I'm here for the tomatoes

First BLT on Saturday- Stupice and home grown lettuce (on a home made plate). I had to skimp on the mayo because it was the end of the jar. It was still a really good sandwich. So far I've had production from Champagne Cherry, Coyote, Stupice, Peacevine and Matts Wild Cherry. I have picked 2 Black Cherry, and 2 Red Zebra one should be ready later today or tomorrow and the first beefsteak Berkeley Tie Die Pink. It's catfaced and only ripening on one side. Hopefully it will be ready later this week.

I had to pull out one of the Cocozelle zucchini because of SVB. I have 1 Cocozelle, 1 crook neck yellow and 1 golden bush left. The golden bush is the only one to have not produced yet.

Attack of the SVB!!!

The bastards got me! I dug out 2 from Golden Bush yesterday. Then I found a wilty leaf today so I cut it off and found another. Upon investigation I found the beginings of sawdust on the base so I slit the base and there were a few in there. I pulled the whole plant out. 1 Golden Bush is left. Black Beauty main stem was all chewed up so I yanked it out too, I tried to dig the buggers out but the stem was mincemeat by the time I was done. No Black Beauty left. I found one in a stem of Cocozelle just about to bore into the main stem, I pulled the little bastard out. I didn't pull the Cocozelle. I didn't have the heart. The Yellow Crookneck is the only summer squash that I haven't noticed anything on. I found a couple in one of the Buttercup and pulled them out. I hope that's it. It's really hard to tell, I've been checking them everyday but today I noticed how tiny they can be. Smaller than an inchworm. I think next year I will clip off the blooms until July 1 in an effort of faking out the sob's and start a 2nd set of squash around the 3rd week of June to replace any that I need to pull.

On a lighter note I had 2 Tiger Swallowtails and a Red Admiral in the garden at the same time today. I was very excited.

First ripe tomato!!!

Woo Hoo! Champagne Cherry is the first to ripen of the year. It's a very small (currant?) yellow/white cherry. I got 4-DH and I ate the first 2 so fast I didn't have a chance to take a picture. I got a picture of the 2nd 2, I did weigh them all. They came in at 0.1 oz each (one was slightly less than 0.1 oz it bounced betweeon 0.1 and 0.0 on the digital scale). Tasted great! Very tomatoey, tart-ish. I think Peacevine might be the next one to come in. Green Grape is also a contender- it has bounced back nicely a week after some compost/alfalfa tea. The fungus humungous seems to be subsiding. Coyote tomatoes are still green and hard. Bad news on the front garden: the deer have discovered it. I noticed on Wednesday night that something had chomped back the Squash that ate Cleveland- cool. Then I noticed something had pruned my tomatoes. The giant Pruden's Purple, BTD Pink and Black Krim fruits were intact. I can't remember if I checked out Absinthe or not. Today I noticed that all of my Absinthe tomatoes are gone! I'm not sure if they've only been by once (and I missed the absence of Absinthe) or if they've been by a couple of times. I hung up knee-hi panty hose stuffed with dog hair and peed on (what won't I do to save the tomatoes?) on Thursday night. I'm hoping they haven't been back since then. I'm going to put out Dial soap and aluminum pie pans today. Maybe that will help too.

On a sort of related note (the tie-in would be garden pests). I found the first squash vine borer grub today. My crook necked sqash had a droopy leaf this morning so I cut it off where the stem met the base and notice the little bastard poking his head out of the cut side- it was literally minutes from boring into the main stem! I took the leaf into the house cut up the slit and washed the bugger down the garbage disposal. I think I'll go out tonight with a flashlight. I have heard that if you shine a flashlight on the stem you can see them in there and should poke them with a needle to kill them with minimal damage to the plant. Sounds like a plan to me.

I feel I have short changed the cucumbers. Yes, they are coming in too. I picked the first lemon cuke yesterday and gave it to my in-laws with a cocozelle and the first black beauty squash. I picked the second one today. I haven't tried it yet. Looks nice. I'd post a picture but I don't want to detract from the glory of my tomatoes!

Cocozelle

Mmmmm...Harvested the first squash of the season this week. Cocozelle is by far the earliest of the 4 I planted. It looks like Black Beauty will have one ready in the next few days. I love the creamy-nutty flavor of Cocozelle. It's earned a permenant space in the garden. The first one was sauteed with peppers and onions, the second 2 were shredded to make squash fritters. Cocozelle is located in the front yard garden, the other types are in the back garden where there is less direct sun. The back garden is having issues with striped cucumber beetles. I've never had them before but I've got them in spades this year. I'm hand picking them and throwing them in a jar of soapy water. I've only found one in the front garden.

The front garden has a decent sized lemon cuke and something else, it may be a buttercup squash. The tower o'cucurbits is a big hulking mass threatening to take over the neighborhood. I have to go out daily to rescue the bachelors buttons and cosmos from being taken down. Rampicante is the only word in my vocabulary that comes close to describing what's going on out there! I need a bigger trellis and fewer plants next year.

