All posts by : Laurie

TOMATOES are always my most prized garden treat.  This year I tried some new varieties and some old ones, and had mixed results.  I’ll outline my thoughts on each.  I ended up with nine different varieties.

One experiment:  I’ve always rotated my tomato beds, and have not planted tomatoes in any bed that had tomatoes, peppers or potatoes in the previous year, or preferably two years.  Last year I’d planted my indeterminate tomatoes in a row in the NE corner, and it was such a nice spot, I thought I’d try putting the indeterminates in the same bed this year.  Not a good idea.  They did not do well.  Live and learn!  Sometimes ya gotta just trust what “they” say.

Overall thoughts:  The weather was funny this year, and results were mixed.  Some plants did well, others did not.  Some succumbed to sowbugs.  (See more information here.)  Some were new varieties that just didn’t do well.  Perhaps I should become more familiar with tomato diseases.  Perhaps I am dealing with things that would be prevented if I knew what was happening.  As it is, I just plant plenty of tomatoes and remove the plants that die.  I do not compost them: I take them to the dumpster, so they won’t infect the rest of the garden.

SILVERY FIR TREE  I had these seeds left from last year, and planted two early in the greenhouse, after starting them in the house under lights.  My plan was to have these as the earliest tomatoes, before the outside ones ripened.  I did get several small early tomatoes from these plants, but not really much earlier than the outside main garden plants.  If I do early tomatoes in the greenhouse next year, I’ll try another variety.

CHEROKEE PURPLE  I planted two of these in the experiment indeterminate row mentioned above.  One survived but I did not get more that 5 or 6 tomatoes.

FH CROW  These were free seeds sent to me along with my Sand Hill Preservation seed order.  I planted one in the greenhouse and one in the experiment indeterminate row mentioned above.  I got a few tomatoes from the greenhouse, but the garden bed plant died early on.

GERMAN GIANT  I loved these last year, and planted two in the experiment indeterminate row mentioned above.  One plant survived but only produced 3-4 edible tomatoes.

CAMP JOY  This is a large sized cherry tomato.  I planted one in the experiment indeterminate row, which survived, but I did not get an abundance of tomatoes.  Those I did harvest were good and sweet, although more mealy than I’d expect for a cherry.  I started another mid-June in the house, which was transplanted to the greenhouse 7/25.  It did well.  My plan was to have one tomato which would continue to produce after all others froze.  GOOD PLAN!  We had fresh tomatoes for salads throughout the fall.  I picked all remaining ripe and slightly ripe tomatoes before the big freeze last week and they will last at least a couple more weeks in the fridge, I am sure.

RIO GRANDE  I planted 8 of these, my favorite paste tomato for canning as diced tomatoes.  These are large, easy to peel, seed and dice.  A couple of these died, which always seems to happen.  The remaining were my latest tomatoes to ripen, but were as good as usual, and many jars of diced tomatoes and various tomato sauces were canned.

HEIDI  These were disappointing.  I bought the seeds based on the descriptions, “A prolific tomato from Africa that bears 2-1/2-inch, 3-4 oz, pear-shaped, bright-red fruit with rich tomato flavor. Thick walls with tender skin, very meaty and great for sauce. A long season, super paste or canner or good eaten raw in the garden.”  And, “although classified as a paste-type tomato, it does not seem to have a problem with blossom end rot and is “remarkably tolerant of all foliage diseases in a zone 5 garden.” They were supposed to grow well in hot, dry climates.  Sounds great.  There weren’t very many of these, and those that grew were small.  Many seemed diseased and were not kept.  Some plants produced round tomatoes, others were oblong or pear-shaped.  Perhaps the seeds were cross-bred?

BURBANK  This was my first year planting these and they were a winner.  They grew on short, sprawling plants that were difficult to stake up, but the tomatoes were plentiful, delicious, red and round.  Unfortunately, many of these were eaten by the dreaded sowbugs and/or maybe grasshoppers.  Some sources indicate that the sowbugs don’t eat the tomatoes unless a hole is started by some other bug, so perhaps the grasshoppers and sowbugs worked together on this.  See more about the sowbugs here.  I will grow the Burbanks again.

PRINCIPE BORGHESE  This was the 3rd or 4th year I’ve grown these.  Two plants were huge and prolific, the healthiest of all the tomatoes this year.  This is supposed to be “semi-determinate” but one of them grew like crazy, much more like a determinate.  Unfortunately I hadn’t been pruning it like I would an indeterminate, and it got a bit out of hand.

NEW TOMATO SUPPORTS – I should have taken a photo of the tomato supports Tim built.  Sorry.  They are cheaply made of electrical conduit, easy to put up, take down and store.  Some are taller, others shorter.  They have worked well this year and last.  Next year I’ll plan to include a photo!

I enjoy squash, particularly a good, winter squash.  In fact, maybe I’ll cook some tonight for supper!  But, in the past years I’ve had mixed results in the squash beds, and quite a challenge controlling SQUASH BUGS and CUCUMBER BEETLES.

