't be anything to harvest in 4 more weeks.

August there will be 11 empty 32 ft long rows in our garden. Sept 1st will probably be a good time to plant 100 cauliflower from seeds and 200 broccoli from seeds. Also 500 carrot seeds in a 10 gallon pot of very soft potting soil.

[imafan26]

The broccoli looks nice. I pulled my broccoli in April. I won't plant again until September. It was good while it lasted. Technically cauliflower does grow here, I just never tried it.

I used to grow strawberries in a ground bed years ago, but I never got any strawberries between and the birds and the slugs. I would never have thought to use cans as covers.

[Gary350]

5:10 pm it looks like it is about to rain so I hurried outside and picked 2 quarts of strawberries. I was almost finished picking berries when it started to rain. Yesterday I picked slightly more berries than today. This makes a total of about 2½ gallons of berries so far. I was picking berries 2 times a day, morning and evening then I learned there are a lot more ripe berries in the evening so now I only pick in the evening. I am getting better and picking berries they are not easy to find. I bend the plants, left, right, forward, back, stir the leaves back & forth several times, get the sun at a different angle then I see a berry I missed. There are a lot of green berries that don't seem possible they will be ripe tomorrow but they are. I talked to my neighbor John he said, berry plants will keep you busy picking ripe berries until about June 20. I'm not sure if I should fertilize plants or not but I have been giving the 32' row 1 empty food can of 15-15-15 fertilizer once a week. That is not a lot of fertilizer for a 32' long row that is 3ft wide on the north end and 4ft wide on the south end. Today there is a big variation in berry sizes, small, med, large. Yesterday berries were, med & large.

[Gary350]

-2°f at Christmas killed my 98 garlic so I replated about 50 Feb 16 and replanted about 50 Feb 28. 2 weeks ago about 50 garlic tops died. Today I dug into the garlic beds and found about 50 garlic. The other 50 garlic tops are green and growing good. I did not expect to have good garlic this year. Garlic is not big like last year but its good garlic. I have learned it is possible to grow late garlic and still get a good garlic crop.

[Gary350]

Wife said, eat a larger bowl of strawberries or we will need to start freezing them. I picked another 1½ quarts of berries today. 55° forecast every night for a week I still can not plant bean seeds soil is too cold.

[Gary350]

I pulled up a winter onion for Fajita Chicken this evening. I will pull up 2 or 3 more for dinner, these onions don't grow very large it takes 4 or 5 to = a big slicer grocery store onion. Eat them like green onions, several slices for a sandwich or cook with them. These are also called Egyptian onions. Onions grow several bulbs on top usually 5 bulbs on this variety. After pulling up onions to eat plant the bulbs and have more onions in about 2 or 3 months. You don't need to wait for plants to grow bulbs to eat the onions. When winter comes plants stop making bulbs but we can still pull & eat onions all winter they survive extreme cold. When warm weather comes plants start making bulbs all summer April to Dec for us. There are a never ending supply of onions that reseed themself about 5 to 1 ratio. I planted about 100 onion bulbs I think it was Nov. and we did not eat any during the winter I want more bulbs to plant. These onions were ready to eat several weeks ago but I was waiting for mature bulbs to plant. If I plant the 500 bulbs from 100 onions we should have about 2500 more onion plants in about 2 or 3 months. Then 2500 plants with be 12,500. more bulbs. Then 12,500 plants with 62,500. bulbs. We may decide to stop planting yellow & red onions and only grow winter onions so there will always be onions in the garden year round. This variety has good flavor, a variety I tried 5 years ago were stronger flavor. My grandmother grew these for 50 years. There are about 40 bulbs drying on the table, I want smaller bulbs still on the plant to grow larger before picking them. The onion that I pulled up looks like it was 2 bulbs planted together it grew a strange onion. Onions are typically 1 nice round onion a bit larger.

[greenstubbs]

What is an easy way to save onion seeds from onion tips.? 38 of the candy onions planted from bulbs are making seed tops. If I break off the tops onions never bulb they become large green onions. This year I will let tops grow so I can save seeds. Plastic bags over the seed tops will get 150° in the sun and paper bags will get wet. ?????

You should go read the reply to your question in the Onion section!!!

[Gary350]

80° every day and no rain in 4 days garden is desert already. Potato plants are dry they need a measured amount of water. 12 buckets full of water will give the 32' row of potato plants 60 gallons of water. I put 1 tablespoon of fertilizer in each bucket. TV said 90° Friday so I harvested all the broccoli before they bolt. I am still picking a lot of strawberries about 1 to 2 quarts every day. We are eating garden onion early most of them are larger than 2" diameter. Last year onion harvest was June 15 so it will probably be 15 this year too. It is till to cold to plant beans it was 59° this morning.

