Tomato Blight?

Well if it's not one thing, it's another. Tending a garden is like having another child. And how frustrating it is when you see all the effort and time you devoted to your garden turns up some "problem children". What's even worse, when one plant has the blight, it spreads...and spreads fast. So what causes it? How do you treat it? How do you prevent it? Well, I am no garden expert. Like everything else, be it learning an instrument or learning how to write a web-based application it takes experience and time and going through the pains of making mistakes. :) So this is what I know thus far about the nasty tomato blight.

First, there are two types of blight. Early Blight and Late Blight. Phytophthora infestans (aka "Late Blight"). It is not a bacteria or a virus, but rather are a "fungus" caused by infectious spores from standing water that is stagnant on the plants. Early Blight, is caused by a different fungus and occurs in more arid regions. Regardless, the outcome is the same, leaf and stem legions and fruit rot. Blight can occur at any time. I think that what we are seeing here is a Late Blight. Temperature, humidity, and rainfall are the players in this disease. Additionally, blights can spread to other plants from wind blown rain and running ground water. Blight needs a living organism to survive. So keep this in mind for our mild winters and potential un-rotted organic material in the soil. This combination can facilitate another blight outbreak for the next growing season.

So how do we prevent this problem? I've read a variety of suggestions and will list them here.

• Don't plant tomatoes in the same location next year. (I've read keep them away from the soil for 4 seasons)
• Use a drip irrigation vs hose watering to reduce splash on leaves.
• Raised beds and well spaced so they are not touching
• Remove any leaves or stems that are showing the blight
• Apply a fungicide

Anyway, these are all lessons learned for me. Hopefully this information will benefit those other garden aficionados that read this. If anyone has other insightful information on tomato blight, please share!

Blossom-end rot

OK...so my technique of pruning my tomato plants have been favorable as I have quite a lot of fruit coming in. The problem is, as they started to ripen, many of them became rotten on the bottom. This happened to me last year too, for the first batch, but then it got better. In talking with the Gardner and describing these symptoms to him, he suggested Blossom-End Rot. So I google it and indeed there it is! So reasons for this are as follows:

• Shortage in calcium in the soil
  
• Improper watering
• Too much nitrogen in the soil.

One year I saved egg shells and then I put them in the soil around my tomatoes. Think I'll need to to that next year to help with the calcium. As for watering, could have been due to the heavy rains we had in the spring. But for dryness, I suppose mulching around the plants would keep the soil moist. Next year though, I'm going to put in a drip system.

In other news, peas have been harvested and I planted a new batch for the fall. I also planted lettuce for the fall as well.

And I'll NEVER do pumpkins again. At least not in my small garden plot. They over-took the rest of my ground fruits and then turned around and rotted. (hmmm...maybe they rotted because of the same reason my tomatoes got end rot.)

Cramping my style

gosh, I was supposed to post this a few weeks back but got side-tracked (surprise-surprise). Now that I am vacationing at my sister-in-laws in FL, I have PLENTY of time to do other things...anyway, like I said, the remainder of this post is a bit dated. When I get back from FL, I'll have to update with new garden states.

I am hoping to pick-up some cuttings from my sister-in-laws garden. She too is a garden aficionado so we have endless conversations about everything earthy. She has no veggies, difficult to grow in such a sandy location, but she's got tons of flowers to attract butterflies and hummingbirds.

I am planning on bringing back a lemon and lime tree.

Anyway...on to the older stuff:

-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=

Well, the ground vegetables are growing like crazy. Especially the pumpkin. Mind you, I only put one pumpkin seed in the ground and it totally blows me away what it transforms into. I can't help but think about how this is all a part of God's gift to us. To create life from a seed or an egg or similar. Give it the proper ingredients and it grows. I think next year though I'll introduce a soaker system in place. I do enjoy watering but sometimes if I can't get to it, it causes me angst. I don't know if it's OK or not to cut back some of the leaves on the ground vegetables such as the zucchini, and pumpkin. The are snuffing out the cantaloup and the watermelon, so i cut some leaves off to allow them have some air. (Pictures below).

My tomato pruning is really producing some impressive amount of flowers. I don't know if it's just the pruning or the pruning in combination of having raised beds this year, but I'm quite pleased with how everything is turing out. I will of course do some adjusting for next season, such as use a different variety of marigold, re-arrange the placement of the ground fruits as well as the peas.

My backyard gets great sun, but I would really prefer a wider lot as opposed to a narrow lot. I can only access my garden form one side and it prevents me from really maintaining the back of it. Oh well...these are all future things to consider when/if we ever move into a different house.


