OmahaJB's 2009 Garden Journal

[OmahaJB]

Update:

Fairly cool weather around here for this time of the year, even a few highs in the 70's. I'm not complaining, and the garden is doing okay overall.

The garlic was dug up last Thursday or Friday. I could have let it go a bit longer, but they were of decent size so no harm done. Less opportunity for neighbors to help themselves. Seems I counted 38 in June, and ended up with around 30, so that was the main reason I wanted to get them out of the ground.

Ironically, the largest was one I had left the scape on. Mixed results as far as which were bigger, the ones with scapes left on or taken off. The differences were small.

No tomatoes ready but there are quite a few growing. Most are still small. The Ida Gold should be ripening soon.

Pruden's Purple has had many flowers but no tomatoes. There were probably 20 flowers on it yesterday. If none pollinate I'm pulling the plant. I suspect disease but no sure yet. The stem on the first flower turned a really weird dark yellow/brownish color and the flower eventually fell off. None of the other stems have looked that way but without pollination I'm concerned something's wrong.

Best plants for size from memory: Cheerio & Camp Joy. Kosovo also has decent size for my conditions. I planted Kosovo in two spots and one of them had a flower with a very large blossom. I forget what it's called, but I do know they don't always pollinate. This one did!

Picked that White Stallion cucumber. It has a very mild, pleasant taste. A squirrel or another animal took a few little bites out of the cuke, but they were superficial bites so I was able to cut around those areas. Several other cucumbers are growing but small. One of them is very light skinned. Not sure if that's Poona Kheera or Delikatessa.

Eggplant aren't doing much still. Although one of the plants has a new one starting out.

That's it for this week....Jeff

[OmahaJB]

Both good and bad to report today.

The bad: Pretty sure it was a squirrel that stole the only eggplant I had growing. He also knocked down two of my tomato plants and took at least one tomato, the one that had the double or extra-large flower before it started growing the tomato. Was disappointed because it was the first double flower I had that pollinated and was growing a tomato. In a previous update I mentioned one of my cucumbers had some damage from an animal, probably the same critter. I'm guessing I'm in for some more disappointment due to a stupid squirrel. It's probably the same one I saw race across the yard twice then sit on the neighbors garage watching me plant the cucumber and tomato plants. I kind of figured I'd have trouble with the jerk.

The good: Quite a few tomatoes growing. The lone Kellogg's Breakfast tomato is of decent size and my largest so far. However, that plant is far from impressive size wise. I'll be lucky if I get more than a couple from it. I picked the Ida Gold tomato today. It was starting to blush so I picked it not wanting Mr. Jerk squirrel to STEAL MY TOMATO again.

Also picked my first Poona Kheera cucumber. At least I assume that's the variety I picked. It has a bronze color to it and is shaped similar to a pear. I'll have to search google images to see if it was Poona Kheera or Delikatessa. Had a very nice flavor. At this point I'd put it slightly ahead of White Stallion. WS had a very nice mild flavor, whereas PK had a little more flavor. Both worth planting for sure. I have another variety that is almost white. I'm wondering if that's Delikatessa, or if I forgot exactly where I planted WS. Thought I remembered, however I may have them mixed up.

The Kardinal tomato plant has grown the largest so far. Looks great with several blossoms on it and I believe a couple of tomatoes.

Amish Yellow has a couple tomatoes that are very light in color. I had forgotten what I'd planted in that spot so had to look at my diagram. I figured it was a yellow variety considering how light it is.

Pruden's Purple finally has a tomato. That plant and now the one next to it, Kellogg's Breakfast, have the stems of the flowers getting this ugly yellow or brown color, then they don't pollinate. That has to be disease as I haven't seen it happen before. Guess I should have pulled PP when I first saw the problem.

The Dahlia has a bud probably not far from opening. We are thinking it might be yellow but obviously can't tell for sure yet. It has grown well in a short amount of time.

Almost Friday.... Enjoy your upcoming weekend..Jeff

[dice]

I noticed when emasculating buds for crosses that there is
this little joint close to the bud, then a short section of stem
between there and the bud.