[Gary350]

120 strawberry plants heirloom
400 yellow candy onions
100 winter onions
100 garlic plants
100 Red Norland potato plants
90 Kennebec plants
75 Red onions
10 watermelon plants
10 cantaloupe plants
25 Allstar Strawberry plants
3000 Zinnia flowers
1 Jalapeno plant
4 Mexican chili plants
4 sweet Red pepper plants
1 Thai Basil plant
4 Cilantro plants
1 mint plant
1 Rosemary plant
4 celery plants
15 big beef tomato plants
15 broccoli plants were harvested
2 red chard plants

June 15 harvest 400 onions.
Plant 2 rows 64' of Roma Flat pod beans about 130 plants.

Aug 1st harvest 300 ears of corn
Aug 20, plant 150 broccoli in 2 corn rows and 150 Cauliflower in 2 corn rows.

Aug 25 plant 200 sugar snap peas where Roma Flat pod beans were.

Aug 25 plant 500 carrot seeds in a 10 gallon pot of potting soil.

This is the first time I have EVER been organized enough to do successive planting.

[Gary350]

1 more quart of strawberries today. Berries fit different in a 1 quart jar vs 1 quart measuring cup. Yesterday was 1 quart of small berries because I have not been watering plants. Today berries are larger because I watered. I am only picking berries 1 time a day in the evening. Today is first time I put berries in a quart jar to check volume. After wife cuts of tip and slices berries there is probably slightly more than 1 pint. We eat berries every evening and we have a back log of 3 days of berries in the refrigerator.

[Gary350]

Wife wanted 4 garden onions to cook dinner so I went and got them. Onions will be full grown in about 3 more weeks.

Putting 60 gallons of water on potatoes takes too much time and too much work with 12 buckets. Today I bought irrigation hose. It took me 40 minutes to put 180 gallons of water on potatoes and our water bill shows it cost $1.66.

[Gary350]

Yesterday I picked about 3/4 quart of ripe small berries & that made me think berries are about to stop producing. Then I see lots of small green berries and lots of blossoms. Maybe 2 minutes of water is not enough. So I watered the plants 3 minutes. Then I returned every 5 minutes to water 3 minutes again. That makes a total of 12 minutes of water that had time to soak into the soil and not run off into the walk area. Today I picked another quart of ripe berries. Plants have lots of runners growing in all directions I need to do something about that very soon.

Every night another bowl of strawberries over frozen yogurt. Real ice cream is 40% fat, frozen yogurt is 7% fat. I lost more lbs. Meat & 3 vegetables is helpful to loose weight too. Cut back on sugar & carbs. I went to my 6 month physical yesterday Dr said, your sodium is low eat more salt. Its 94° and I am outside most of the day. I put 1/2 tsp salt on my lunch sandwich and drank a cold Gatorade. LOL

[Gary350]

I have replanted watermelons & cantaloupe 5 times = 80 seeds and have only 4 plants. I think I have bad seeds. I bought Ebay seeds, Hales best cantaloupe & Sweet watermelons. I sprinkled a bunch of Thai Basil seeds in the melon row that may be a mistake there are about 100 plants coming up. Thai Basil seeds are small as dust I was not sure I really have seeds so I planted dust from the bottom of the 1 gallon basil container.

[hendi_alex]

I also had problems with watermelon, having to replant both seeds and transplants. Most seeds were new and from a reliable source. Some did not germinate and others (including transplants) died of something like dampening off. I think this it is related to the long very cool spring this year. Soil temps stayed cool and soil stayed overly moist for periods.

[Gary350]

Garlic is dying and getting worse every day so I pulled garlic up today. There is a few good garlic and about 60 or 70 not so good garlic. This is why I plant too many garlic if its a bad year for garlic we still get about 20 useable garlic. 85° in Feb and 81° in March maybe have caused this problem??? Several big bulbs show signs they should have been pulled up several weeks ago bulbs fell apart and was a hand full of cloves. Oh well $#@% happens. LOL.

Garden is dry as desert. It was 92° today and low of 55 about 2 days away.

[imafan26]

Wow 80 seeds and only 4 melons. I have had some bad germination, but it was usually my fault because I did not plant it at the right temperature, or because the birds raided my nursery bench or garden and ate the seeds.

the garlic still looks good and so does that bowl of berries. I finished off my store bought berries a couple of weeks ago, so I am satisfied for now.

[Gary350]

Onion plant leaves have been dying for about 2 weeks, it must be time to harvest onions. I did not count onions but I know about how many onions there should be. 75 x 6 = 450. I remember 3 bundles of plants, 1 bundle was about 50 plant. 1 lb bags of sets are suppose to have about 75 sets per bag, I bought 3 bags but never counted how many were in each bag. I also have 40 onions in another pile that have seed tops. The largest onions are 3" diameter and only 2 of them. 2¾" down to 1½" diameter. We probably have about 180 nice slicer onions. Last year 2 month old onion plants grew larger onions than sets but not this year, sets grew the largest onions. It seems like we have more onions than last year but this year we have a lot of onions below 2" diameter.

