The San Antonio Sandbur Patch

[Wildcat82]

I'm so happy that everything survived the cold. You did a good job protecting them all. If chives can survive up here with below 0 temperatures, then they should be fine there. They should sprout up as the temps warm up.

It will be so enjoyable to be working in the garden and just reaching out for a few SunGold's to snack on. With that many plants then some should make it into the house. I only grow one and it seems that only a handful ever make it in the door.

I always thought chives were pretty much indestructible, maybe some of they will come back. My scallions are a foot tall and look perfect.

It may not be possible but my ultimate goal is to have tomatoes for 9 months here. I miss gardening in the upper midwest but there is one thing in our favor here: a long growing season.

[karstopography]

I believe I had ripe tomatoes, good to great ones, for eight months in 2022. Maybe from the tail end of April up to the end of December.

If I really wanted to do a full nine months without moving heaven and earth to accomplish that, I’d grow a couple of early season tomatoes.
That would give another three weeks on the front side of the season for ripe fruit. That year I was able to carry through the whole of summer into the fall a few tomatoes such as Beefmaster and Big Beef. Coyote is a great insurance type that is almost guaranteed to survive the worst of the worst of a Texas summer.

We’ll see how 2024 shapes up weatherwise. I’m not especially hopeful. If I can carry some fruit into August that would be nice. Hoping to get some into the fall is a steep hill to climb. I wasn’t too pleased with my 2023 fall tomato effort. Got three of those Bella Rosa still on counter, but they are disappointing in flavor.

[Wildcat82]

I believe I had ripe tomatoes, good to great ones, for eight months in 2022. Maybe from the tail end of April up to the end of December.

If I really wanted to do a full nine months without moving heaven and earth to accomplish that, I’d grow a couple of early season tomatoes.
That would give another three weeks on the front side of the season for ripe fruit. That year I was able to carry through the whole of summer into the fall a few tomatoes such as Beefmaster and Big Beef. Coyote is a great insurance type that is almost guaranteed to survive the worst of the worst of a Texas summer.

We’ll see how 2024 shapes up weatherwise. I’m not especially hopeful. If I can carry some fruit into August that would be nice. Hoping to get some into the fall is a steep hill to climb. I wasn’t too pleased with my 2023 fall tomato effort. Got three of those Bella Rosa still on counter, but they are disappointing in flavor.

Eight month production is impressive. Last year I think I got production from 1 April til about mid August then from 1 November til mid January.

Absolutely agree on Coyote. I've very curious if the wild variety Punta Banda is as tough a plant as Coyote. Like Coyote, it's highly drought tolerant. If fact, one research paper I found used Punta Banda as "the standard" for a drought tolerant tomato variety. Some Phoenix growers have said it produced all season long there. Hopefully the only difference is fruit size: Punta Banda produces 1-2 oz fruit

My Fall slicers have been generally poor tasting especially towards the end of the growing season. They seem to really need the heat units to taste good. As a general rule, I think slicers are marginal plants here any time of year. Odds of success are much better with the short season cherries and saladettes.

[karstopography]

@Wildcat82 I feel like I have a really good climate here for growing quality tomatoes, including the late season large beefsteak types.

I mean they’ll mostly eventually give up if it gets too hot, but by then I’ve generally had around 6 weeks to 10 weeks of steady fruit coming from them. That’s really no different than growing a late season tomato up north in many places. Late season types up there typically are fruiting starting somewhere in August and might get into October. That’s how it was in Massachusetts when I lived there. Fruit, mid-late season types began in August and maybe went into October. Best fruit might be around September 1st. Our best fruit is around June 1st. Tomatoes, their production is finite.

I’m not into saladettes or early season types that I’ve had or looked into. Too much gel and too little meat is my main complaint. Cherry tomatoes are more interesting. I almost tried Stupice this year for an early type, but I thought why bother, it looks like all the rest of those saladette, smallish fruit.