When an emasculated, pollenated bud is not going to take
(not become a fruit), that short section of stem starts to
turn yellow, then brown, and eventually the bud just falls off.
If the pollenation was successful and there is a fruit developing
there, that little piece of stem stays green and starts to thicken.

So I would not guess that what you are seeing is necessarily
a disease, just that pollenation was unsuccessful on those
flowers, and the plant is sealing them off so that any water
and nutrition flows elsewhere. I don't know why it happens
with a perfectly healthy looking flower that should have
pollenated ok, whether from wind, bees, or me vibrating it
with an electric toothbrush, but I did see that happen this year
with the first Marizol Gold and Lucky Cross flowers that
appeared. Yet those plants both eventually set fruit on later
flowers.

[OmahaJB]

Hopefully that's the only problem then, Dice. Last year I had to settle for hybrids which had very good pollination rates. For some reason Pruden's Purple this year has had terrible pollination while having many flowers. Considering that and the ugly yellowing of the stem I've been concerned something else besides poor pollination was the cause. Probably a false alarm on my part, and that is a good thing. Ironically, both PP and KB are in prime spots in the garden!

[patty_b]

Jeff, I've enjoyed waiting to hear what color the dahlia will be...hope it's pretty. Patty

[OmahaJB]

Patty,

If I remember correctly you said the Dahlia is a cross? I should do research on it, but I'm guessing crossing them is as prevalent as crossing daylilies by some. Will be sure to report what color the bloom is once it opens. The plant itself is attractive also.

[dice]

[yellowing on the stem]

If it is that little bit of stem directly attached to a flower,
that is normal, what happens when the plant is going to
drop that blossom. If it is on the main stem that the flower
cluster comes from, that could be cause for worry.

[OmahaJB]

A nice fairly cool rainy Saturday morning here in T-town. Originally was supposed to get up to 90 today, but that was revised down to 86. Tomorrow will be around 96 last I heard. Better for the plants not to be too hot, so the lower than expected temps and the rain is welcome.

The dahlia that Patty gave to me finally has an open flower. It is exactly like one of the ones she posted a picture of in the "Flowers" forum. Red (or what I call an off burgundy color), with a yellow center. Very attractive. The plant is a showpiece itself in my opinion, even without flowers. It sits between 2 bushes in front of my mothers house below one of the windows. There is probably 4' between the bushes so the plant has plenty of space to grow.

That was some of the good news.

I'm growing more frustrated with the squirrel(s) that have been stealing or taking chunks out of everything, with the exception of the rhubarb. I've had green tomatoes & a pepper stolen, never to be seen again, bites taken out of cucumbers and a few tomatoes. And I found one cucumber about 1/3 of the way eaten and laying in the middle of the lawn. Something else stripped the leaves off the top 2/3 of the Cheerio tomato plant. (Although someone did come over to clean the gutters one day last week and that plant is not far away.) hmmmm. Although the other plants right next to it did not get harmed. Also did not find any pests that could have eaten the leaves. They were completely stripped off the branches. Peculiar to say the least! It's frustrating.

A few tomatoes that were starting to blush were taken off the vine to ripen inside. A couple of small Wishful tomatoes that I'll report on in the dwarf forum when I gather the info, an Amish Yellow of decent size that is slightly blushing, and my Kellogg's Breakfast that I've been waiting for - the squirrel took a little bite and didn't like it green I guess. I brought that KB in to hopefully ripen eventually. The prize tomato at this stage is a very nice Sulia's Heart tomato that is still green on the vine. It has nice size and a beautiful shape. Hopefully the "El Diablo Squirrel" wont damage that one. Camp Joy has about 10 or so small tomatoes on it. Kosovo puts them out but the squirrels seem to like the location of the one plant. The other Kosovo only has 1 tomato and it's of decent size. Kardinal is still the healthiest plant - good vegetative growth. It has some tomatoes on it also.

As far as Wishful, I got 4 or 5 tomatoes from it so far. Mostly are around 1/2 ounce I'm guessing. The biggest one is around 1.5. They are ripening. Had one of the smaller ones and it was decent tasting - around a 6.5. Mild and a little on the acidic side.