[imafan26]

Still looking good, even harvested early. When I grew onions here, I always had to dry them on the lanai. They can't be dried out in the sun, because of the humidity and the chance of a sudden shower getting them wet. Mine were never as big as yours.

[Gary350]

It was 58° this morning I went to the garden before it gets 90°. I pulled a string both sides of this strawberry patch to make a straight row 38" wide 27 ft long. There was about 30 cilantro plants 3 ft tall that needed to be pulled up. I gave the cilantro to a Mexican family. Now that cilantro is gone I can see all the strawberry runners. I used all my plastic spoons to hold runners in place. It is a gig saw puzzle to get runners with new plants so they are 6" apart. I still have lots of cilantro probably 30 plants scattered all over the garden. Today might be a good day to make Chutney. Wife wants garden celery to make creamy potato salad for lunch. Zinnias are beginning to grow flowers soon there will be 100s of butterflies are yellow finch birds Garden finally has 3 more melon plants that makes 7 plants, I still want 20 plants.

[imafan26]

You get a lot out of the garden. Thank you for the tip on the carrots. I do plant too many and don't thin and that may be one problem. The pots should have enough fertilizer, but maybe I need to change what I am using since it works better for green and fruiting plants but not so much for roots. I have to find a fertilizer formula for containers just for root crops. I have too much nitrogen in my containers and they are high in phosphorus but low in potatssium and calcium. I may need to add some dolomite lime and kmag to the containers. I have to figure out how much and that is the hard part.

[Gary350]

You get a lot out of the garden. Thank you for the tip on the carrots. I do plant too many and don't thin and that may be one problem. The pots should have enough fertilizer, but maybe I need to change what I am using since it works better for green and fruiting plants but not so much for roots. I have to find a fertilizer formula for containers just for root crops. I have too much nitrogen in my containers and they are high in phosphorus but low in potatssium and calcium. I may need to add some dolomite lime and kmag to the containers. I have to figure out how much and that is the hard part.

Don't worry about 400 seeds being too many seeds in a 10 gallon pot. Seeds never all germinate at the same time. For me seeds don't start to germinate for 3 weeks then germinate for a while month. A whole month of germination gives a harvest that last a whole month. Pull up the largest 1" diameter carrots that makes room for smaller carrots to grow larger. I have best germination luck planting carrot seeds in wet soil Feb 1st 15°f every night but our soil is hard carrots will be short pencil diameter. 30 years ago I bought 1 ton of cement sand carrots grew very well in that.

[Gary350]

Today before thunder storms arrive I planted Roma Flat Pod Beans. 256 seeds in 2 rows 32 ft long. This is probably 75% too many beans for us but I have the space and the seeds. My son likes these flat pots he will take some. We will try these pods in stir fry we hope they taste as good a snow pea pots. So far storms at near KY, high wind, 1" hail, lightning. Garden is desert if no rain I need to water.

[Gary350]

Today strawberries look exceptionally bright red color. I searched the plants and found a quart of bright red ripe berries. Berries taste sweeter than before. Online info says, fertilizer shortage you get small pink color berries that are slow to get ripe. 2 days ago I gave berry plants 15-15-15 fertilizer but not too much. Today I will fertilize berries again with extra water.

[Gary350]

Yesterday evening storm destroyed the corn 95% is smashed flat. I went into the house to put on mud clothes with the intension of pulling up all the corn and start over. When I returned to the garden I decided to see how much work it is to stand up each corn stalk and see if roots are broken. I packed mud around each corn plant like a 5" volcano it holds the corn stalks straight up. After packing mud around each plant it because 1 continuous hill of mud. I am very glad it is 65° and very dark over cast sky I could have never don't that in full sun and 90° temperature. Wait and see if any of the plants die. Rain gauge shows it rained 2¼", our desert needed that rain. All corn plants are standing straight up again. Plants are 20" tall or shorter that made it easy to stand plants up.

Some of the potatoes plants are smashed too. I don't care. I don't think potato plants care either.

[pepperhead212]

Hope you were able to save them, and I hope they have much stronger, before you get anything else like that! Good luck.

[Gary350]

Hope you were able to save them, and I hope they have much stronger, before you get anything else like that! Good luck.

So far corn looks good plants are still standing straight up with mud pack holding them up. Plants don't look wilted or dying. I'm not sure how to know if roots are broken of damaged at this point. In another month I can probably remove mud pack to see if plants grew roots all the way around the plants roots will be large enough see in another month. If plants have roots only on 1 side I assume that means roots were broken when they blew over. G90 corn is 90 day crop Aug I will know for sure if I made a mistake saving the plants. Aug 1st I still have time to replant corn.