The Gardening Thread

You do end up with bigger tomatoes pruning suckers but the over all yield isnt different.

 

It is true but the suckers can get outrageous and really make for small tomatoes. It is so much more manageable when you maintain a compact plant.

The first year I was serious about growing tomatoes was probably 4 or 5 years ago, and I did not sucker at all. I had some pics show up in my photo app and it reminded me of how bonkers those plants were. Just fucking insanity. Couldn't access the whole plant due to all the branches, had to spray all the time for bugs because I created a goddamn jungle. The yields were underwhelming but I had so much green growth.

For another summer veggie plant, the summer squash is a favorite of mine. The yellow squash and green zucchini are so prolific and tend to be easy to grow. I highly recommend you try it if you are just starting out and want guaranteed success. Just watch out for early summer pests. Squash bugs got me last year.

First yellow squash this year! Dixie yellow hybrid.

 

So speaking of squash bugs...They are out now in my area. I found the first 2 the night of my last post here, a couple days later 5, today found 4. They come out majorly once a year to breed, lay eggs, and grow their nymphs into adults which hunker down for winter under debris. I'll be on the lookout for clusters of their small, coppery colored eggs on the undersides of leaves. Last season their emergence caught me off guard and I was overrun. I am on top of it this year. They have done a little damage to a few fruits (they really seem to like the yellow squash) but if I can get through the next couple weeks it should be smooth sailing after that.

Duct tape is what I use. They can do evasive maneuvers but the tape makes it much easier to collect them.

 

Picked up 4 old wine barrels for stupid cheap. Cut them in half, drilled some drainage holes, hauled in some topsoil. Tomorrow they get planted with a bunch of stuff.

 

It’s finally raining some after too long without and the weather girl made a comment that “Thankfully it won’t last long.”

Meanwhile the grass is already brown and I’m wondering if we’ll get apples and peaches at the rate things are going.

But hey, there’s still hope for some grilling this weekend. I guess I need to get my priorities straight.

 

last thing I did today was spread a shit-ton of "bee attractive flowers" seed. The grassy area you see in the pic below is eventually going to be (hopefully) a wildflower patch to help attract bees.

 

Yes.

 

I was surprised... but 2 of them were sealed and when I cut into them there was the distinctive smell of a fruity red wine, which makes sense, seeing as we're so close to Niagara, which is our attempt at a wine region.

 

I have 3 huge bins of compost that went into those in a 1:1 mix with topsoil. I also fertilize the shit out of my veggies because I plant them so dense they would normally starve for nutrients amongst themselves.

 

No worries. Mine are just starting to flower and a few of my cherry tomatoes are growing some green fruit right now.

It was a slow start for the season for us, so I’m going to prune the fuck out if things to try and force an early growth.

 

@Nettdata those planters are so pretty. You're developing a really nice garden area. Great job! What are you going to grow in the planters?

My winning tomato so far is this heirloom beefsteak. I don't think I mixed seeds up, maybe there was a problem with the seeds. But the 2 beefsteak plants I'm growing look wildly different. This one has the vertical creases like a pumpkin, and it's putting on a crazy amount of fruit and flowers. I'll be keeping seeds from this guy. The other one has a low amount of flowers, and the fruit is very round. My san marzano aren't looking as good as last year, either. The seeds were on the older side. So, I won't be using old seeds for production plants anymore, it just wastes too much time.

 

Thanks! Just finished off some more work last night. Expanded the mulch area a bit and I think it makes all the difference. Next step is to remove that herb rack from the pergola and then build a simple shelf on the front face of the raised box that the herb pots can sit on. That way they're up off of the ground and I can easily move them inside in the fall.

Almost there...

 

Oh, and that last little piece of grass in the back has been heavily seeded with bee-attracting wild flowers, so the plan is to turn that into a wildflower meadow.

 

I love that.

I am doing my best to grow wildflowers and regional plants here, especially in the front rock beds. Trying to introduce clover to the front grass as well. The bees need all the help they can get.

 

It’s hard to keep them out. When I’m out there, they’re close by.