We're going through a heat wave right now. It hasn't rained in over a week and the temps are up in the 90's with high humidity. I watered both gardens yesterday morning, the first time all season for the back garden (I watered the front garden when I first planted it). I'm trying to keep the containers watered, I'm thinking of moving them into a shadier location. The SWC are looking great. I will definitely make 2-3 more for next year for the tomatoes and put the peppers, eggplants and tomatillos in the regular containers. I harvested my first jalepeno yesterday. It was a nice hot. Not crazy hot but gave a little heat to my pineapple salsa.

Tomatilloes are going gangbusters, I'm really excited for some salsa verde. Pepper plants are doing well. Hungarian Hot Wax and Jalepeno have good sized peppers on them (I harvested 2 HHW about 2 weeks ago- it was too early they didn't taste good- no heat at all). The Arugaman's eggplant has blossoms on it and has set a fruit or two.

Tomato Update

Tomatoes are coming along nicely. All of the cherries are throwing out branches of fruit- nothing ripe yet but I'm hopeful. Green Grape is looking kind of straggly and appears to have some kind of funk but it's not spreading to the other tomatoes so I won't pull it out yet. Prudens Purple has a nice sized fruit on it. Others that have substantial fruit (golf ball-ish size) are Black from Tula, Berkeley Tie Dye Pink, Stupice and Red Zebra. Not as far along but still with marble sized fruits is Absinthe, Goose Creek, Brandywine, Cowlicks, JD's Special C-Tex, Set fruit this week: Green Zebra, Sweet Carneros, Kelloggs Breakfast, Box Car Willie, Indian Stripe, Cherokee Purple, Purple Dog Creek, Aunt Ruby's German Green. Flowering but not fruiting yet is Hillbilly, Black Zebra, Dr Wyche, William's Striped, Black Mtn Pink, Super Sioux, Golden Queen.

Self Watering Containers

I've got a tomato problem. Too many plants, not enough space. I debated whether or not to build some self watering containers this year. Water is never in short supply around here; I rarely have to water anything (even smaller containers). I never considered purchasing an eartbox at $60 a pop (I don't have that kind of cash). I did need more containers to plant tomatoes in since I can only fit about 16 tomato plants in the veg garden and I planted as many tomato plants as possible in the extra spaces in the flower gardens and in the large containers on the patio. I still had 4 plants left over: Coyote, Champagne Cherry (a trial to see if it's different from Coyote), Matt's Wild Cherry and Jaune Flamee. I was intrigued by the results of Ray Newstead in California (http://earthtainer.tomatofest.com/). Are his plants so crazy huge because of the earthtainer or because he's in California where everything grows bigger and better? Would the plants grown in earthtainers be any larger than those grown in non-swc here in WNY? I figured why not give it a shot. Being the green geek that I am I didn't like the idea of tossing out the better part of a whole container to make the aeration bench so I basically followed these directions:

http://ft2garden.powweb.com/blog/?page_id=113

I've read conflicting information on the safety of pvc pipe so I left out the watering pipe and I filled the reservoir by putting the garden hose in the overflow hole to fill up the container. I also don't have the time or patience to find specific soil and ammendments for the swc so I used Pro-Mix and fertilized with leachate from my worm bin. The Coyote/Champagne Cherry bin was planted on or about 6/2 from plants started from seed around 3/14. I just measured the plants. From the ground they are about 5'5" (the picture was taken about 3 1/2 weeks after putting them in the SWC-they've grown a TON), Champagne Cherry is a little bit taller, more robust than Coyote. It also bloomed and set fruit sooner. I won't have a true comparison between the SWC and regular containers because I didn't plant more than one of each variety. That being said...the plants in the SWC are going crazy! It's hard to tell from the picture but they are totally escaping the cages (I really should have shelled out the cash for a Glamos cage). I have blossoms and fruit everywhere. Too much to count. The plants in the regular containers are growing fine and compared to other years where I haven't fertilized with worm poop and aerated compost tea they are looking awesome but they aren't as crazy huge as those in the SWC.

(note about the picture- this is Coyote/Champange Cherry. The line of siding up above the top of the tomatoes is 5'4" from the deck. I took this picture a few days ago. The tomatoes were above that line today).

The Results are in!

Rose race 2010:
Distant Drums (pictured), Clotilde Soupert, Winchester Cathedral, Heritage, Cornelia, Fantin Latour, Russelliana. Sweet promise doesn't have any buds on it but it looks really good- the foliage is gorgeous. Ghislaine de Felagonde is out of the running due to her cushy winter indoors. Hippolyte and Charles de Mills actually have a few buds. I wasn't expecting much from them this year as they bloom on old wood. Heritage has 52 buds on it this year! I don't think I've ever seen more than 4-5. I've been making compost tea and alfalfa tea. I think that little experiment can be considered a sucess.

The veg garden is in. So far so good. Onions and Beans are up. I was worried about slugs (using the Ruth Stout method of mulching with leaves) but they haven't been a problem so far. It's been pretty hot and dry so that's probably helped a lot. Most of the tomatoes are in. I have to make 1 more SWC (I made one this weekend for the Champagne Cherry/Coyote experiment) for Matt's Wild Cherry and Jaune Flamee. I also have an extra Red Zebra and a jalepeno plant that need to find homes. The tomatillos are blooming, Champagne Cherry has blossoms on it, Hungarian Hot Wax has some buds. Things are coming along!