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Old May 6, 2016   #1
Merediana
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Default A newbies second season - 2016

Hey I just wanted to share a few pictures and stories about my plants with you Last year was the first season I was growing something, before that I wasn't interested in plants at all and my whole family was never into gardening either. I'm a university student so everything has to be kind of low budget... Oh and I'm constantly fighting with my parents about how much space of our garden I'm allowed to use for my "ugly veggies", that's why I have to stick to container gardening except for a small spot that I'm mostly using for squash.

Baby picture of my seedlings:


Usually people here don't grow their tomatoes under growing lights, they have them just behind their window, but this year I wanted a headstart.

Well, today they might be a bit to tall We are still not save from frost or at least not save from low night temperatures. The usual plant out date is mid may, but there can be frost in early june too.

But for the next 7-8 days night temperatures won't go below 9-10°C so today I decided to put all my tomatoes in 12l buckets. They are small enough so that I can carry them in if the temperatures will go down...
Later in the season they'll need much more support but these bamboo sticks will be fine for a few weeks.

Kellog's Breakfast


Orange Russian (there was no 117 added to the name but I think that was just a mistake?)


Trefle du Togo


Barry's Crazy Cherry


Old Yellow Candystripe


Amethyst Cream Cherry


Striped Cavern


Northern Lights


Cuor di Bue giant reif red


Kremser Perde (semi-det.)


Henderson's Pink Ponderosa



Candy Sweet Icicle


Michael Pollan


A very bad looking White Oxheart


And these are my Red Currants, I wanted to put them into haning baskets but I obviously bought too cheap baskets and the weight of the soil broke the basket, everything felt down and it killed one plant


Beside that I'm growing 2 eggplants and 4 peppers. Sadly one of the peppers is not what I bought It shold have been a White Fatalii but it is obviously not...


Someone knows what it is?

Oh and this cute tiny eggplant is really growing fast:
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Old May 6, 2016   #2
KarenO
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your plants look great. Including the white oxheart. That is what we would call a wispy plant, commonly found in quite a few heart varieties and quite normal.
Thanks for sharing!
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Old May 6, 2016   #3
Starlight
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Your plants are looking real good there. I know garden space is at a premium where your at, but with such nice plants maybe once your folks taste your good veggies they will give you more space.

Hope the rest of the season goes well for you. : )
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Old May 6, 2016   #4
Merediana
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Oh thanks

The White Oxheart has lost quite a few leaves from carrying the plants in and out because those wispy leaves tend to get tangled

Sadly my parents aren't really into eating fresh fruits and veggies, last year non of them wanted to taste a tomato or anything else that I've grown (Can't remember that they ever used fresh tomatoes at home for cooking...)
So YES I'm growing 15 tomato plants just for myself That's why I have no problem with growing them in small containers - I'll still have to many.
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Old May 6, 2016   #5
PureHarvest
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Your plant look great for a 2nd year grower!

Do your buckets have drain holes in the bottom? If they do not, you might have a problem at some point if you get some heavy rain.
It is also good to let things from your fertilizer flush out over time.

Other than that, I applaud you for doing something that is not supported by your family. That could be something that would discourage many would-be gardeners.
So, good for you!
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Old May 7, 2016   #6
Merediana
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Thanks Luckily I've had great online support...

Yes, the buckets all do have holes. I've used them last year and they did fine... This year I'll try different ideas on how to support the plants, it was really annoying towards the end of the season...
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Old May 9, 2016   #7
Merediana
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Sadly the weather isn't that friendly, at the end of the week temperatures will drop more than expected with night temperatures around -2 to 2 degrees Celsius and stay there for almost a week.

I know quite a few people in my area that already have planted out their tomatoes and peppers... I hope they don't lose them.
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Old May 10, 2016   #8
Merediana
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My peppers a doing well

My unknown pepper...


Trinidad Perfume:


I've always been told that the C.chinense are slower to grow and get ripe peppers than C.baccatum and C.annum but in my case this year the C.chinense are the easiest and most beautiful of all my peppers. I just hope that my unknown pepper is not a super hot variety

And my radishes. Obviously something was eating their leaves but I didn't want to use chemicals on them... This should have been a mild variety but it is the hottest variety I've ever tried
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Old May 10, 2016   #9
Andrey_BY
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Merediana,

A White Icicle and similar looking radishes are usually not mild at all Like em in a mix spring salad with early greens
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Old May 10, 2016   #10
kath
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Your plants are looking terrific, Merediana! I like your sense of determination, too.
Hope it warms up soon.

kath
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Old May 16, 2016   #11
Merediana
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Thanks I ended up giving away most of my radishes and have now ordered another variety labled as "mild". Mainly because I want to sow some carrots and need a few radish seeds to mix in...

