Fall Garden planting

Yesterday evening, I had this whole entry written about what I planted in my fall garden, and then when I clicked "Publish Post", blogger asked me to re-sign in to my account and lost the whole entry... weird?!

So, yesterday I planted in the root bed: lettuce mix with beets (both chioggia and golden beets), spinach and endive, and carrots. I planted kohlrabi in the rhubarb bed.

Last night for dinner we had fajitas the easy way, with veggies out of our garden. Mostly anaheim and banana peppers, with a few banana peppers from Melissa's house since I'm garden-sitting. Also used one red onion and one yellow onion. They are between golf ball and tennis ball size. I wish I knew how to make my produce bigger. It's a little disheartening when my produce is half the size of what's available in the grocery store. I know, the commercial growers use fertilizers and the produce is bred to be large, but does it really need to be that much larger than what I grow? Oh well, my peppers taste a heck of a lot better than storebought!

I sprayed my tomatoes down a second time with garden dust on Thursday. I also gave them a third helping of calcium nitrate. I noticed some of my squash still have blossom end rot, so I gave them a round of calcium nitrate as well. 

Tweet

Garden Report 06.29.10

For the past several weeks, my tomatoes have had blossom end rot. I researched and found out there are several causes: calcium deficiency, too much watering, and too little watering. I only water my plants when they are droopy, and the tomato plants haven't looked droopy in a long time, so that ruled out water issues. I went to Schaffitzel's nursery and the gentlemen there suggested calcium nitrate. There are two methods of application. By the box, mix 1 Tbsp of calcium nitrate to 1 gallon of water; this is enough to water 2 plants. Or, by Schaffitzel's suggestion, sprinkle 1/2 Tbsp of calcium nitrate around each plant and water it in. I chose the second method because I don't keep a gallon container on hand. I applied the calcium nitrate yesterday. Schaffitzel's (I really need to learn this guy's first name) said that if after 7 days the tomatoes aren't better, to apply a second time. If after two weeks, if they still aren't better, apply a third time.

After I did this yesterday, I dreamed last night about a bountiful tomato harvest. Probably because I'm stressing that even after I intentionally planted tomatoes that are ideal for canning, that I might not have enough to can. I'd hate to have to buy tomatoes from the farmer's market to can. But, it's only the end of June, and I don't think I canned tomatoes last year until late July or August.  But.... the tomatoes that will be ready in August are setting on now, so this problem needs to be resolved.

Here's to hoping the dream last night was a sign of a bountiful harvest!

Tweet