2022 Garden Thread

[EatenByLimestone]

I think my first batch was pretty close to that. Hopefully they will be red soon!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I’m hoping I’ll have some ripe tomatoes for Christmas, too, but not from my Aerogarden. The weather is changing to winter finally in Texas. We‘re forecast for refrigerator temperatures at night for the next few days, and next week we may seem some real freezes. For that reason, I did a bunch of harvesting of well sized tomatoes and a few other things.



We ate the kale sautéed along with our leftover corned beef and potatoes for supper tonight. Some of the reddish tomatoes (hiding under the kale, I think) went to the counter, but the big box of less ripe tomatoes went to a shelf in the pantry to ripen.

I think there are six varieties in the box: Captain Lucky, Maglia Rosa, Blush 2.0, Riesentraube, Taiga, and an unknown red cherry that volunteered last winter. By far the bulk of the tomatoes are Blush 2.0, an elongated cherry or saladette type, that should ripen to yellow with red stripes; and Taiga, a green when ripe, heart-shaped tomato. The close-up is a smaller Taiga that is nevertheless showing a bit of color change. I actually left a good number of tomatoes on the vines as I was concentrating on picking the larger, more mature ones today.

I also grabbed a few peppers: a green Beaver Dam, some purple jalapenos, and some shishitos.

The ugly looking things on the left are my drying luffas that will be peeled and seeded and used as sponges. I have six more out on the vines that aren’t drying down yet. I don’t know how they’ll like refrigerator temperatures, but I left them to see how they do.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

We had kale tonight too! I can’t imagine there’s much left out there. It can’t be growing much with our nights in the 20s. There’s probably only bok choy left.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Look what I found!

 

[Dan Freeman]

 

[Dan Freeman]

Made a nice score at Home Depot this morning. I went there to buy plastic pot saucers for my indoor garden. With the outbreak of fungus gnats, I decided to start watering from the bottom and keep the top of the soil dryer. I didn't want to put a ton of water in the greenhouse trays I am using, so I decided to get individual saucers for each plant. I only needed 18 and planned to get the real cheapies at $0.98 each. Of course, they didn't have 10 of one of the sizes I needed, even though they showed 26 of them on their online inventory, so a worker gave me 10 of the $3.48 ones (sturdier) and discounted them to 0.98 each. I saved $25 and got studier dishes. I guess it helped that it was the same worker who had to apologize to me last week when they were out of another item I wanted, and it was showing in stock. I think he felt bad.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Seeet! It’s always nice to get customer appreciation!

 

[begreen]

DG - Not a bad harvest considering it's December. You might want to try pickling some of the green tomatoes. I just ate the last of our batch and they came out pretty good. Our greenhouse early girl died but still has many pink tomatoes on it that we will ripen indoors. We still have many peppers left to process but they are keeping well in the cool greenhouse. All that is left in there now are our citruses and some overwintering pepper plants in pots.

I've moved all of our greenhouse lettuce plants indoors and under lights. I use veggie trays that come from the grocery store as water trays. The iDoo experiment was kind of a flop for the tomatoes. One got so large it toppled. The problem with these systems is that there is no way to stake plants. I extricated the largest tomato and potted it a few days ago. So far it appears none the worse for wear. No tomatoes dropped, though I did prune it a bit. I am going to harvest the iDoo lettuce and transfer the other Tiny Tim to a pot, then clean the iDoo . I will replant it with basil and lettuce only.



There is a lower and upper LED light bar above the plants. The low one is for the lettuce and the high one is for the tomatoes. They get 16 hrs of light a day.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Sorry to hear the tomatoes didn’t work out BG! Basil and lettuce grow well in them too!

It seems weird to leave plants in them so long. Before the tomatoes I cycled them through growing plantlets.

The second batch of TTs has way more tomatoes on it. I guess I needed practice self pollinating.

I wonder if you’d physically get more produce growing leafy stuff. You’d be able to keep everything low enough so the lights wouldn’t get clogged out.

 

[begreen]

Our lettuce and basil in the iDoo did well until the tomatoes crowded them out. We got a few pickings. I still have a largish romaine hanging off the backside that I will harvest today. The main issue besides the tomatoes getting too large is that they can't be staked. The transplants in the pots now are firmly staked. It's all a learning experience so I don't mind.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Our lettuce and basil in the iDoo did well until the tomatoes crowded them out. We got a few pickings. I still have a largish romaine hanging off the backside that I will harvest today. The main issue besides the tomatoes getting too large is that they can't be staked. The transplants in the pots now are firmly staked. It's all a learning experience so I don't mind.

Any chance of a photo of the lettuce before you harvest it or at least before you eat it? I’m curious about a Romaine in a hydroponic system.

Did you take any steps to strengthen the stems of the indoor vegetables? I have at times used a light fan blowing on them, but usually I don’t set such a thing up. I just blow on them when I look at them (that’s often how I pollinate, too, for indoor tomatoes), or I rub my hand lightly on the top of the foliage. I find I get pretty sturdy stems, but I am growing a different variety as well. I know that plants outdoors build thicker stems in response to breezes and wind, so I try to give my indoor plants a bit of that treatment.

