Anne's 2016 Garden 6-17-16

[aclum]

Tracy,

Thanks - so kind of you! You're an inspiration, too, what with all you've gone through recently. And I appreciate your interest/concern re: adaptive gardening, etc.
Good luck with your bucket list . In high school, I had a basset hound I showed. I handled her at first, but eventually we hired a handler and sent her to a show out of state for her last major to finish. Fun activity!


Peebee,

Late Happy Birthday! Seems like lots of people sell Azomite. There are at least two types - a granular and micronized. The micronized mixes nicely with water. Here's what I happened to buy (from Handy Pantry via Amazon):

https://www.amazon.com/Lbs-Azomite-A.../dp/B000E7MTT4

I think alll the brands are basically the same - micronized or granular - and just differ in size, packaging, and pricing.


My Lee's Sweet was the first variety to fruit in my garden. Looks like a Virginia Sweets will be my first ripe tomato but the Lee's Sweet is only a few days behind. I'll let you know how I like it!

Anne

[aclum]

Hi Again,

I more or less finished up my trellising project (for the time being) today and thought you might like to see some photos.

The vines are nearly horizontal now and, in some cases, are resting on the mulch. Overall, the tomatoes are probably less than 30" tall but have vines extending horizontally 4-6'. I had a heavy cluster of Daniels starting to break off so I figured it might be a good idea to let some of the fruit rest on the mulch so as to stress the plants less. The current situation is almost like a "controlled, layered sprawl." I like it .
Yesterday I managed to snap off a couple of stems (fortunately had extra), so as I pruned today, in addition to "The Limbo" (how LOOWWWW can you go?) going through my head, I had bits of "Danger, Heartbreak Dead Ahead" going on to remind me to be more careful !

I've picked a 1 lb 2 oz Virginia Sweets, an 8 oz Lee's Sweet, and a 12.5 oz Wes that should all be ready to eat in a few more days. A Black from Tula and Daniels should be ready to pick by the end of the week. Not bad for 2 months plus a couple of days since plant out!

Anyway, here are some photos (yard clean-up is tomorrow):

In order:

Lee's Sweet
Daniels (with a semi-broken cluster tied back to the main stem)
Garden from West with not carbon in the foreground
Garden from North West
Garden from North East with Black from Tula in the foreground
Beans and Peppers
Cukes with a couple of tomatoes and peppers

Anne

[whistech]

What a beautiful garden! Keep the pictures coming.

[aclum]

Thanks, Whistech!

Just a quick update to let those who asked know that the Lee's Sweet we had with dinner tonight was an excellent tomato . I usually don't expect too much from he first tomato of the season but this was very nice - just a bit of a zip but also some sweetness and pleasant, a bit unique, flavor. I'm not very good at describing flavors and my taste memory's not that great, but I really enjoyed the one tonight. Looking forward to comparing it to Goose Creek, Daniels, etc.

As long as I'm writing ...... I was noticing greenish shoulders that I'd seen mentioned as resulting from too much sun exposure on some of my fruit. Even though I have shade cloth, I thought it might be a good idea to give them more cover so I rearranged some leaves today. Plants are even shorter now .
Photos taken around 4pm and it was 100 degrees outside as per weather.com (a bit cooler in the garden) so the leaves are looking a bit straggly.

Here are a few photos:

Lee's Sweet area
Daniels/Wes area
Looking down part of row1

As you might notice, I didn't get to my yard cleanup today .

Anne

[aclum]

Hi Again,

As the vines begin to overlap and "stack up," things are getting just a tad bit confusing for me - esp. as I have 2 or 3 vines going for each plant now. It's getting hard to tell what's what, so I came up with this system to make it easier to figure things out when I'm pruning. I'm using an extra 3.0 mm grafting clip to attach a bit of surveyor's (??) tape identifying the variety to the growing tip of each vine. If all works as planned, I won't have to trace the vine back to the main stem to identify it, which will be a plus when (and a big if) the vines get to be 15-20' long and stacked 10-14 layers high!