Pumpkins starting! I've got so many...(wish I'd see this many watermelon)


Raspberry bush...I don't expect any berries for a few years. (Probably by the time we move out of this place they will be ready..sheesh)


Peas!


Peppers are happy.


I had to cut back some of the pumpkin leaves so the watermelon could have some breathing room. I hope that cutting back ground leaves doesn't effect their fruit.


The battle for space between zucchini, pumpkin, cucumber, cantaloupe & watermelon. Everything looked so small a few weeks back.


Tomatoes


Peas, peppers and see the soy bean bush on the right side? I wonder if there will be any beans when I get back?

Rain Rain

Don't know if it's all the rain we've had, my raised beds, my square foot method :) or a bit of all, but things are exploding in my garden. I goofed by placing the zucchini in the wrong spot, but next year I'll adjust. I wonder if it's OK to cut back some of the zucchini leaves as they are encroaching on my other stuff :)

I think next year, I'm gonna just put the seeds right in the garden rather than start in the house. The few that I started in the garden are doing much better than any from seed. Also, flower seeds are more troublesome than vegetable seeds so it seems. I put in a trellis following the suggestion from Mel's book. Using conduit and getting 50' of trellis netting (still have ton's left) I made two trellis. One for my peas and one for my tomatoes. Apparently I can keep the trellis in place throughout the winter which will be nice. I'm also pinching the suckers that are growing on the tomatoes to prevent too much bushiness and to help force more veggies. I added some swiss chard for the bunnies (hope they like swiss chard). Here are some updated pictures of my garden:

Full Garden

My Tomatoes (7 plants)

zucchini going into the cucumbers

Pumpkin, Cantaloup, Watermelon

Snow Peas and Sugar Snap Peas growing but no flowers yet.

Carrots and Swiss Chard & Arugula to the right of the carrots.

Peppers

Romaine Lettuce & Spinach (didn't do well at all, I'm just letting it go to seed.

The one soy bean plant of about 8 seeds that I planted that survived.

Another shot of the carrots, swiss chard etc...marigolds in the front from seed are the biggest I've ever seen but no flowers yet..

Lettuce & Peas

After all this rain, the lettuce has gone crazy.  Also, my peas are starting to grow up too.  Tomorrow I will put in trellis and critter-proof the garden by adding some chicken wire.  

The square-foot method was an afterthought, so the peas are not really planted correctly.  I also to understand how to be compact about tomatoes.  They take up so much room, but the book says to use a trellis for them.  I bought some trellis netting from their site.  Square Foot Gardening and am going to build some tomorrow.

This is the 2nd year I've tried to start flowers from seed and with no luck.  I suppose I need to start earlier because I want them to be bloomed right NOW.  The only ones that are doing any good are the geraniums and the portulacus.  Oh and the marigolds and Zinnas that the boys planted.  Seems like the flowers do well when they are started from seed in the pot that they are gonna stay in.  Transplanting them doesn't seem to work and they get so leggy when in peat pellets inside. 

Facilitating poo

This year has been the year of becoming more of an organic gardener.  From considering raising chickens to creating my own compost, I have caught the garden bug.  This weekend, after reading up on various different composting solutions, we decided to make our own.  Something pleasing to the eye and large enough to continually fertilize my garden year round without the need to till.  After years of religious tilling I have be enlightened as to the do's and don'ts of organic fertilizing.  That said, after about 6 hrs, we have ourselves an awesome composter.  

What I wanted was something that would create enough compost to handle consistent feeding of my 40'x3' raised bed garden.  So I wanted at least a 2-bin system.  Second, I wanted a way to access and rotate the compost easily.  What we came up with was to utilize the design we found from the Lowes website with some subtle modifications.  (not to mention their instructions are a bit flawed).

My husband and I worked together and only two blisters later, I've got a composter that will probably outlast my raised beds.  Here are some pictures of the process:

Framed.  We  used pressure treated wood.  We got the wood at Home Depot.  We were told that the wood no longer contains arsenic and is safe for gardens etc.



In order to handle the top post, we needed to chisel out the back posts.

Frame and posts in place.  We bolted the posts into the frame.


In order to have the front boards slide out, we needed to create some runner rails.  This involved sandwiching a 2x2 board between the front post and a 2x4 board.  This was then bolted in place. 

Back and floor in place.  The boards have 1/4" space between them.  We used a 1/4" nail to make the spaces even.

Preparing the front slats.  The front boards are removable so you can access the compost easily.  Screw in screws to about 1/4" so when you slide them in the top, they will have space between them.

Front boards slide in nicely with the front board runner.

Attaching the wire mesh to the sides.  This was how I got my blisters.  Wire mesh goes in the center divider, and the sides as well as attach to the top lids.

Composter or a great prison for small children :)


Finished product
Lids open.