I pruned my tomatoes pretty drastically a while back, and immediately after that some of the leaves started showing what looked like it could have been fertilizer burn. I hadn’t overfed them to my knowledge. If anything, I had underfed them, I think. They’ve grown new healthy foliage, and I’ve clipped off the stuff that wasn’t looking so good. I have green tomatoes on them, but I‘m definitely not (at the moment) having a problem with them growing out of their Aerogarden.

The jalapeno I planted was a different story. I pruned it just a couple of days ago because it was growing up into the lighthood. (Both my light hoods are 11 inches at maximum height, by the way. The machines themselves are different heights, so one fits under my cabinets at maximum extension and the other doesn’t, but the distance between the plants and the lights is the same.). I decided to cut it way back again today to encourage even more branching at the bottom. It means that I cut off the flowers, but I expect it will make more. I wonder if it’s growing so well because there is no second large plant in that machine. (I have some tiny lettuce seedlings, but they don’t really count as competition right now.)

 

[EatenByLimestone]

How do you pollinate jalapeños? Can you do them by hand like tomatoes? Are there dwarf varieties?

 

[DuaeGuttae]

How do you pollinate jalapeños? Can you do them by hand like tomatoes? Are there dwarf varieties?

Yes, you can pollinate just like tomatoes. In the garden I tend to help things along by tapping on my trellises or the stems, though I think we get enough wind and insect activity here. Inside I either flick the flowers gently or just blow a sustained breath several times on different parts of the plant.

I don’t know if there is a special dwarf variety. The one I’m growing was in an Aerogarden kit that my daughter (the original recipient of the Aerogarden) received as a gift. This was was not acting dwarf-like, and if it grows back just as high, I may have to remove it from the Aerogarden to a pot. In order to give it light, though, I’d have to clear off my plant cart, and I’m not sure I want to move my more cold sensitive things to the garage, so who knows. I may just keep pruning and hope for some low-hanging fruit.

@begreen, I forgot to ask, How do you pickle green tomatoes? I still have a bunch on the vines.

 

[begreen]

Quick Pickled Green Tomatoes

The best way to preserve green tomatoes? Pickles! These pickled green tomatoes are the perfect condiment: tangy, salty, and 100% delicious.

www.acouplecooks.com

 

[Dan Freeman]

Any day now...



Just purchased two apple trees (Liberty and Freedom) and 3 boysenberry bushes from Stark Brothers. They won't arrive until April and up the trees, bushes and vines to 48.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I’ve thought of trying apples again. Of the 3 I planted, I only have 1 dwarf rootstock left. If I get more, I’m going to graft the heck out of it! Lol

 

[begreen]

My wife is saying - no more apples! so I am going to try grafting this year. We have a William's Pride that Raintree sent us by mistake. It was supposed to be a Spartan. It's vigorous and prolific, but the apples come in August and we are not ready for them. They're fine fresh, but poor keepers. I am going to attempt to graft some of our nice varieties onto it.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Frankentrees are awesome!

 

[Dan Freeman]

While Liberty and Freedom look good, they would not have necessarily been my first choice. My Honeycrisp and Granny Smith (bought together because they are preferred cross-pollinators) have shown signs of Apple Cedar Rust in their 2nd year. Other than treating with a chemical fungicide (perhaps an organic one but to a much less success rate), the only alternative is to cut down all cedar trees within a 3-mile radius. I don't think my neighbors would approve. So, I looked up apple cedar rust and which trees are very resistant, and there were a number of them, but then I had to match two that bloom at the same time so they would cross pollinate (a must). (There are 3 different bloom times in the Spring for apple trees depending on the variety, and if you don't have at least 2 trees that bloom at the same time, your apple harvest will be extremely poor or non-existent.) The best match I could find for my needs, and were available for purchase, were the Liberty and the Freedom.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

The neighbors might have crab apples. Still the Malus genus. They’ll work too.

 

[Dan Freeman]

The neighbors might have crab apples. Still the Malus genus. They’ll work too.

I have a crabapple (not sure if it blooms the same time), but it is at least 150 feet from my regular apple trees. When trees are young and just beginning to bloom, 50 feet is considered the maxim distance. As they grow older, larger and have many more blooms, within 50 feet is not as critical, but then it's a little late to move them, huh?

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I think the only solution is to plant more trees

 

[Dan Freeman]

I think the only solution is to plant more trees

Oh yes, and since I have no life except my home business and garden now that I am retired, I will definitely be expanding in plants, and maybe area. My garden is my favorite activity.

One of my favorite quotes:
“The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.” (Rabindranath Tagore)

 

[EatenByLimestone]

You can probably plant all sorts of stuff outside the fenced in area. You can pretty much make up your own rules, lol. I used to use my peach tree as a trellis. It was fun seeing them hang off the branches.

 

[begreen]

Harvest day for our first January King cabbage. I am going to make some borscht today with it. This one is about 7" across. They sweeten up nicely with the cold weather and will go through 20º freezes.


The others, like this one, are still developing.