Anne

[efisakov]

Excellent job, Anne. Nice looking fruits as well. Keep posting those pictures, my tomatoes just started setting (cold front and 5 days of 90s made my plants drop flowers twice). It is nice seeing tomatoes turn color. Your cucumbers and zucchini looking healthy too.
Great setup.

[aclum]

Thanks Ella!

I always enjoy looking at your garden photos too ! Sorry to hear about the weather problems and blossom drop. That's so frustrating, but I guess not much you can do about it. Good to hear that the fruit is starting to set now. Hope the weather holds up for you!

We're in for about a week of 100-106 degree weather, so I don't know if the Virginia Sweets blossoms in that last photo will set any fruit - but fingers crossed. I had my first ever Virginia Sweets in a BLT might before last and thought it was incredibly good - so I hope those blossoms decide to stick around and set more fruit!

I grew VS last year but, due to the drought, I was basically dry farming and the tomatoes weren't very good on any of the plants. Year before I think it was spider mites causing problems. So those plants don't count . Nice nice to finally be able to try a "normal" fruit from a non-stressed plant!

Anne

[Dutch]

Hi Anne,
Nice crystal clear pictures!
Keep us posted on your tagging experiment.
Thank again.
Dutch

[peebee]

So Anne, what did you think of Lee's Sweet? I'm growing it for the first time and for me it's ok, the taste is not making me leap over fences if you know what I mean. But I'll give it some more time, maybe it improves with age as sometimes first toms aren't as good.

[aclum]

Hi Peebee,

I had my first Lee's Sweet a bit ago and mentioned it in another thread (that I guess you didn't see). I thought it was very good and was impressed. It was the first or second of any variety harvested. I've since had other pinks that I prefer - esp. Daniels (that I loved) and Goose Creek, which don't have quite the "bite" at the end that I noticed with the Lee's Sweet. I just finished eating some very garlicky gazpacho made from a mixture of varieties so my taste buds were probably numb , but, for the purpose of this post , I just now had a slice of another Lee's Sweet that had just finished ripening up on the counter. My brother and I both found it pretty ordinary. So I'm a bit disappointed, but maybe the next one (with fresh taste buds) will be more impressive. I any event, for now, I think it's a good, if not quite spectacular tomato.

Anne

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by aclum

Hi Peebee,

I had my first Lee's Sweet a bit ago and mentioned it in another thread (that I guess you didn't see). I thought it was very good and was impressed. It was the first or second of any variety harvested. I've since had other pinks that I prefer - esp. Daniels (that I loved) and Goose Creek, which don't have quite the "bite" at the end that I noticed with the Lee's Sweet. I just finished eating some very garlicky gazpacho made from a mixture of varieties so my taste buds were probably numb , but, for the purpose of this post , I just now had a slice of another Lee's Sweet that had just finished ripening up on the counter. My brother and I both found it pretty ordinary. So I'm a bit disappointed, but maybe the next one (with fresh taste buds) will be more impressive. I any event, for now, I think it's a good, if not quite spectacular tomato.

Anne

Anne, did your Lee's Sweet have regular or PL?

[aclum]

Hi Marsha,

My Lee's Sweet is RL. Is there a PL version? I just checked out J & L's website to see if they say what leaf type it should be and they don't seem to be offering it at the moment.

Anne

[peebee]

Mine is PL. Guess it's not stable.

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by aclum

Hi Marsha,

My Lee's Sweet is RL. Is there a PL version? I just checked out J & L's website to see if they say what leaf type it should be and they don't seem to be offering it at the moment.

Anne

Its supposed to be PL. Mine was RL too. Lee said he was going back to the PL seeds to get the right one going again. My RL one was quite ordinary too.

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by peebee

Mine is PL. Guess it's not stable.

PL is right.