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Mid-June Garden pictures

W

wordwiz

These plants are not near as large as many of yours, but then they have only been in the ground about 3 weeks.

Potatoes, basil and on the right, some beans:

614potatoesbasil.jpg


My pepper plants are not very large either, but are sprouting a few pods:

614peppers.jpg


Some tomatoes, among other things:

614garden2.jpg


I need to till the ground but it has been raining almost every day for the last week. Never a huge amount, but enough to keep the dirt damp. With it having a lot of clay in it, I don't want to work it until is is completely dry.

Mike
 
Looking really good Wordwiz! Wow, your maters are looking really lush. What variety are they? Are you going to individually stake them, or do the old Florida Weave?
 
Five star,

The ones in the top two rows are Beefsteak, Delicious, Siletz, a couple of Romas and one Riesentraube (a grape tom).

I also have some Green Sausage and Red Zebra. All in all, about 75 plants that have survived.

I'm going to stake all of them, hopefully Tuesday & Wednesday evenings. No doubt - they are planted much closer together than recommended, only about 18" apart and two feet between rows.

With a great harvest of 3/4 bushel per plant for the larger toms, I could have more than 40 bushels of maters this year, and that won't include the seeds I am germinating now. I hope to transplant another 55 seedlings in August.

Mike
 
I wouldn't worry about the spacing too much man. I made an even worse mistake last year and went to work while my roommate went to town planting my tomatoes. Came home and the were BARELY a foot apart and in two rows about 18 inches apart. I was still up to my ears in tomatoes, eating 2-3 tomato sandwiches a day and they came faster than we could eat them.


If you're looking to save time and money on staking, try the Florida Weave technique. It's the way to go if you've got lots to stake.

Check out this link if you need a quick how to. It really does rock, and as they grow, you just add another string!

http://www.foogod.com/~torquill/barefoot/weave.html
 
I tried something similar a couple of years ago. The only differences (big ones!) is I used three poles when instead I should use 11 and I didn't weave them - well I did but it wasn't exactly a weave since the posts were 15 feet apart!

It looks like it is worth a shot, at least for one row. No way can I find fence posts anything close to a buck-fifty each, an el-cheapo 4' one is $2.50 or more. But I can buy tomato stakes, large ones, for a little over the $1.50 mark. They should work just as well, but would have to be replaced every few years.

I'm glad to hear that the close plantings didn't hurt your crop. I've talked with a couple of businesses who are interested in buying toms plus I can sell at a Farmer's Market just down the street.

Mike

Mike
 
Fence posts? Maybe I didn't read my own link very well! You can use tomato stakes for the weave. That's what I've done for the last two years. As long as you take into account how tall they'll get ie. determinate vs. indeterminate and your suckering pattern, a 4ft stake will work just fine. Just stake them ever 3 or 4 tomatoes or so, and weave away.

Anyhow, do keep us updated, as it looks like you'll have one hell of a year!
 
I may have to try the Florida Weave next year. That looks very interesting!

Great looking garden Wordwiz. Where are you located? We have a lot of clay here in Oklahoma, but my garden isn't too bad with it. I have friends and family in the central and southern parts of the state thought that have a heck of a time tilling that stuff up.
 
I'm in Cincinnati. The garden wouldn't have any clay in it had I not hauled some fill dirt from a cemetery a few years ago. But talk about a mixture: most of the area use to be a swimming pool. At the bottom is the original, great black dirt, then about 1.5" of fine sand. On top of that is a couple inches of topsoil, covered by three inches of clayish dirt. Then the top layer is about two inches of very silty dirt I dug out of another part of the yard last year because nothing - including weeds would grow in it. It does not hold moisture at all.

Something else in the garden this year - I sowed winter wheat, mowed it then tilled the garden but didn't wait more than about a week to plant everything, so there is a lot of organic matter to help.

Mike
 
Cemetery dirt? Guess you won't need to be adding any bonemeal!

The winter wheat idea sounds interesting, but by growing winter wheat and then your regular garden in the spring/summer, aren't you at risk of sucking all the nutrients out of the soil from growing things in it year round? I have a friend who's dad has a huge farm in southwestern OK where they grow a ton of winter wheat and I asked him if he'd ever considered growing something else during the summer and that's why he told me they didn't. The soil down there probably isn't nearly as rich as it is up in Cincy either though.
 
Wordwiz, your garden is looking great. My plants are looking small right now too. I think that it has been on the cool side and thus they haven't really kicked in yet. I'll have to post some updated pics so that you have a comparison from the other side of the state.
 