Lakota Squash

This year I planted 8 varieties of squash:  2 summer squash (1 yellow and 1 green zucchini), 2 each of these winter squash:  Winter Sweet REBA Acorn (bush variety), Burgess Buttercup, Sweet Meat, Long Pie Pumpkin, Nutterbutter Butternut, and Lakota.  Of all these, I harvested only 2 Nutterbutter, 2 Lakota, and 3 Long Pie pumpkin, along with a small few of the zucchinis.

The demise of my squash is a mystery to me.  I saw very few of either the squash bugs or cucumber beetles.  I tried very hard to prevent the appearance of these bugs and I was successful.  I proactively sprayed the plants and soil around them with neem, pepper/garlic spray, sprays made with boiled rhubarb leaves and none of these should have caused the death of the squash plants.  The newest organic pesticide I tried was SurroundWP.  I believe this helped a good deal.  Its effective ingredient is kaolin clay, a white powdery substance which is mixed with water and sprayed onto the plant leaves.  Apparently the bugs don’t like it and avoid the sprayed leaves.  The Surround also helps protect the plants from UV rays.  It looks kind of funny, seeing the white spotty leaves, but I think this was quite effective, and I don’t believe it was the reason so many of the plants died.  I’ve also read that mint and lemon balm can repel those bugs.  Rather than plant these invasive perennials near the squash, I’ve planted them in other areas of the garden (where I don’t care if they invade) and some mint in a large pot; I cut off the leaves and sprinkle them around the squash.  Unfortunately, I’ve done so many things to prevent the bugs, I can’t say what does and doesn’t work.  I wanted so badly to attack these bugs I went ahead and threw everything I could at them.

So the early death of the squash wasn’t due to bugs.  All plants were doing quite well until the end of July, when they all started keeling over, one by one.  One day they’d be fine, the next they’d look a bit wilted, the next they were pretty much dead.  The plants all had immature squash growing on them.  I tried pruning off the deadest parts to salvage the remainder of the plant, but that didn’t help.  I just don’t know why this happened.  Could it have had something to do with the wood mulch?  (I don’t think so.)  I did not see an abundance of sowbugs in these beds as I did the others, and don’t believe these were a problem to the squash.  The two summer squash plants never really took off as usual; they did survive a little longer than the winter squash, but they succumbed as well.

All I can say is that some of my neighbors experienced the same symptoms with their squash, so I’m not alone.  Maybe it was the weather.  I was so hopeful to try the new, unique varieties such as Sweet Meat, but I’ll have to try again next year.  I was grateful for the two big Lakota squash.  So far, I have cooked one and it was absolutely delicious!

Last year, the 2012 garden, I had followed some advice that it would be good to store the potatoes in the ground, under mulch, and that they would be fine until spring.  So, in the fall I threw extra mulch (mostly hay and manure) over them and let them be.  I dug some up in December and they were good.  Then, I went out to dig more up in February, only to find that most of them had frozen.  Some were no good at all, and some were ok, but tasted a bit sweet and had an odd texture.  I cooked them all, mashed them, and froze them for future use.  Gee…I’ve still got some in the freezer that need to be eaten!  🙂

This year, 2013, I did leave them in the ground as long as possible.  However, last week when the weather forecast was calling for sub-zero temperatures, I went out on a crazy windy day, prior to the storm, and dug up the remaining potatoes.  I think this was a good plan–storage in the ground as long as possible was better than storing in the refrigerator, and now that they are safely in the refrigerator, that is better than risking them freezing in the ground.

The Rio Grande Russets I planted were small, but good.  The Yukon Golds were bigger and best.

A couple of years ago I’d planted a row of tomatoes under our cottonwood tree, and they did not do well at all.  Many died, those that lived produced very few tomatoes.  I blamed it on the variety I had chosen, and have not planted those since.  Then I realized that the strawberries I’d planted near that tree have never done well.  I’ve replanted the same area with strawberries for 3 years, and just couldn’t get them to grow.  I got to wondering if maybe the cottonwood had something to do with these problems. I did some research, and the answer is YES!

Cottonwood trees, like the Black Walnut, produce the chemical, juglone.  Juglone is very toxic to some vegetables and fruits including: tomato, pepper, potato, eggplant, blackberry, blueberry, apple.  These plants will yellow, wilt and die.  I didn’t see anything about strawberries not growing there, but in my experience, they didn’t.  There are also several ornamental plants that won’t grow near them, but I don’t do those.  Vegetables that are tolerant to juglone include: beans, corn, melons, squash, beets, onions, parsnips, carrots.

I will no longer be planting tomatoes, peppers or potatoes or strawberries near these trees.  I also try to remove all leaves and twigs that fall onto the beds.  Apparently it’s ok to compost the leaves and twigs, but they should not be left on fresh.  It is best to add additional organic matter/compost to these beds, which will lessen the effect of the juglone.  