The weather is terrible and we might have some 1°C nights till the end of may which is quite frustrating... Some neighbours already planted their tomatoes out and they don't look good at all.
We even had hail this morning just after I carried my plants out

I've bought a ground cherry plant at the nursery, I hope they'll do well so I might start some from seeds next season. And I bought some sweet corn plants but they look really bad right now, I think they were not in an appropriate container and got rootbound so much, that I'm not sure if they'll make it.

In the meantime I've raised a few squash plants, I even found a winter squash that doesn't sprawl, I hope I'll get good results with that
Last season my rondini was very disappointing, I got like 3-5 fruits per plant over the whole season. I ended up with lots of spaghetti squash (20 from 2 plants), but didn't like the flavor (you can't buy spaghetti squash here, so I never tasted one before)
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Old May 22, 2016   #12
Merediana
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New photos

My ground cherry, bought while shopping for my plants. We all know that, don't we?


Amethyst Cream Cherry, I sadly pulled of quite a few roots while putting it in a bigger pot... I hope the damage isn't too big. A nice plant with a lilac stem.


Trinidad Perfume, sadly not true to type and way more heat than it should have.


Barry's Crazy Cherry:



Beautyful baby Orange Russian 117 <3


Henderson's Pink Ponderosa, my by far biggest baby fruit:


I somehow managed to get raspberrys, black currants and a blueberry plant for my garden Not the best spot for those plants, more shade than sun, but well see if they'll still make it...
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Old May 31, 2016   #13
Merediana
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There are some good and some bad news...

Let's start with the more unpleasant ones: The weather was really terrible. I've never seen such bad weather in may. We had so much rain that the river here flooded the streets - very unusual for our region. We had landslides, streets were closed, there is still no train going to my village because the railway line was damaged and the storms were so bad the many trees felt down.

Sadly many plants in my garden didn't survive that. No cucumbers for me, the zucchini I was the most excited about was broken too. And all my corn looks like it is dying
I've started more corn inside and now have small plants, but honestly it's quite late and I don't know if I'll get a harvest from that. I've 2 melon plants inside, but no replacement for my squash...

Good news: The tomatoes are all doing well. I'm so happy that they are all in containers so I could move them to protect them from the weather... Most plants are growing like crazy
I've one plant that seems to be behind and somehow has trouble with setting fruits (the flowers just die off), when taking a closer look I noticed that this plant and 2 others have a bug problem so I sprayed them... I hope that this will fix the problem.

Some new pics:

Trefle du Togo (the one that seems to be behind)


Amethyst Cream Cherry, already with baby fruits


Right side: Northern Lights, growing like crazy
Left side: Kellog's Breakfast


Michael Pollan


Kremser Perle, with baby fruits behind the leaves


Henderson's Pink Ponderosa, my fastest in setting fruits


Cuor di Bue giant reif red, sturdy plant for an oxheart


Barry's Crazy Cherry, this is the first fruit cluster, the others are way bigger



White Oxheart, finally not looking THAT wispy anymore, but latest flower development


Candy Sweet Icicle


Orange Russian 117

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Old June 4, 2016   #14
Merediana
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I went to the nursery yesterday and bought a few replacement plants for what have been killed by the storm.
I couldn't find a cucumber variety for fresh eating, that performs well without a greenhouse so instead I tried a "climbing" zucchini and a yellow zucchini. Sadly they don't name their varieties...

And on top of that I got another ground cherry I'll find a space for that...

I'll wait a few days with planting out my new zucchinis and my melon plants because I don't want to plant them into waterlogged soil


Luckily my tomatoes are doing great in their containers Still growing like crazy, you really see a change every single day.
The eggplants and peppers seem to struggle a lot more with the bad weather, I don't think that they are diseased, just developping VERY slowly due to the bad conditions. One pepper doesn't grow at all at the moment....

At the moment everyone seems to be frustrated because the weather is so bad
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Old June 8, 2016   #15
SteveP
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Sorry to hear about the storm damage. On the news they were showing pics of Germany and France and the flooding looked terrible. But I am glad to hear your tomatoes survived well and are growing.
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