Have been a little disappointed with the rhubard growth. May try a different variety next year. The one I really wanted was sold out due to limited supply. Was going to buy those as seedlings, but grew Victoria from seed instead. I realize you have to wait until year 2 to harvest, but I still expected better growth. Most of the rhubarb is narrow, nothing close to the thickness we had in our rhubarb in the 70's & 80's. No idea what variety we had back then. My mother got hers from my grandmother's plant in the 60's I believe. I was surprised to learn that rhubarb plants usually lasts upwards of 15 years (not longer), since we had the same rhubard until sometime around 2000 when my sister tried to transplant it to another location in the yard. Our's lasted for at least 30 years and probably longer. It was GREAT for pie, sauce and fresh eating. I'll have to find the name of the variety I saw in one of the seed catalogs that I wanted to buy last spring and post it here. It was a Canadian variety according to the blurb.

Pulled the white cucumbers off the plant a couple of days ago - they must be the White Stallion, makes sense. Earlier I posted about the taste of White Stallion, when in fact that was most likely Delikatesse. The real White Stallion was very pleasant tasting. Right up there with Poona Kheera I believe. Delikatesse was good also but not quite as flavorful.
I like the color Poona Kheera gets when ripe. Reminds me a little of a pear both in shape and color.

August already.....think I'll have to buy some tomatoes because I don't see myself having enough to try making tomato juice with. I love tomato juice but the canned stuff could definitely be improved upon. Want to try it at least once. Homemade has to be much better.

That's it. Will get back later with the name of the rhubarb I wanted to buy last spring.

[OmahaJB]

Hi all,

I was away from the garden for about a week and a half and finally made a visit Monday after work. Here's what I found:

During my last visit before this one I figured the cucumber plants were done. Not so. I brought home a few small ones, and I see another of what I believe is Delikatessa just starting out.

Rhubard is starting to get a little thicker (stalks), but we wont see good sized rhubard until at least next year. And of course we did not use any of it, since you're not supposed to the first year.

The dahlia really grew alot in just that week and a half. I was surprised with how tall it had gotten. And there are quite a few flowers. Very impressed indeed! I was going to try seeing if some of the flowers dying off had seeds growing, but Mr. Bumblebee was checking on something himself. So maybe next time.

For Patty who gave me the dahlia: After seeing more of the flowers I'm pretty positive the color(s) are different than in the pic you emailed of your flower. Your's was more colorful than this one, but it's still very nice. And the color changes as the flower grows and matures. Seems to be darker pink and yellow when younger, then gets much more pale as it ages by the day.

Tomatoes are producing much better than it appeared they were going to. I was surprised how many were on some of the plants compared to the last time I was there.

Emma Pink surprised me having 3 good sized tomatoes on a very small plant(due to poor soil). Wasn't sure if I'd get much of anything on it.

Kardinal is still the most impressive plant and has at least 6 tomatoes on it right now. Ida Gold and Prudens Purple each have 3 or 4. Others have a couple and a couple of plants have only 1.

Camp Joy as I probably posted about last time should have quite a few small ones ripen soon. I've eaten a couple already, and others may have as well.

Provenzano and Ukranian Heart were two my mother asked me about because she thought they have interesting shapes.

Of the two Kosovo plants one is much weaker than the other and has one cracked tomato of decent size. The stronger Kosovo plant has produced several tomatoes, including the 'double' tomato Mr. Jerk Squirrel stole a few weeks ago, and a few that were on it Monday. The plant was having trouble supporting the weight, as I only used a bamboo stick to tie it to. So I had to make the tough decision to take one off to use for fried green tomatoes. Will use it this weekend.

Sulia's Heart has had the biggest tomato thus far. It's only 12.5 ounces but larger than the rest, so it looks large to me. It was starting to ripen so I pulled it and have it sitting on my counter. Will give it to my mother when it ripens. She's been good about watering everything when I haven't been able to get over there much the past couple of weeks.