This year I planted several perennial herbs in the area which had been my strawberry bed.  They’ll just sit there and I won’t worry about what to plant there in the future. These did quite fine.  One of the things I planted directly under the tree was mint.  I know that mint is quite invasive, and I thought that if it would grow there, it would be just fine!  I’ve read that mint leaves are good to repel squash bugs, so rather than planting the invasive mint among the squash, I will let it grow by the cottonwood if it can, then cut the leaves and scatter them around the squash.  The mint grew there quite well, along with some chives, lemon balm, marjoram, lovage, thyme and salad burnet.  In the spring I will discover what survived the winter.

For more information, read these articles: 
http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/430/430-021/430-021.html
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/tree-roots-effects-on-soil.html
http://hort.uwex.edu/articles/black-walnut-toxicity
http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1186/

The 2012 garden is planted–see maps below.  Whew!  Everything is in its place and I’m on to less urgent maintenance projects, like weeding and catching up on the blog.  We’ve been working hard, and it’s nice to have a break.

NEW THINGS 2012:

• We’ve completed framing all of the beds!  The raised beds without frames worked well enough, but the framed ones are so much better at keeping the weeds out, and with the sloping edges of non-framed beds there was less planting space.  With the frames I can plant much closer to the beds.  Also, we think that the frames should keep the ducks out of the plants should we let them into the garden to snatch bugs.
• I’m trying some Minnesota Midget melons.  I’ve tried some melons before without success, but these are smaller, with a shorter growing season, so I’m giving them a go.
• We created a new “Three Sisters” patch of corn, beans and squash.  We’ve done the 3 sisters before, but this year we put a new 15’x25′ bed off to the side, near the ducks.  To keep ducks and bunnies out, we framed it and added a couple feet of snowfence around the perimeter.  See photo below.  I’ve planted 3 varieties of corn to mature early, mid and late season.  All are organic, non-gmo, non-hybrid corn.
• I’ve sprayed with beneficial nematodes to hopefully limit the bugs which grow in the soil.  I hope this helps, particularly with the cucumber beetles I had so much difficulty with last year.
• I’ve done a much better job of mulching everything right from the start.  I’m using some chopped up moldy hay we’ve had sitting around, mixing it with some dry manure.  It seems to be working well, except that the manure is full of weed seeds.  I figure I’ll just deal with weeding that first batch of weeds that pop up to get the benefit of the manure in the garden.
• The tomatoes are spread out a little more this year.  Instead of doing double rows of tomatoes in the beds, they’re all in single rows, mingled throughout the garden and planted with tomato companions: basil, carrots, onions, marigolds, thyme.  I’m using a variety of trellising methods, as I haven’t decided on a favorite.  There are pros and cons to all the methods I’ve tried so far.
• The greenhouse worked well and was used for getting plants ready for transplant in addition to winter edibles.  We had fresh greens for salads just about all winter.  Some seedlings were planted in the greenhouse beds until ready for transplant, others were just put into the GH during their “hardening off” time.  I also planted just a few (4) tomatoes in the greenhouse to get off to an early start.  The tomatoes on those plants are green and growing at this point.  We’re looking forward to fresh tomatoes soon!  The last couple of months it got pretty hot in there some days, so to add additional ventilation and cooling we installed an old swamp cooler Tim had previously used for the house.  We put it on a thermostat and were able to keep the greenhouse from reaching the mid-90’s down to 80 or lower.  It was very helpful!  We’ve now removed the polytarp cover on the greenhouse, and it is open air for the summer.  
• I fixed up a small area with a few perennial flowers.  It’s a hot spot against the wall on the south side of the house, and not good for most veggies.  Hopefully the flowers will survive.

Main Garden 2012

3 Sisters Patch

I’ve mentioned previously this cool tool at growveg.com to create a garden plan.  My current plan is now published and can be seen here: 2012 Garden Plan  I’ve also placed a link in the sidebar at the right.  This only shows the main garden area.  It will look something like this:

We’re also preparing a patch to the west for “three sisters”: corn, beans and squash.

I’ve been busy studying garden catalogs and websites to find my seeds for the 2012 garden.  Seeds are ordered, and mostly in!  I’ve already started a few things indoors, under lights.  Some will go into the greenhouse for an early start: mostly greens, and a couple of tomatoes.  The greenhouse is a new adventure, so everything I do there now is an experiment.

The greenhouse is holding strong, even with all the gale-force winds.  And the plants are doing well, I guess.  (I don’t really know what to expect.) We still have a little lettuce left from what was planted in the fall, although it’s been attacked a bit by aphids.  Other than that, we’ve had some nice, fresh kale, spinach and swiss chard.  The beets, kohlrabi and rutabagas have yet to form bulbs, but they have some nice foliage.  The peas have blossoms and one of the napa cabbage has been eaten–the other is ready to pull.  Next fall I’ll do things a bit differently, but this was a good start.  Some days it’s 80 degrees in there, the mornings are very rarely below freezing, but since everything in there can handle it, the plants bounce back after it warms up.

The ducks are still producing 4 eggs almost every day.  If anyone would like to purchase some, they’re $4/doz.