[Wildcat82]

@Karstopography it sounds like you have very good success with slicers where you live.

I didn’t mean to imply that you can't grow slicers or beefsteaks in San Antonio, it's just that our harvest window is very short. With our later average last frost date, people here typically plant out their garden around 10 March. Slicers are about 75 days plants so that puts you around 25 May to begin harvesting. The old farmers at the Poteet roadside stands have told me for years they yank their slicers around 1 July. So 25 May - 1 July (5 weeks!) is the normal harvest window in San Antonio.

However, putting out short season cherries (Sungold 57 days) means moving your harvest window 18 days earlier and with heat setting cherries/saladettes (Juliet, Super Sioux) you can extend your harvest window at the back end by a couple weeks, maybe more. Bottom line is that slicers normally have a 5 week harvest window and select cherries/saladettes have a 10+ week window in San Antonio.

[Wildcat82]

A couple weeks ago I planted my April plant-out seeds in sterilized (baked) potting soil. I also put a few seeds in unbaked potting mix. The seeds in the sterilized soil are growing WAAAAAYYY better than the seeds in the unsterilized spoil. This goes against the common wisdom them killing off all soil bacteria is a bad thing to do. Yet, I’ve seen the phenomenon repeated several times now. Some time back I saw a report that plants grown in solarized soil grow faster so I don’t think this is a coincidence.

With the onset of spring, everything in the garden is looking nice. Thai Towers and Emerald Towers basil are a good 8 inches tall and looking nice. The Sungolds and Black Cherries are all blooming. Three Shishito, three Red Marconi, 3 Jalapeno, 3 Poblano and 1 Banana peppers are in the ground. My Barbados Cherry is leafing out already. My Bearrs Lime is blooming profusely and spitting out new leaves. My scallions are 2 ½ foot tall and looking perfect. Heck even my chives have all come back (Hat tip to @MissS!)

Been spraying daily with rubbing alcohol/horticultural oil/Grandevo/Venerate just to be sure the mites aren’t already attacking.

My Necta Zee dwarf peach and 2 feijoas should be arriving soon.

I’ve spent the last 4 days chopping out the old blueberry plants, excavating out all the acidic soil out of the old raised beds, chipping the soil down another 6 inches, hauling in dozens of bags of fresh soil and replanting my 6 container figs. I’m really stoked to see if the fig varieties I have taste as good as the aficionados on the ourfigs.com forum claim.

IMG_3523.jpg

IMG_3522.jpg

IMG_3508.jpg

IMG_3518.jpg

[karstopography]

@Wildcat82 free exercise! At least it was super nice out today for the heavy gardening chores. Good luck with the crops!

[Wildcat82]

@Wildcat82 free exercise! At least it was super nice out today for the heavy gardening chores. Good luck with the crops!

When the weather is this nice, I don't mind at all. I love being outdoors doing something.

[Wildcat82]

The tomato seeds I sowed a month ago in sterilized soil looked fantastic – til about 4-5 days ago. Now they are all sickly with some sort of mold/fungus like always so I went ahead and repotted them outside in fresh soil in sterile cups. Though I'm risking mite exposure, I figure the sunlight might kill off some of the fungus. If I’m lucky, 3-4 outliers out of the 42 seedlings might survive.

I’ve tried sowing in peat pellets, potting soil, and sterilized potting soil but it hasn’t made any difference. I’ve tried spraying every few days with hydrogen peroxide diluted in a 10:1 ratio, spraying with captan and/or daconil as soon as the plants develop 2 true leaves, bottom watering only, watering only when the seedlings start to wilt, etc., but nothing helps. My failure rate with tomato seedlings over the years is 95% and holding. It’s become obvious I have some type of airborne fungus here. The only way I’ve ever managed to get any viable seedlings is to use the brute force tactic of sowing 100 seeds and hoping some rogues survive.

