Bhuter's 2018 Glog

Bhuter · Jun 16, 2018

PtMD989 said:
Hows the new fertilizer working for you? Do you use it on your whole garden? Same rate for everything?

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With the rain constantly watering for me, I've only been able to feed once, and that was the same strength I used in pots: 1/4 tsp a gallon. I don't really know how well it's working yet, as they've just gotten situated in the ground and are finally growing above. But I do know that the Baccatums didn't like to be fed twice in a row. The new growth was elongated and convoluted. But they've grown out of it and I think I'll do 1/4 tsp the next time I'm able to feed, too.
Yes, I give everything the same thing, same dosage...including epsom and lime when planted out.

Bhuter · Jun 17, 2018

Some plant shots.
A cross I made last year: PDN x 7 Pot Caramel F1

Purple Ghost Scorpion

Purple Flower BBG

OrangeGum TigerMAMP

PeachGum v3 really showing its PDN side. Just now starting to branch.

Syrian Haskorea

Black Naga x Peri-Peri F2

I put a Cherokee Purple Tomato in my shade row for the first time to see the difference. It's killin' it, so far.

SunSugar Tomatoes starting to produce.

And the squash & zucchini.

karoo · Jun 17, 2018

Real strong looking plants you have there[emoji3]

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Sawyer · Jun 17, 2018

Everything's looking great up your way, Adam. Love the we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-weeds wall-to-wall plastic mulch.

I'll get an update to you this coming week on the seeds you sent. I'm pretty sure at least some of everything you sent has germinated.

Bhuter · Jun 17, 2018

karoo said:
Real strong looking plants you have there[emoji3]
Thank you very much! They just recently started looking healthier since plant-out.

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Sawyer said:
Everything's looking great up your way, Adam. Love the we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-weeds wall-to-wall plastic mulch.

I'll get an update to you this coming week on the seeds you sent. I'm pretty sure at least some of everything you sent has germinated.

Thank you, John! Yeah, I tried that plastic mulch one year and decided I'm going to always have to have it. Lol. That's fantastic about the germination! I'm glad you got them started so soon.

TrentL · Jun 17, 2018

With a 105 heat index I'm hiding indoors for a while today, figured I'd catch up on some other Glogs!

Your plants look great, nice and healthy!

That Cherokee purple is growing fast, it's as big as my Amish Paste that I started back in February. When did you start that thing???

Although that indeterminate tomato is gonna take over a big section of your area when it spills out of that cage. At the rate it's going it's gonna have 12' vines out every direction by the end of the growing season.

I spent 7 1/2 hours out in the full sun and heat yesterday stringing some indeterminates at the farm, finally had to throw in the towel about 3:30 PM when I stopped sweating suddenly. Figured "yup, that's my warning shot for heat stroke".

I *really* wish my wire rope order hadn't been delayed for 3 weeks. It would be so damn much easier to string the indeterminates back when they were, oh, at about the 2 week transplant mark, or so. The wire rope showed up last Friday, we just started running the high tension line over the field this Friday. I *meant* to keep the indeterminates trained to 2 vines but in the intervening 3 weeks while waiting for wire rope, while I was busy with other stuff, they exploded in growth. Some plants are already bearing fruit on 6-8 vines, so that's the way they are getting trained now

Next year when I get a tomato high tunnel set up, I'm doing 18" spacing on my indeterminates, pruning them to 2 vines a plant, running all the wires and crap this fall, so that next spring I don't have to try to mess with it while dealing with plant out.

Or at least I'm telling myself that NOW. So far I've had ZERO plan actually "survive contact with the enemy", without substantial alteration.

In your garden, if you plan on keeping the same area, wouldn't be too awfully time consuming or expensive to drop in some 4x4's around it and run rope between them, then you wouldn't have to mess with cages, stakes, etc. I've never strung tomatoes before this year, but did a lot of cages in the past, and I'll tell you it's already made a believer out of me. Just walk past the plants once a week and train the indeterminates up the tomato twine, so much easier than trying to train them in cages. Clean up should be easier this fall, too, with no cage storage footprint to worry about for storage.

The nice thing about it is next year, when I rotate in some legumes to nitrogen fix the old tomato patch, I'll be able to run trellising for something like snap peas or pole beans, along the same wire I used this year for tomato stringing.

Trying to think ahead on "what will be the minimal work NEXT year" I guess. Or how to re-use stuff I'm putting in this year to get the most out of it.

Bhuter · Jun 17, 2018

TrentL said:
With a 105 heat index I'm hiding indoors for a while today, figured I'd catch up on some other Glogs!

Your plants look great, nice and healthy!

That Cherokee purple is growing fast, it's as big as my Amish Paste that I started back in February. When did you start that thing???