Some plants have not produced well or at all yet, including my KB, Japanese Tomato Tree, Cheerio, Russian Apple Tree, and a few others. It's all about where they were planted I think, with the exception of Japanese Tomato Tree because it's in a good spot. But some of the plants get too much shade which is the problem.

Eggplants have not done well. I see another one growing, however, and a couple more trying to. So we'll see. I'm pretty sure the squirrel is taking them as soon as they get about 2" or so long. Every time I see one growng it's not there the next time I visit.
The plants are all pretty small so that is soil and lack of sun related also.

Now I'm trying to decide if I'll have a garden next year. It's tough getting over there 3 times a week, and doing all the work in the beginning of the season. A lady hit me from behind on the autobahn in '89 when I was stationed in W. Germany, totalled my car and messed up my back. The older I get the more it seems to affect me. Makes digging and bending over to weed hard. And my major MAJOR disappoinment is not being able to start seeds here in this apartment. The humidity level in this half-underground apartment is too high and kills and maims most of my seedings. And my mother wants nothing to do with growing the seedlings indoors even if I germinate them first. So the varieties I've wanted to grow for years, I can't. At least not next year I imagine.

Thanks to Patty and her husband for providing the seedlings for this year though. Without those I'd have very very few tomatoes. Now maybe I'll be able to try making homemade tomato juice in a couple of weeks.

Please ignore any typos. I've got too much to do to proof-read at the moment. A single man's work is never done, let me tell you....

[OmahaJB]

Before I give an update on my garden that's quickly winding down, I want to make a comment regarding the dahlia monster I'm growing. If anyone is looking for a way to attract bees, that may be the answer for you. Although most of the time I've been there it's been bumblebees or maybe a hornet or two that I've witnessed on the flowers. My mother said she doesn't think there's been a time she's walked past it that it doesn't have something on the flowers or flying around them looking for the best spot to land. I don't know if bumblebees are interested much in flowers on tomatoes, or if they would be if a dahlia is around, but the dahlia does attract them. The dahlia is in the front and the tomatoes in the back so I don't know how much it would help if it was planted in back also. Bees here like in much of the country are scarce. Much different from when I was a kid and we had a large garden.

My tomatoes plants are 'expiring'. I believe late blight is taking many of them but they have outlived their usefulness anyways. The leaves are turning a yellowish-rust color, very ugly. I'm assuming it's late blight but haven't researched the different diseases yet.

A few of the plants are still producing, however. In late spring I had an extra seedling, Slankard's, and my mother said she was going to plant it on the side of the house. I left it, and knowing it was going to rain hard set it behind the trash cans. A week later the seedling was still there sitting in the cup it was planted in drooping and sitting in a lot of rain water. She ended up planting it and I looked at it yesterday and there are two tomatoes on it, including the largest in the garden so far this year. Bigger than the 12 ounce tomato I had from another plant. Ironically, that seedling had not been planted because the other Slankard seedling was larger and stronger and I only had one spot for them. The one I planted got stepped on by the dog or another animal and never recovered well enough to produce. Funny how things work out sometimes!

I started a thread on this in another forum, Emma Pink ended up I believe crossed with something else as it turned brick red and had the typical partially green shoulders I saw in other pictures of it. Patty posted a pic of hers in that thread and it was much lighter than mine. I'm happy because it turned out to be the most interesting tomato in my garden this year. Despite not eating it until it was almost overripe and the fact it was affected by too much water, it had good taste. It was extremely solid/meaty, and while it had a decent number of seeds they were buried in the meaty areas and I had to cut slices off to get to them. A really nice tomato I thought, and despite how meaty it was it was not too dry. I was able to save probably about 20 seeds or so, and will try growing them out in 2010. If they come up the same color I may have to name it as it must be a cross.

Eggplant will either be crossed off the list or done in containers to hopefully warm up the plant a bit more. I think I read somewhere eggplant loves heat and we had a fairly cool year in 2009. According to the weatherman it was because of El Nino affecting the jet stream, but I don't know enough about it to say whether it was or not.

