Hey Fellow Floridians - Year 2

[Jimbotomateo]

Originally Posted by kayrobbins

I tried both spring and fall to grow tomatillos. I had lots of flowers and it set fruit just fine until it got fungused up. None of the things that worked with tomato plants stopped it and I pulled them up. I would love to have any tips on how to grow them here.

Anyone have an answer to kayrobbins question? . I'm interested myself . Jimbo

[Merridiel]

I hope everyone's doing okay with the storms. I got woken up by a tornado warning on my phone last night. It wasn't coming my way, but I wasn't about to fall back to sleep any time soon, heh. We only got a little sprinkle of rain. I could do without the tornadoes, but a downpour would be really nice right around now.

I saw this on Facebook and figured I'd pass it on. This is for tonight:

[efisakov]

How is everyone doing?

[efisakov]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

Barb, I would love some of those Chocolate lightening seeds too. Kay turned me on to Dwarf Beauty King and I loved it so very much, thank you a thousand times, Kay.
I am sending Ginny some Rebel Alliance seeds, it's the multiflora with ribbed brown heart shaped cherries, and almost every blossom sets, but it takes 3 waves for the truss to produce all it's fruit. Love the taste, combo of Zluta Kytice X Not Purple Strawberry.
Would anyone else reading this thread like me to send them some? No SASE needed, just PM me your addy.

I got my seeds. Thank you, Marsha. Starting them today!

[ginger2778]

That's great Ella, thanks girl letting me know.

Barb did you ever find out if you have Rebel Alliance seeds?

[Barb_FL]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

That's great Ella, thanks girl letting me know.

Barb did you ever find out if you have Rebel Alliance seeds?

Sorry I forgot to get back; I'm good - I got them in your SASE this year. Thank you again.

Will be fermenting the Chocolate Lightning seeds probably this weekend. The plant has produced way over 25 tomatoes so far and has just set new fruit. CL ranks up there with Wild Fred for productivity. Also, no fused blooms either. Chocolate Champion which resides next to CL in its' own Root Pouch still remains a dud with 2 fruits set. Even Tastywine I think managed to set fruit again and has flowers.

My nemesis Sweet Scarlet has set 10 tomatoes. I don't remember if I ever posted this picture. The one that looks fused actually wasn't - 2 separate tomatoes.

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Today must be the nicest day of the year. It is in the low 70s with super low humidity - like 25% which I never thought was possible

[ginger2778]

You're right Barb gorgeous weather today, after 4 days of full on Summer, in early April! Hot diggity!

[Barb_FL]

So how is everyone's garden doing?

I'm in process of pulling most of my broccoli plants out. I'm pretty much picking the last head and pulling up the plant.

My Beans are flowering and I saw a few string beans too.

Tomatoes are still going strong even with the russet mites. I started just hosing the plants down during the day (I know - bad, bad - don't get the leaves wet) but it really seemed to help.

Lettuce is going gangbusters too. I haven't even bothered to sow my Jericho Lettuce seeds yet.

Pictures: Chocolate Lightning - Fruit from one plant - All ripe fruit is picked and plant set a bunch more tomatoes since. Chocolate Lightning and Wild Dwarf are by far the best producing dwarfs for me. Did I mention no fused blooms.

My young pepper plants. I'm hosing them down daily too.

Brad's Atomic Grape - geez these fruits take forever to ripen. My slowest tomato to date.

Garden Treasure F2s - this plant produced the best tasting tomatoes. I cut back most of the plant and it is flowering galore. This is just one vine I let go; now it is co-mingled with my mango tree. I previously picked my largest fruit this year - need to weigh it. AKMark is growing out the F3 seeds.

[Merridiel]

I'm still mostly re-arranging things, moving buckets around and getting things up-potted and filling in new mulch. I got a free mulch delivery from Chip Drop and I underestimated just how much there'd be. Not that I'm complaining! My Egyptian walking onions have something going on, it looks like some sort of mildew. I'll spray em with baking soda and see if that helps.

I attached a few pictures-

My first blue butterfly pea flowers. I'm drying them and saving them for tea. The plants are small still so I'm only getting one or two at a time, and I'm not turning the oven on just for that. So I've been bringing in other things to dry along with them. One of my dill plants went to flower and I have no caterpillars to feed it to, so I brought that in. Chocolate mint and spearmint got dried in another batch. With the next flower I'll cut back my lemon balm and peppermint and dry that, too.

The second picture is the ever-growing collection of re-used peanut butter jars in my pantry. I'll make pretty labels for them someday, but today is not that day.

The third picture is dinner from a few nights ago. Potatoes and sweet potatoes with olive oil, salt, and rosemary. The potatoes (purple majesty and red gold) and rosemary were from my garden.

The last picture is a few tomatoes that I brought in from my mislabeled dwarf plant. I don't know what they are, but they were really good.

[Zone9b]

Could someone please help me identify these little white things on this tomato plant's leaves and stems? I'm a total amateur in this area. I've only recently had any tomato worm issues.
Thanks lots,
Larry

[ginger2778]

Larry, could you get a good close up. All I can see are white specks. If it's insects, you can hose if off with a strong stream every day for a week or so. That's the fast way. I can probably ID it with a good close up.

[Zone9b]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

Larry, could you get a good close up. All I can see are white specks. If it's insects, you can hose if off with a strong stream every day for a week or so. That's the fast way. I can probably ID it with a good close up.

On the vertical leaf what is white appears to be an egg that turns into the green bugs which are on the leaf. I'm just guessing of course. That is about as good as photo as I can get, given a cheap phone camera and me, a bad photographer.
Thanks

[ginger2778]

Aphids I am almost certain. Hit em with some soapy water every 4 days for 3 times. Or just spray a strong stream of water all over the under and upper leafs and stem every day for about 10 days. Either way is organic and will work, if you are very thorough. Barb found an inexpensive field microscope, under 20 dollars, that will help a lot.

[Zone9b]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

Aphids I am almost certain. Hit em with some soapy water every 4 days for 3 times. Or just spray a strong stream of water all over the under and upper leafs and stem every day for about 10 days. Either way is organic and will work, if you are very thorough. Barb found an inexpensive field microscope, under 20 dollars, that will help a lot.

Marsha,
Thank you very much. I will most assuredly take your advice and do the spray thing.
Larry

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by Zone9b

Marsha,
Thank you very much. I will most assuredly take your advice and do the spray thing.
Larry

Great! You are welcome. I got a better view, they are for sure aphids. The white ones are shedded exoskeletons, aka aphid mummies. Each instar sheds/molts as they grow.