Although that indeterminate tomato is gonna take over a big section of your area when it spills out of that cage. At the rate it's going it's gonna have 12' vines out every direction by the end of the growing season.

I spent 7 1/2 hours out in the full sun and heat yesterday stringing some indeterminates at the farm, finally had to throw in the towel about 3:30 PM when I stopped sweating suddenly. Figured "yup, that's my warning shot for heat stroke".

I *really* wish my wire rope order hadn't been delayed for 3 weeks. It would be so damn much easier to string the indeterminates back when they were, oh, at about the 2 week transplant mark, or so. The wire rope showed up last Friday, we just started running the high tension line over the field this Friday. I *meant* to keep the indeterminates trained to 2 vines but in the intervening 3 weeks while waiting for wire rope, while I was busy with other stuff, they exploded in growth. Some plants are already bearing fruit on 6-8 vines, so that's the way they are getting trained now

Next year when I get a tomato high tunnel set up, I'm doing 18" spacing on my indeterminates, pruning them to 2 vines a plant, running all the wires and crap this fall, so that next spring I don't have to try to mess with it while dealing with plant out.

Or at least I'm telling myself that NOW. So far I've had ZERO plan actually "survive contact with the enemy", without substantial alteration.

In your garden, if you plan on keeping the same area, wouldn't be too awfully time consuming or expensive to drop in some 4x4's around it and run rope between them, then you wouldn't have to mess with cages, stakes, etc. I've never strung tomatoes before this year, but did a lot of cages in the past, and I'll tell you it's already made a believer out of me. Just walk past the plants once a week and train the indeterminates up the tomato twine, so much easier than trying to train them in cages. Clean up should be easier this fall, too, with no cage storage footprint to worry about for storage.

The nice thing about it is next year, when I rotate in some legumes to nitrogen fix the old tomato patch, I'll be able to run trellising for something like snap peas or pole beans, along the same wire I used this year for tomato stringing.

Trying to think ahead on "what will be the minimal work NEXT year" I guess. Or how to re-use stuff I'm putting in this year to get the most out of it.

Well, you know next year, you'll have a head start on the plastic and stakes. Lol. Your wire rope was delayed, too?! What's really going on?
I'd like to string my tomatoes and I've seen peppers stringed up as well, and they produce like crazy! Some people already do that here. I guess I'm lazy and don't like to work very hard. Hence the weed block. A little time of laying that down, and I'm not pulling weeds all season.

My Cherokee Purple is a Cheater...I got it from the nursery, already robust. But in a 4" pot. I usually get my annuums, one Reaper because they're usually spot on with pheno, most of the tomatoes, and anything else that looks interesting. This year, I found a Syrian Haskorea pepper. Let's hope it's actually that.

Bhuter · Jun 17, 2018

A flower opened on the Purple Flower Baccatum and it looks amazing!

TrentL · Jun 17, 2018

Bhuter said:
Well, you know next year, you'll have a head start on the plastic and stakes. Lol. Your wire rope was delayed, too?! What's really going on?
I'd like to string my tomatoes and I've seen peppers stringed up as well, and they produce like crazy! Some people already do that here. I guess I'm lazy and don't like to work very hard. Hence the weed block. A little time of laying that down, and I'm not pulling weeds all season.

My Cherokee Purple is a Cheater...I got it from the nursery, already robust. But in a 4" pot. I usually get my annuums, one Reaper because they're usually spot on with pheno, most of the tomatoes, and anything else that looks interesting. This year, I found a Syrian Haskorea pepper. Let's hope it's actually that.

Well, it's what happens when you order from the lowest priced place you find on the web, I guess. Lesson learned. Next time I'll order the spools from Fastenal and call it a day.

I ordered the damn wire on MAY 15. Card was charged that day.

Got NO receipt, nothing, via e-mail, until this showed up on 5/23 (eight days later!)

By this time they'd already charged my card, etc.

It shipped out FedEx Ground on 6/7 and arrived on 6/12 - nearly one full MONTH after I'd placed the order and had my card charged.

Bhuter · Jun 17, 2018

TrentL said:
Well, it's what happens when you order from the lowest priced place you find on the web, I guess. Lesson learned. Next time I'll order the spools from Fastenal and call it a day.

I ordered the damn wire on MAY 15. Card was charged that day.

Got NO receipt, nothing, via e-mail, until this showed up on 5/23 (eight days later!)

By this time they'd already charged my card, etc.

It shipped out FedEx Ground on 6/7 and arrived on 6/12 - nearly one full MONTH after I'd placed the order and had my card charged.

