Here in northeastern Massachusetts, the good AGW-related news is that the tornadoes stayed west and south of us (not that poor Springfield needed any more bad luck, but Worcester still has nightmares about 1953). Diane Sawyer had a section on the evening news (delayed, in the Boston market, to allow the local newspods an extra half-hour of picking-up-the-pieces pr0n) asking “Are tornadoes starting to target cities?“, to which the answer is, of course, “No, but we’ve changed the city-to-cornfield ratio so drastically since 1939 that atmospheric random chance indicates more hits on denser population centers.” Cheery!
The bad AGW-related news is that we got our first daylily bloom today, a good five to six weeks ahead of “normal” schedule even a decade ago. It’s going to be a very boring mid-July to mid-August if the hemerocalli are going to start competing with the roses in early June. Although the robins who just started a nest on our drainpipe (several weeks earlier than last year’s nest inside the Zepherine Drouhan trellis) don’t seem to mind.
Speaking of small-scale changes, when I first started buying tomato seedlings some 15 years ago, what I could find locally was six-paks of maybe 8 or 10 varieties crossbred for reliability rather than flavor. Some 5 or 6 years ago, the best local garden center (Mahoneys) started stocking a few individual pots of fancy-schmancy heirloom varieties as well. This year, when we went in last weekend to stock up on basil and a few ‘spare’ tomatoes for inside the yard (our rescue dog Zevon is passionately fond of fresh tomatoes, so most of my containers are now on the side of the chainlink where he can’t beat me to the ripe ones), it was table after table of single-plant pots, including several dozen heirloom kinds, and not a six-pak to be seen. I’m sure that some people find it uneconomic to pay $3-7 for a single well-grown transplant instead of $4 for a six-pak of four-leaved starters, but in this part of this state most of us gardeners are so severely space-limited that it’s a relief not to be reduced to throwing away the extras we couldn’t force on our neighbors or co-workers…
So, as of this evening, here’s my roster:
Favorites: Black Krim, Koralik, Cherokee Purple, Rose de Berne, Pineapple, Beefsteak, Eva Purple Ball, Black Prince, Carmello, Japanese Trifele, Roma Classic, Black Plum, Momotaro, Gold Medal; cherrys — Sun Gold, Matt’s Wild Cherry, Juliet, White Currant, Sweet Treats, Sugary, Black Cherry, Golden Sweet Pear, Husky Red, Sweet Olive
Experiments: Rutgers Space Select, Ramapo, Ananas Noire, Stupice, Kelloggs Breakfast, Oxheart Rostova, Old German, Longkeeper, Chianti Rose, Costoluto Genovese, Persimmon, Sara Black, La Roma II, Carbon, Great White; cherrys — Black Pearl, Golden Honeybunch, Cherry Buzz, Tomatoberry
Yeah, that’s… a whole bunch of overcrowded containers. We get just one or a couple ripe tomatoes from a half-dozen plants at any one time, plus random handfuls of cherrys, starting around the end of June for the earliest Black Krims and extending to mid-October for the Trifeles and Carmellos (and some of the cherrys). Some of the ‘experiments’ are replacements for varieties I couldn’t find this year (Isis Candy, Vintage Wine, Opalka), and others were just irresistable in a New England February. You sterner souls and market determinists, feel free to point and laugh.
How are things looking in your gardens, this week?
Just Some Fuckhead
About a week or so ago, I picked up my vegetable plants from the garden center and placed them outside on the patio in anticipation of planting them when the sun went down.
Within a few hours, the worst storm I’ve ever seen dropped a ton of hail on them and sent them into shock. I tried to nurse them back to health on the back porch but they didn’t recover.
Now I have to start over.
Left Coast Tom
Things started off with skiing on 6 inches of new snow on top of a 9-17 foot base. Now, back by the Bay, the winter rainy season refuses to end. I need to go back to the mountains again.
TooManyJens
She didn’t actually say “target,” did she? I know tornadoes are badass and all, but I don’t think they’ve achieved sentience yet.
Violet
I grew these this year. I wasn’t overly wowed with the texture and flavor. Mine were squat, fully of seeds and a tiny bit mealy, although that last bit could be my fault with not watering properly.
Carmello is one of my very favorites. Love the size, flavor and dependability.