Some of my container tomatoes aren’t doing much better. Four days ago, one of the Sungolds suddenly went limp with some type of wilt disease. Yesterday, another one went limp and today a third one is biting the dust. Bacterial/southern wilt is caused by soil borne bacteria so I’m not sure why the soiless potting mixes I’m using are harboring these bacteria. Luckily, there is still time to buy more plants as needed

On the brighter side, my 2 overwintered Sungolds are setting fruit, and my 6 purchased Black Cherries look great. I hope the dreaded wilt disease doesn’t strike them. All 5 figs I’ve transplanted (one more transplant to go) into the ground are leafing out nicely.

IMG_3559.jpg

IMG_3562.jpg

IMG_3564.jpg

IMG_3556.jpg

[Wildcat82]

Given the craptastic luck I’ve had sowing seed, time for another experiment.

Since some sort of airborne fungi in my second bedroom is killing off my tomato seedlings, why not isolate my seedlings from the ambient air in my house? I just purchased a clear plastic plant humidity dome from Amazon. It’s 20” by 10” by 7” high so it fits snugly on top of a standard seedling tray. There are no ventilation holes in the humidity dome so the air inside the dome can be easily sealed. Once or twice per week I take the humidity dome/seedling tray ensemble outside and air out the humidity dome, re-seal, then take back inside. So I have a hermetically sealed sterile humidity dome on top of a sterilized seedling tray containing sterilized potting soil for my seedlings. What could possibly go wrong!

After 12 months of a zombie-like slumber with zero growth or new leaves, my Meyer Lemon has suddenly sprouted a bunch of little leaves. I sprayed Abamectin the same day I noticed the first tiny new leaves and have misted the leaves daily with rubbing alcohol since. On the other hand, all the tiny leaves on my Bearrs lime have disappeared. I started spraying miticide a week after it began leafing out – apparently I waited too long to begin spraying and the mites destroyed the new leaves.

In a previous post I said I hoped 3-4 out of my 40+ infected tomato seedlings could survive. I’m shocked (but happy) to report that it looks like only 8-9 plants croaked and the rest are doing fine. WooHoo!

Meanwhile all my SunGolds and Husky Cherry Reds have all set fruit. The goal is still ripe fruit by 1 April.

IMG_3586.jpg

IMG_3580.jpg

IMG_3585.jpg

IMG_3579.jpg

[karstopography]

Meyer improved lemons are delicious. We had years where things weren’t so topsy turvy on temperature and meyer lemons produced like amazing. Last four years have been tough on the citrus.

[Wildcat82]

Today I got the last of my heat set tomatoes planted. So for this years summer trials I have the following contenders:

Punta Banda (4)
Prescott (4)
Porter (3)
Jasper (3)
Flamenco (2)
Juliet (2)
Super Sioux (2)
Mexique de Miel (2)

I also planted Wooley Kate (2) Yellow Centiflor (2) Orange Centiflor (2) and Red Centiflor (1). These are all L. Hirsutum crosses so I want to see if they are resistant to mites.

In another month when I pull out my Kale, I'll probably stick in a couple more Juliet/Super Sioux.

IMG_3611.jpg

IMG_3607.jpg

IMG_3602.jpg

IMG_3613.jpg

[Wildcat82]

Looks like I'm having my best garden since moving to Texas 20 years ago.

Since spraying with a rotation of Minx (abamectin), Oberon, and Pylon miticide every 10 days since 20 February, mites have been controlled pretty well and my tomatoes and eggplant seem to be doing very well. The peppers look somewhat ragged (I've read they are extremely sensitive to even low population of broad mites) but I still think I'll get a decent harvest. . You can only spray each of the miticides listed above 3 times each so starting mid-May I'll have to switch to Grandevo/Venerate/essential oils/rubbing alcohol for everything.

Heck, I looks like I might get peaches for the first time since they were planted 7 years ago.

IMG_3624.jpg

IMG_3622.jpg

IMG_3623.jpg

IMG_3621.jpg