Smoke,

On the contrary - the winter wheat puts bunches of nitrogen back into the ground. We were tobacco farmers and every late September or early October, we sowed wheat. It not only helped control soil erosion, by April it was 2-3 feet tall. We would plow it under, usually setting the plow at a depth of 6-7 inches. The foliage and roots would decompose. Strange - after 30-40 years, I can still remember wearing the seeder around my neck and walking up and down the fields, turning the handle to spread the seeds!

Mike
 
wordwiz said:
Smoke,

On the contrary - the winter wheat puts bunches of nitrogen back into the ground. We were tobacco farmers and every late September or early October, we sowed wheat. It not only helped control soil erosion, by April it was 2-3 feet tall. We would plow it under, usually setting the plow at a depth of 6-7 inches. The foliage and roots would decompose. Strange - after 30-40 years, I can still remember wearing the seeder around my neck and walking up and down the fields, turning the handle to spread the seeds!

Mike
Click to expand...

That's good. So you just plow it all into the ground and don't harvest any of it?
 
Yes, I cut the foliage when it gets about 2-3 feet tall and add it to the compost pile, leaving only the roots which get tilled in the dirt. It's as good as any fertilizer on earth. I just wish I would have sowed it a couple of weeks earlier but the tomatoes were still producing and I needed every one I could get.

Mike
 
FiveStar said:
I wouldn't worry about the spacing too much man. I made an even worse mistake last year and went to work while my roommate went to town planting my tomatoes. Came home and the were BARELY a foot apart and in two rows about 18 inches apart. I was still up to my ears in tomatoes, eating 2-3 tomato sandwiches a day and they came faster than we could eat them.


If you're looking to save time and money on staking, try the Florida Weave technique. It's the way to go if you've got lots to stake.

Check out this link if you need a quick how to. It really does rock, and as they grow, you just add another string!

http://www.foogod.com/~torquill/barefoot/weave.html
Click to expand...

5Star,

Man, thanks for the heads up on the weave, at least so far. I was trying to find some 6' tomato stakes to use but the store never got them in so I am using tobacco sticks. They are shorter about 42" and not near as thick, but I drove them in the ground leaving about 32 inches above the dirt. Wrapped the twine around them (not sure I did it per the instructions, I wrapped the twine around the stake instead of just weaving it, being sure to keep it tight) but the toms are standing straight up and down. If the plants get more than three feet tall, I'm going to have some overhang, but I don't think that will cause any problem. But using my materials will save me $60 this year. What I really like about the idea is that each stake has almost the same pressure from each side so hopefully they will fall over.

Mike
 
Glad this is workin for you Mike! It's a great way to deal with tons of maters, because if you stake them, you've got to tie each plant as it grows. This way, you can essentially support several plants with one tying. And yes, tobacco sticks work perfect! Can't wait to watch those puppies grow. What kind of suckering do you do on them? I kinda go for size over quantity, and sucker to a single vine, but I've got a few determinate varieties this year I've only suckered to the first hand of flowers, and I'm letting them go buck from there.

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5Star,

I've never suckered tomatoes, again because we raised so many of them and were always busy with tobacco. I've heard of people who do (indeterminate plants, not determinant) but I don't know if it makes a difference in the total weight harvested.

While playing in them yesterday, I found one plant that was half-again bigger and taller than any others. Not sure what type it is (I didn't keep track when I transplanted them but will know once they set fruit) but this thing is massive.

Much to my surprise, I have lots and lots of blooms, unusual for this early in the year.

Mike
 
Mike, if it's only one plant out of the whole group, you might even have a dreaded "Sterile Male"! Ever seen one? It's super weird. I've only seen them in commercial plantings, but have read about them in home gardens as well. The plants will grow several times as fast as the others, get huge, flower like crazy, but never set a single fruit. It won't hurt anything at all to have it around though. Not saying you've got one for sure, but if it looks awesome and never sets any fruit, that's probably why.
 
5Star,

A note about the Florida Weave - it's worthless when an idiot plants Green Sausage (a very short, maybe 2' plant) next to Beefsteak or Riesentraube!

On a positive note, I like how the plants look. Yeah, I've lost a branch or two trying to tie the plants up (they seem very brittle now) but all in all, they are in much better shape - as far as being up in the air and off the ground, than in the past five years.

Mike
 
Excellent! Glad it's working for you man. It's worked well for me, and if Commercial farmers do it, it must be for a reason!

And don't worry about the differing height thing. As the shorter varieties finally reach the next string, you can always tuck them into it for support. I'm growing 10 tomatoes this year in my limited space, and have 10 different varieties, all of which grow at different speeds (especially when you single vine sucker them!). I'm always tucking plants into strings they've just caught up to.
 
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