I’m enjoying Box Car Willie and Abe Lincoln. The flavor of the Abe Lincolns is excellent.
Still harvesting green beans, got a ton of those yesterday. Got a yellow pepper so huge it looked store-bought. Very impressed with myself for that one. Also harvesting beets, but very near the end of those.
Squashes aren’t doing much, I think because it got so hot so quickly. But cantaloupe are going crazy. They’re escaping their bed and I’m not sure if I should trellis them or not.
Having to water all the damned time because rain is nothing but a figment of our imagination here at this point. It’s going to be triple digits this weekend. Ugh.
Houston Bridges
As long as I have the Berkeley Bowl and several kick-ass farmers markets, I confine my gardening to
marijuana, er, tomatoless tomato plants.Ash Can
It’s been a little wierd. The irises are doing well. The lilies-of-the-valley bloomed well but fried early, as did the bridal-wreath bushes. The snowballs and hostas are going gangbusters, the phlox are all over the place (as is the usual for phlox), but the trellis roses are still clammed up. A few good warm days and they’ll bloom, but they totally snubbed the Memorial Day weekend, which isn’t like them.
waratah
Here in the Panhandle of Texas we are having a severe drought.
I had already decided to try growing some tomatoes, peppers and herbs in containers this year so thought I would be alright. Trouble is I had not considered the winds being as bad as they are this year. We have not had very much break from the wind, one day blowing from the west or the next from the north. The flower pots seem to be doing well but not the vegetables.
I wanted to try the small tomatoes like Red Robin, Canary Yellow, Tiny Tim and had to order seed and start them inside. They were doing well until I put them outside. Finally they seem to be picking up.
I agree with you that I like the single healthy tomato plants that are available now, even when I had a large vegetable garden I did not like having to get six packs of one kind of tomato.
Xecky Gilchrist
Ramona: What kind of tea do you want?
Scott: There’s more than one kind? …What do you have?
Ramona: Let’s see… Blueberry, raspberry, ginseng, Sleepytime, green tea, green tea with lemon, green tea with lemon and honey, Liver Disaster, ginger with honey, ginger without honey, vanilla almond, White Truffle Coconut, chamomile, blueberry chamomile, decaf vanilla walnut, Constant Comment and Earl Grey.
Scott: …Did you make some of those up?
Tim, Interrupted
I’m in Jamaica Plain, MA, Anne. Not far from you, it sounds like.
Just today I finished planting my third raised bed of maters. I am very boring: I buy basic, bush-style determinates from Home Depot that flourish in my limited space and give me great yields. Last year I experimented with hybrids and heirlooms, but seemed like I got tons of vine and not much fruit, along with some pest problems. So this year I went mercenary and bought multiples of disease and trouble free Bush Early Girl, Bush Cherry, Better Bush, and a Fourth of July Bush, along with two Patio Bush to put in pots. Total of 17 Tomato plants. That’s it. I know, I’m boring.
Will be adding a fourth bed for cucumbers, which I’ve already purchased. You guessed it: Bush Cukes. :) This year, I’m all about results. I want so many tomatoes I will have to can them and I want to try my hand at pickling.
Other than that, we have lots of perennial and annual bloomers going…I’m learning and playing a lot in my garden this year.
BTW, the tornadoes missed JP too, but we got about two hours of heavy rain, thunder and lightning later in the night.
tkogrumpy
That is one ambitious roster of tomato plants.
Pontiac
I just stripped out about three pounds of snow peas. Got a gallon of strawberries over the weekend, and the kohlrabi are looking good.
I start my tomatoes from seed and foist off the extras at work. The variety of cherry I like is this Matt’s Wild Cherry. It’s really really wild – you only need one plant. It produces nice clusters.
I’m concentrating more on tomatillos than tomatoes this year anyway though.
Janet Strange
@Violet: Well, I’m jealous of your green beans. I was harvesting a ton every day a few weeks ago, but now they’ve succumbed to the spider mites and god knows what else. I was blaming it on our drought and heat, but you’re in Austin too, right? So I’ve lost my excuse. MIne are pathetic. I’m going to rip them up and plant something else there. Maybe blackeyed peas. Not good to put legumes in the same place, I know, but it’s the only space available so I’m going to try it.