Love growing garlic despite the fact I barely use it. I enjoy watching it grow in the spring, digging it up in the middle of July, then planting it again October. Looks my mother uses it a little more than I do, and once I finally decide to make chili I'll use some as well. Just not a big garlic eater. Maybe because when I was in the Navy the Air Force supervisor who often took the briefing when he was relieving my shift would lean in way too close to look at the reports I was showing him, and I swore that guy ate so much garlic he smelled worse than 5 chopped up cloves. Whew!!! Gag, gag, gag. Smelled like he never brushed his teeth and washed his mouth out with mouthwash. I never want to smell like that so I'm hesitant I guess to consume much of it. Love growing it. It's so easy! I put a little compost in the soil and plant the cloves skinny side up about 3" deep and water once in awhile.

Not sure about 2010 but would like to grow potatoes in the ground at some point. In '08 I planted some in grow bags and it was so much dang work constantly adding soil then trying to find the tiny potatoes that grew when I harvested. Never again in containers! Not sure if I'll have enough space in the garden to give it a try next year.

Daylillies were boring this year because they wont have flowers until at least the middle of next summer. Anxious to see what the flowers look like. They are hybrids so there's no telling! I did enjoy buying daylilly seeds on the auction site (see the thread in the flower forum), then growing them from seed. It's interestng seeing what the parents of the cross look like and trying to imagine what the seeds will produce. Requires much patience and a little room in the garden.

One of the things I've really wanted to grow from seed have been trees. Even though I'd be long gone before they grew to maturity it'd be neat to think I could start something from seed that might be around for a hundred years or more. Bonsai is what I'd really like to get into, but starting from seed only. I've seen pictures of some fascinating bonsai trees hundreds of years old that are unbelievable. Imagine how many people had to care for them to reach that age. For me anyways there's something calming and almost spiritual about trees. To most they are probably just another thing that grows, I understand that. I saw a picture of a tree in Russia named Kapok that I'd like to try growing, but have not found a source for seed. Neat tree, though it was not a bonsai.

My cucumbers were only mildly successful. Soil problems no doubt.

Had two Alpine strawberry plants, but they did not get big enough to produce I guess. I did see some tiny berries starting to grow but 2 days ago they were gone. Either birds or another animal got to them I'm thinking.

Not a banner year, but not a terrible outcome either. Will do things better next year, and hopefully have mother nature on our side. She did a decent job this year. Not too hot, and only on a few occassions did she send us too much water.

Hope you all had a decent year as well! If not, better luck next year.

[OmahaJB]

Frost warning for tonight so I picked the rest of the tomatoes. Most are still green and will have to sit for quite a while to ripen. Probably had about 18 but about 10 were smaller 1 ounce tomatoes, not the bigger ones. We probaby wont get frost in the city but the cold weather might affect the tomatoes anyways, so I didn't chance it.

The largest tomato of the year was one of the ones picked green today - Slankards. It's 4 1/4 inches across, and 13 ounces.

My best tasting tomato was what I believe to be a cross of Emma Pink with an unknown darker (purple or black) variety. It turned kind of a brick red color and when sliced had the darker color on the inside edges. It was very meaty and great tasting. The only other explanation for this is if I confused one of the Pruden's Purple tomatoes with an Emma Pink. But I'm 99.9% sure I did not. Besides being sure of what was picked from where, I googled pics and descriptions of PP and it does not look similar enough to my tomato to call it a match. Only thing I can do is grow out the seeds I saved for this and PP next season and compare. My other PP's were used for fried green tomatoes.

The summer went fast as always. Will need to amend the soil as soon as possible, then plant garlic. Not sure if I'll plant as much this year. I haven't used any yet, and my mother used maybe one or two so far. Just not big garlic consumers.

My plan is to grow in grow bags next season. Will still use the regular garden space, but hope to have more plants in the bags. Will depend on finances as always. Soil can add up cost-wise. It will also depend on whether or not I have somewhere decent to start my seedlings. They don't survive here that's for sure.

I did start some seeds to try to grow indoors this fall/winter. Have some project Dreamy seedlings going and a couple other things. That'll fulfill my need to garden.

My last post in this thread most likely...