Sun scalded tomatoes
When I finally got around to trellising my community garden tomato plants, they were a huge tangled mess. I pruned back many of them quite a bit just so I could see what I was doing to get them strung up off the ground.
Sunburn!
Unfortunately, many tomatoes that had been shaded up to that point were suddenly exposed to 3 or 4 days of bright, direct sunlight with unseasonably warm 95 degree days.
With no leaves to shade them, the green tomatoes got burnt. Scalded by the sun!
Though these might rot before getting ripe, I am going to try to see if they might mature on their own. Even if they are half-rotten, I should still be able to save some good seeds for next year from inside the other half.
(I do realize that this is probably the crappiest picture online that purports to show Japanese Beetles. Again, it was taken with my cell phone.)
My community garden’s sweet corn is completely infested with these largish beetles. The beetles are covering the corn’s tassels and feeding on the pollen. When that’s gone, they’ll apparently begin eating the silk and quite possibly interfere with proper pollination.
Plus, it’s disgusting to have dozens and dozens of big beetles on my corn. I guess I’m going to get a container of soapy water and knock as many as I can off into their deathtrap tomorrow at lunch. Wish me luck!
Here is an update to my previous post about saving radish seeds.
Dried radish seed pods
I let the radish growth die naturally and dry outside to a nice tan color. I picked off the stems with the seed pods and had what you see above.
Green pod has turned light brown
Just like a pea or a bean, each dry pod contains a few radish seeds. Let’s open one up, shall we?
Hooray, seeds!
I expect the nice round ones are probably more viable than the flat wrinkled ones, since the ones I originally planted were all nice and round.
The verdict is that, yes, I can save radish seeds. And until I absolutely need to, I won’t. It’s a lot of extra work to get these seeds from a plant that would otherwise be picked in 25 or 30 days. I’ll consider it knowledge tucked away for a rainy day.
…is so easy a caveman could do it.
Actually it usually just DOES itself. If left unattended, strawberry plants will send off runners which will root near the parent plant and become self sufficient, removable, separate strawberry plants.
However, we are planning on moving our strawberries this fall to a different place in the yard, so I’m going to try to keep things orderly in the strawberry bed until then.
I don’t see any reason to waste perfectly good potential plants, so instead of cutting off the runners, I’m rooting them in containers.
Rooting strawberry runners in a pot
The sticks are just helping to hold the vine in place until the roots grow.
Strawberry propagation. Ugg.
Pole Bean Teepee Hideaway
Right before we went on vacation, we started a project that will be fun for the boys if it works out as planned. We tied some poles together, laced them up with twine, and dug out a trench from our yard around the base of the thing.
Pole beans growing
We planted pole bean seeds in the little trench. The intention is that the pole beans will climb the tepee and completely cover it, making a little tent for the boys to not only play in, but also snack in, straight from the garden!
View from the back
The conclusion of this project can be found in this post.
Here are a few pictures of my developing tomatoes. Unfortunately, two of the three featured in this post are hybrids. I’m going to actively move away from the hybrids in the next few years. That’s the main reason why I am growing so many different tomatoes (18 types this year)… I want to find an heirloom variety that grows well for me in my own back yard. With heirloom tomatoes, I can save seeds each year and avoid relying on a store to sell me more.
As you can see from the pictures below, they have had no lack of water yet this year.
Beefmaster green tomato. Hybrid.
Big Mama. Hybrid paste tomato
Cabin. Rare heirloom tomato. Leaves somewhat potato-like.
Multiple tomato flower blossom
When your tomato plants grow these massive conjoined flowers, and when those flowers get properly pollinated, you will grow a huge bumpy conjoined tomato. I have these flowers on my Beefmaster plants right now. I’ll update with pictures if I get tomatoes from these monster blossoms.
Siamese tomato blossom. Yeah, I know, that term is no longer P.C.
Trellises, two or three weeks ago
I built these interesting, semi-obelisk tomato trellises this year to try to give the tomato plants more head room at the top versus last year’s teepee design. I’ll probably change them next year to give them a slightly wider footprint.
Tomato Trellis, this week
My lovely wife mashing strawberries
We got the last 5 quarts of strawberries at a local farm and canned up some lovely sweet treats for the next year (or two, just don’t tell the authorities).
Strawberry Jam. 6 half-pints and 4 mini-jars.
Strawberry Syrup. 8 four-ounce jars plus leftover.
Yum, yum, yum!
It should go without saying, but in case you’re new here… These canned goods were made from fine, sweet, local (less than 5 miles away), organic strawberries. The jam was made with berries, sugar and store-bought pectin.
I would have liked to keep corn out of the strawberry syrup, but the recipe called for both white sugar and corn syrup. We were in a midnight rush (literally) to use the berries before they spoiled, so we didn’t have time to find a different recipe or suitable substitution. I did have to watch out which BRAND of corn syrup I bought, as the cheaper store brands contained HFCS and a well known name brand did not.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention… I also canned Rhubarb-Strawberry Jam a few weeks ago. That tastes awesome too!