Tomatoes are still going crazy though. I’ve gotten very unadventurous after my experiments with heirlooms produced little in years past. I like Celebrity. Dependable, prolific, and still setting fruit in this heat (!) And I think they’re yummy.
My experiment this year is sweet potatoes. I’ve never grown them before. I put them in the raised bed across the yard from everything else so they won’t overrun the rest of the garden. Anyone else every grown them?
Eggplants are planted, okra seedlings coming along (Emerald is good, stays tender even when they get long.) Jalapeno looks good. So there should be something growing when the heat gets even worse. Which it will.
stickler
Anne:
Portland Oregon. Crappy as all hell this year so far, due to La Nina (opposite of El Nino, so it’s been cold and rainy, setting records). We’re still below 45 most nights, crops all over the Northwest are way way way behind where they should be (cherries, alfalfa, spring wheat). So my planting of four tomato starts back in mid-April seems optimistic. But I have a Black Krim out there among them, hoping for the best. Also a Siletz, which I guess was hybridized here at OSU so should be able to handle this abysmal drizzly weather.
Still, I’m expecting the worst. We always, always, get a cold rain blast near the end of August here: and if you have five bushes of beautiful, almost-ripe, green tomatoes … and then it rains for a few days … you get lots of tomato heartbreak. Thus the early planting despite climatic contraindications.
Oh, climate change doesn’t just mean “hotter.” Oh, no. It also means “you can’t grow tomatoes anymore.”
Wag
I planted my Tomatoes last weekend. Black Krim is my fav, grew them last yesr, and they couldn’t be bet with fresh basil and balsamic vinegar. A little kosher salt, and I’m happy as a clam. It’ll be 2 1/2 months before I get any produce, but last year I was harvesting tomatoes in to the end of October. I love Colorado Indian Summers.
Violet
@Pontiac:
Looove Matt’s Wild Cherry. I grew those last fall and they produced all the way through New Years. And the birds got some and dropped the seeds everywhere so now I’ve got tons of volunteers. I left a lot of them and they’re producing like crazy. Excellent flavor.
@Janet Strange:
No, I’m not in Austin. But I’m in heat and drought land too, like Austin. My green beans are nearing their end, I’m pretty sure. I usually have much better luck with bush green beans than I do pole beans and it’s the bush beans that have been so prolific this year. My pole beans are flowering, but not much is setting. AND they’re getting eating by leaf eaters. Meanwhile, the bush beans keep producing. I suspect that the variety matters too. Also, how good is your soil? The beans in my good soil (old soil, very fertile) have done very well. The beans in the newer soil, not so well.
The advice I’ve heard is mulch, mulch, mulch. I’ve got two layers of mulch on mine. One layer of native mulch and one of straw. They seem pretty happy and I’m not having to water every day even in this horrible heat and dry weather. The mulch is partly to keep the soil cool and moist and partly to keep them from rooting all over the place because if they do, they produce sweet potatoes where they root and you get smaller sweets. Apparently you can be somewhat lax with that rule, but that’s the idea. You can also eat the leaves, but not all of them or it messes with the plants. I haven’t tried that.
I grew them once but didn’t know what I was doing. I just finished an organic vegetable growing class and the mulch/don’t let them root stuff was not only what they taught us, but also what we saw in the gardens we visited.
PeakVT
Tomato geeks.
Tom Hilton
We have no garden (we had one, but the rosemary claimed it as its own). What’s much, much better than gardens, that we have here in California, is native wildflowers. Last weekend: Iris purdyi; Anemone deltoidea; Claytonia sibirica; Vancouveria planipetala; Sedum spathulifolium; Delphinium nudicaule; Viola ocellata; Trientalis latifolium; Nemophila menziesii; Clarkia concinna; Clarkia amoena; Caolchortus superbus; Calochortus amabilis; Dudleya cymosa; Corallorhiza maculata. And a few others that don’t come to mind immediately.
opie_jeanne
Dear Annie Laurie,
That sounds like you will have masses of tomatoes. I like hearing what other people are trying, and I think Carmella will be one that we’ll add to our garden.