Sounds like you should get a discount/refund and/or store credit. Don't they know some stuff is time sensitive? FedEx has always taken longer it seems like. But I'm the same way and shop around to find the best deal. You get what you pay for. But you've paid exponentially.

TrentL · Jun 17, 2018

Bhuter said:
Well, you know next year, you'll have a head start on the plastic and stakes. Lol. Your wire rope was delayed, too?! What's really going on?
I'd like to string my tomatoes and I've seen peppers stringed up as well, and they produce like crazy! Some people already do that here. I guess I'm lazy and don't like to work very hard. Hence the weed block. A little time of laying that down, and I'm not pulling weeds all season.

Don't get me started on weed block again, that's been a nightmare for me this year. Sure wish I could have laid it down before transplanting

We FINALLY got all of the weed block on the pepper rows done yesterday. It took from May 29 through June 16 to get just the peppers done. Still have to do cucumbers, beans, and melons (another 6,000' of it to deploy).

And that was with 4-6 people working on it 6 days a week!

Those should go quicker though as we are not tying it together seamlessly like we did the peppers. The peppers were transplanted with string line to keep nice straight rows. Beans, cucumbers, etc wander around a little, not perfect stright line rows. Melons are already vined out 5 feet across so we have to be careful running it around them.

Plan right now is to cut the rolls much shorter than they need to be, lay it down as a intra-row barrier, then straw mulch between the weed block around the plants. So it'll unroll and go out a LOT faster since we aren't tying the edges together like we did with the peppers, where there's zero gap between rows;

But back to the wire and trellis stuff.... MAN I wish I'd done that at home when I was gardening.

Something like this;

Basically sink 4x4's three feet deep, every 8-10 feet apart, run a 2x4 along the outside of the posts at the top, sink eye bolts in, and you can run your line between over your rows, spaced however you want. It's a hard afternoon's work (less so if you rent a hydraulic auger), but in the fall, when the temps are cooler, not as hot and nasty of a job (it was 90-something when we were setting posts, made it a real pain in the ass).

Looks like this when it's done, so it's not BAD looking. Kind of neat looking, actually.

This year, using it for stringing tomatoes.. next year, will run hortinova trellis mesh down them, for legumes.
(This stuff; which we ran off t-posts this year)

Anyway wouldn't cost much in materials on a garden scale, and save a lot of time later.

Edmick · Jun 17, 2018

Bhuter said:
With the rain constantly watering for me, I've only been able to feed once, and that was the same strength I used in pots: 1/4 tsp a gallon. I don't really know how well it's working yet, as they've just gotten situated in the ground and are finally growing above. But I do know that the Baccatums didn't like to be fed twice in a row. The new growth was elongated and convoluted. But they've grown out of it and I think I'll do 1/4 tsp the next time I'm able to feed, too.
Yes, I give everything the same thing, same dosage...including epsom and lime when planted out.

If you think they need nutes but can't cuz it's too wet, you could always foliar feed them. My bottle of dyna gro has instructions for foliar feeding. I imagine the foliage pro does too.

Bhuter · Jun 17, 2018

Edmick said:
If you think they need nutes but can't cuz it's too wet, you could always foliar feed them. My bottle of dyna gro has instructions for foliar feeding. I imagine the foliage pro does too.

It sure does and I think it's the same strength that I've been using. I've never tried foliar feeding, so I don't know what the end results could be. I could try it on one plant and see! Thanks!

Walchit · Jun 17, 2018

I was thinking about doing a foliage feeding of calmag this evening

Edmick · Jun 17, 2018

Some of my plants were being whiney little bitches (cuz of low night temps?/reduced nutrient uptake? Who knows) but I foliar fed them and they snapped out of it. Seems to work well.

Devv · Jun 18, 2018

Don't worry about foliar feeding, I do it all the time. Use a 1/2 strength mix and apply before the sun is up

Bhuter · Jun 19, 2018

Devv said:
Don't worry about foliar feeding, I do it all the time. Use a 1/2 strength mix and apply before the sun is up

After a couple days in the mid 90's, most of the plants were dry enough to water/feed. And I did so...three hours later it poured rain. I don't know if that was enough time for the plants to soak anything up before the rain washed it all away or diluted it. Lol

Bhuter · Jun 19, 2018

Biker Billy Jals are tiny. The plant is small...but it's producing!

Also have a couple 7 Pot Cinder F2's ripening on my overwinter.

And what's this? A melon? I guess you CAN hand pollinate Sugar Baby Watermelon. I tried it a few days ago on a couple and they worked!

Bhuter · Jun 19, 2018

Peach Clavo x Pink Tiger from Ford's

Genetikx · Jun 19, 2018

Some pretty plants there Adam!

I'm trying sugar baby watermelon too but you're a good ways ahead of me