We are in California right now, at a little cabin in the mountains. The apple tree out front still has a few blossoms on it and the oak trees are just starting to leaf out. The dogwood is in full bloom and we are seeing wildflowers that we’ve never seen before. It has been wet and cold, and spring is as late coming to this area, a month late, as it has to the Pacific Northwest. For some reason, some tiny kangaroo rats (mice, really) decided to move into our cabin while we were gone. And then die. We found two huddled together on the landing, one in the bathtub, all dead. One on the landing looked like it had been stepped on but no one has been in the cabin since March. That first night I got up at 2am because of excessive margarita consumption earlier, and when I came back to bed I … well, it was reminiscent of the scene in the second Indiana Jones movie when Short Round says it sounds like he’s walking on fortune cookies. It wasn’t a fortune cookie.
I turned on the light and instantly regretted it. I had to change my socks, and we had to clean up the mess.
We don’t know why they’re in our cabin or why they died, but the local squirrel population (San Bernardino Mountains) has been decimated in the past two years by H1N1. The squirrels are just now starting to come back, but now we don’t see any chipmunks or ground squirrels. We wonder if the virus has adapted and is killing off several varieties of rodentia. The anmals that died are not deermice thank goodness, because they are the local carriers of Hanta virus; these were Merriam’s Kangaroo rat. They are on the endangered species list and are not really an animal that lives inside of houses. We have put out live traps, baited with peanut butter, and we’ve put mothballs in our dresser drawers… I didn’t mention that the next morning we found the nest in my underwear drawer.
This year all of our tomatoes are experiments because we have not gardened in the Seattle area before. We have the usual suspects: Early Girl, Better Boy, Brandywine, Mr Stripey. yellow pear, and two or three cherry tomatoes whose names I have written down somewhere, but not here. I think we have a total of 12 plants.
Everything is slow in Woodinville, there were still cherry trees in bloom on Monday, not to mention that I still had tulips blooming in two sections of the garden. The peonies and the Iceland poppies all have large flower heads but had not started to crack open when we left on Monday. The veggies are slow, the peas have not yet started to climb the trellis, but the radishes are ready to eat and the mesclun and spinach are coming on nicely. Some of the tomato plants doubled in size a week ago when we had five days of mostly sun, but they slowed down again because the temperatures dropped back into the low 60s/high 50s. The cherry tree has millions of baby cherries but I expect most of them to drop off because it’s just too many to support.
We might get one pear on the new trees, don’t expect any apples this year.
Our cat has not been found but we are still hoping he’ll come back. People are still looking for him and leaving cat food and water for him on our porch while we’re down south. We miss him a lot.
marcopolo
The potatoes look amazing. Early variety will be ready to harvest by the end of the month at the latest. Sweet potatoes are just starting to vine out. They should be crazy quilted across the ground by the end of June–lets hope the sunflowers, zinnias, and cosmos I interplanted will be up to the vine challenge when it comes. Bed in the backyard has finally stabilized with nothing in it the rabbits seem to like: Basil, Oregano, Thyme, Parsley, Onions, Tomatoes, and one Eggplant. We’ve hit a hot dry spell now and all the leafy greens that were holding on beyond the average date are now gone and bolted to heck.
MikeJ
Spring starts tomorrow! The rain is scheduled to stop and it is supposed to hit 70°.
Elliecat
@Janet Strange:
Grew them one year and they did well, though I had to put fencing over them because the deer started eating them. The problem was, they weren’t even a little bit sweet. Quite awful, really.
Mike in NC
All you need to know about our failed media experiment. Christ, she’s so awful.
opie_jeanne
@Pontiac: Oh. I forgot about the tomatillos. We put in two plants just to see if they’ll grow.
Janet Strange
@Violet: Thanks for the tips about sweet potatoes. I haven’t mulched yet, but I will. I grow Kentucky Blue green beans because I think they taste best and they’re climbers. Not particularly fertile soil. That area used to be the herb bed so I never did much with the dirt. I think I’ll just reconcile myself to getting as much as I can while I can in Spring and Fall and freezing more and giving away less. And more compost and fertilizer each time. I do love homegrown green beans.
@Elliecat: Oh dear. At least I don’t have deer. I hope mine taste okay.
Katie
I second the Matt’s Wild Cherry. Tasty and very fun to grow.
I’m in Fairbanks Alaska so our growing season is not optimal for tomatoes. Or squash, corn, beans, cucumbers, or peppers and a host of other things. I do have a greenhouse for those things though.
For tomatoes, I grow about 8 different kinds every year, but I *always* grow Celebrity, a largish salad type tomato, and Ladybug an oversized grape tomato with a more tender skin.
I just planted last Monday, the earliest recommended date up here. I grow nothing from seed except lettuce, radishes, and carrots. We even transplant our beans and peas so we get more than one picking. Potatoes I have tons of, with no normal varieties. Last year we got about 300# of them–good thing we like potatoes!
Kristine
We’ve had a few days of hot/warm, and that gave everything a boost. The broccoli raab is almost tall enough to thin, and the lettuces are popping up. The basil are about half an inch tall. The chive plant has bloomed, lovely orchid-colored thistly things. The tomatoes look better. It had rained so much that some of the leaves had yellowed, but the warm-up helped there, too. The plants are maybe 3-4 inches tall. It’s going to be a while. The peppers are a slow go, as well.
Violet
@Janet Strange:
My Kentucky Blue pole beans are the ones that didn’t produce hardly at all. I wonder if something isn’t working with them this year. Maybe the heat? They’ve been great for me in years past.
burnspbesq
The Ramapo is the One True Tomato. All others are pretenders.
/Jersey Boy
Anne Laurie
@Tim, Interrupted:
Most of your bush tomatoes are determinates, right? So, IIReadC, they will produce one big crop all at once and you should have plenty to can & pickle effectively. I love green tomato pickles but I’m too disorganized to try anything that ambitious. So I go for range of plants that will produce smaller crops over a longer period. (Last year I was pleased to have worked out a Black Krim/Black Prince/Trifele sequence of tasty dark tomatoes running from late June until almost November.) And in August, I usually have enough ‘extras’ & paste types to slow-roast a few batches to freeze for use during the winter, which is about the limit of my culinary skillz.
Woburn got about 36 hours of overcast, with intermittent thunder-rumbles & some flashes, but almost no rain. Massachusetts, putting the ‘micro’ in ‘microclimes’…
pjcamp
How do you keep the goddamn squirrels out of them?
I lost every single large tomato last year to the marauding bastards.
Violet
@pjcamp:
I’ve got loads of squirrels, but they don’t seem to bother them. I keep plenty of water around and there are pecan trees nearby. Maybe they have enough other food?
Tim, Interrupted
@Anne Laurie:
Anne, you’re right as far as I can tell about the determinates giving me a big crop all together and all at once, which is fine with me. Maybe I should start some indeterminates from seed in the meantime and put those in to take up the slack later? Hell, I don’t claim to know what I’m doing.
My raised beds must be, by logistics, where they are located, which is on the east/NE side of my house and close under some humongous old pines which don’t have may branches but do limit sun; it seemed last year that the indeterminates spent all their time vining and didn’t drop much fruit. I had a few bushes and they did well. I thought maybe the vining ones were trying to find some sun. I tried green peppers over there. hahahaha….they were 7 feet tall and no fruit. :D
Tim, Interrupted
@pjcamp:
How do you keep the goddamn squirrels out of them?
PJ, last year I used coyote/wolf/whatever pee that comes in a plastic bottle with little decanter bottles which I fill with pee soaked cotton and tie to my tomato cages. Seemed to do the trick.
Hardly any loss to critters at all.
Stooleo
These Earthtainer things work great. I built 2 a few weeks ago and the tomatoes planted in them are about 1.5 times bigger than ones I planted in the ground.
TheOtherWA
It’s been so cold and rainy here I haven’t even started my garden yet. However, Black Krim is my #1 favorite. And Sungold Harvest, an orange cherry tomato is the one I snack on while in the garden. They rarely make it in to the house. Amazingly sweet.
The farmer’s market may get cleaned out this weekend if I can get there. Bought tomatoes at the grocery store recently and was really, really disappointed. Duh.
Crusty Dem
@opie_jeanne:
Having moved to Seattle from Boston 2 1/2 years ago, I have to say you’re a little optimistic with a couple of your choices. Brandywines won’t work here, stick with the cherry’s (incl yellow pear) and early girl.
Anne, you almost make me miss the NE, but growing tomatoes was the only thing better there, so I’ll manage.. Pink and Yellow Brandywines, Black Cherokee, Yellow Pear, and Green Zebra were my favorites. I started them from seed in my basement ~Feb 15. Good times..
Yutsano
Have had a terriblehorriblenogoodverybad day. And I haz a brown thumb. Which sucks because I want an herb box.
Anne Laurie
@stickler:
That’s been known to happen here in New England, too also — can you ‘tent’ your bushes with plastic, or even old sheets? Of course if it’s windy enough (as in ‘hurricane just off the coast’ windy) the plants/pots may get blown over, but it might be worth trying. And if they do end up uprooted, at least the tarp-turned-wrap keeps the green tomatoes tidy for you to pick & ripen on a windowsill — not as good as vine-ripened but still, IMO, better than store-bought.
@burnspbesq:
Last year was the first time I could find a plant, and I had high hopes, but made the mistake of putting it inside the fence. My rotten little dog ate every dam’ one of the Ramapoes — by the end of the season, I think he was eating them green just to beat me to them. This year, they’re in a container outside the canine perimeter.
@pjcamp:
I make sure the ‘squirrel waterers’ stay full — cheap plastic pot saucers, the deep 14″-16″ kind, on the ground near the tomato containers where I can refill them with the hose. This was a suggestion from a lifelong New England gardener, after I complained about coming out in the afternoon & finding a dozen newly-ripe tomatoes lined up on the ground, each with a single chipmunk-sized bite taken out of it. It’s worked well for me in the ensuing decade plus… and I do sometimes surprise squirrels, chipmunks & bunnies drinking from the saucers, especially in drought years. I’m sure the little boogers still steal some fruit, but at least I don’t get irked about the waste.
Anne Laurie
@Yutsano:
From my own untender, talentless perspective: Chives are unkillable, oregano is extremely tough, and summer savory will revert to its invasive weed origins if given half a chance. Even if you manage to kill basil, it will self-seed and come back the following year (well, lemon basil doesn’t recover as well, and I’ve never tried the Thai varieties). Ditto thyme, although the creeping varieties don’t seem to be quite as tough. Rosemary, on the other hand, is fussy — I tried yet another well-grown transplant outside last year, and it withered & died in a pot surrounded by flourishing pots of basil & tomatoes. Mint, of course, is notorious.
If you’ve got a source for scented geraniums, you might want to try them. I kept a bunch of different plants alive on a windowsill for years until a ‘renovation’ crisis killed them off & I didn’t have the heart to start over. The foliage is pretty, the cats didn’t bother them much (not even the cat who was so plant-destructive she’d munch thorny mini-rose canes), and I’m told they’re edible, too…
R-Jud
YCMV (your climate may vary), but I’ve found that our rosemary does best when there’s plenty of grit (sand, gravel, whatever) mixed into the soil. It’s a mediterranean shrub; treat it accordingly.
Also, if you have cold winters with lots of snow, you’ll want to wrap it in burlap or something to keep the snow off it. I had a 3′ high rosemary hedge out front that died two years ago because I didn’t know this– the snow crushed it.
@Yutsano: Parsley, chives, sage, lemon thyme. These are all tough plants that are versatile for cooking.
In a separate pot that can be watered from the bottom, basil and cilantro, if you like it. Watering basil from the top can rot the stems. Watering cilantro from the top, at least in my experience, makes it bolt faster.
In a separate separate container, to prevent it taking over, mint.
In our garden, it’s finally hot and sunny, so I should have galore of berries next week.
Yutsano
@Anne Laurie: @R-Jud: Thanks be to you both. I’m mostly looking for something I can stick in a box on my north-facing porch so sun lovers are pretty much out. And I’d let cilantro bolt just for the coriander alone. Mmm…fresh coriander. And I can’t wait until the blackberries come in around here. They’re a weed in the Seattle area but the fruits are still perfectly delicious.
R-Jud
@Yutsano: The four-plant box I mentioned should do okay. I grew a box like that with no problems on a north-facing porch in Chicago several years back, though the chives didn’t flower very much. You might also get the cilantro/coriander to do its thing– I usually do let one of the plants bolt so I can have seed for cooking.
I just hacked a blackberry bramble out of my rosebed earlier this morning. It’s a weed here, too. Fortunately, we live close enough to the woods that we can pick them by the bucketload in late summer.
hidflect
@Xecky Gilchrist: Ha! You left out wheat tea (“mugi cha”, in Japan) which is my favourite. Rumour has it Coca Cola got wind of the Japanese wheat tea and are/were(?) poised to launch it heavily in the USA due to its full-bodied taste over other tea flavours. It would be a wise move. One sip and you’re sold.
(yes, yes, I’m British. So all the “o”s become “ou”s!)
MizB
I think you’ll be happy with the Stupice. They produce under cooler conditions. They’re not very big but, they should be one of the first to bear fruit & also one of the last still going come fall.
gelfling545
Greetings fellow gardeners. We finally got some decent gardening weather the last few days – sunny yet cool – so we’ve been on a massive clean up campaign. My neighbor’s rose of sharon has once again seeded all over the place & the seedlings are miserable to dig out. My roses are starting to bloom with Therese Bugnet in full glorious bloom & an old vigorous rose that is a descendant of the one in my childhood garden (believed to be Dorothy Perkins) is starting to bloom in clear pink – in very hot weather it blooms as pink tinged white. I’ve trained it up through the lilac tree to provide support & a bit of later interest in the lilac. The lilacs bloomed well this year but lasted about a day due to the weather.
I found some Juliet tomato plants locally & was going to stick to those but now am thinking I may try a few different varieties as well as I’d like to can sauce for the winter. Lettuce is in pots this year & I’ve mixed in a few nasturtium seeds. The pole beans are going in today along the fences mixed with sunflowers. Herb garden is thriving. I planted some lavender 2 years ago in the openings of a couple cement blocks left from the foundation of an old garage & they already need to be divided. This seems to be the best spot for lavender I’ve found yet. It looks like the nasturtium reseeded pretty well & the calendula (as usual) reseeded excessively so I’ll have a day of plant dividing & relocating today.
Randy Swain
Anne –
Your robins are slackers. Up here in Cape Ann, the three baby robins in the nest under our porch vacated the premises about 5 days ago.
Mark D
Okay, you’re obviously WAAAAYYY more into the veggie gardening than we are (we tend to be more flower-based — have some fantastic geraniums, impatiens, lilies, tulips, etc. etc. etc.).
But this year we decided to grow some tomatoes along with our herbs, getting a really, really nice Beefstake plant — just a wonderful specimen.
Well, until the fucking aphids showed up. Not sure from where, but the thing is toast. The key now is to make sure our roses and other planting are okay — so a trip to a nursery with some ladybugs is on tap for the weekend.
My question, however, is this: Do we still have time to grow another plant, or is it too late to start tomatoes?
We live in Kansas City, so not sure if we’d be too late on the draw for it to be worthwhile.
Any help is appreciated. Thanks!!
Mark D
@Yutsano: Herbs are incredibly easy to grow, and others have already mentioned some really solid choices — depending on how you cook, basil, onion chives, and some lemon thyme are all quite hardy for the most part (and lemon thyme is OUTSTANDING with chicken).
Rosemary, as noted, can be fussy, and it’s one of those most folks don’t use often. So that’s a personal choice — just make sure it’s in WELL DRAINED soil (that’s the only way we’ve had success).
Cilantro is another good one, though you have to keep up on the trimming — we’ve found that it seeds really fast.
I also suggest a simple strawberry pot to start with — inexpensive, small so it’ll even fit on an apartment balcony, and portable (we bring ours in during hail storms).
Hope I haven’t repeated anything (haven’t read the whole thread) and that this helps!
Anne Laurie
@Mark D:
If you’ve already got the seeds & the setup, you could try for another Beefsteak and hope it stays warm enough in September/October for it to fruit. But if you’re going to the nursery anyways, I’d see if I could score a transplant, myself. (You might even be able to get a discount, if the Memorial Day weekend is considered the ‘end’ of planting season in your area… )
Or you could settle for starting cherry tomatoes — I seeded some leftover Yellow Plum seeds directly into a big pot just before July 4th a few years ago, and got fruit by Labor Day. HUGE difference between those and Beefsteaks, though!
Gretchen
@MarkD – I’m in Kansas City too, and just finished planting tomatoes last weekend. I planted 3 in April, but then got busy. Since our warm weather lasts until October, plenty of time if you put in transplants. Hurry, though, the nurseries are pretty picked over, and I had to go to 3 different places to find paste tomatoes.