AmateurInAwe's Garden

[Amateurinawe]

Three sets of twins, there's something in the water I say....

Caspian Pink twin.jpg

SMFL twin.jpg

Tiger Stripe Twin.jpg

[Amateurinawe]

Just musing the buckets and growth of plants experiment.
With regards to overall growth, height, thickness of stems, there really is no noticeable difference between a plant in the raised beds alongside a neighbouring plant in the same raised bed but with an additional foot or so of soil and compost on the main stem for adventicious rooting. It makes sense as the plants genetics in each pair are from same seed sources.

At this stage, I suspect that both plants are getting sufficient nutrients for their growth pattern and the depth of the raised beds is sufficient for the varieties I plant. That combined with the fact that I transplant plants rather than grow in situ, they probably all have damaged taproots by the time they are in the beds and root growth is more lateral. The soil below the beds is very poor, being the infill behind a retaining wall that was built 5 years ago, and the reason why the beds were created in the first place. I will dig up the roots carefully once the plants are spent..

With regards to yield, that is still ongoing. Of course, those plants that have a regular truss habit, there is no difference between the two, either in numbers, size or distance between trusses.

Where I am noticing difference, is in the multifloras. Two different types of multiflora and the abundance of flowers and amount of fruit appeared to deviate somewhat from their neighbour without the extra depth and adventurous roots. Although, I'll have to wait till the end of the season to really see if there was much difference.

The blossom drop we have had over this dry spell is another factor but I suspect that will change with the weather and perhaps the ripening of the lower, first batches of fruits.

There is still a lot more of this season left, but at this point no obvious advantage at this point other than potentially the multifloras.

[GoDawgs]

@Amateurinawe , I have a question. What is your pruning procedure to get such lovely trusses? It looks like just about every leaf has been pruned off to a certain point. I checked all of your past posts in this thread but didn't see anything except a pile of prunings from when you gave them a good haircut.

[Amateurinawe]

@GoDawgs hi, I think I'm pruning on a plant by plant basis each day, based on what I think the plant can tolerate.

I certainly remove everything up to the first truss as quickly as possible. I take out suckers as soon as possible and o single stem as much as possible apart from one or two exceptions where the plant seems to have decided it wants two stems and I have an available pole next to it.

I certainly remove old leaves if they look like they are not doing much good or look a bit ragged or weary. And I am pruning just a bit at a time rather than a complete haircut like previously.

So the examples below are all different

Fisk lake , whispy foliage, I try to leave it with as much as possible and single stem.

fish lake.jpg

Red indigo f3 , quite a vigorous plant so I prune it quite a bit leaving upper canapy probably at 50%. It also decided it wanted to be double stemmed, you can see the thickness of the branching.

red indigo f3.jpg

Black russian, quite a nice uniform plant, each truss much like the other. Again I keep this single stemmed and have fairly regularly removed leaves leaving just a canopy.

Once new fruit truss is established and fruit growing nicely I'll probably continue to remove as long as it keeps its upward growth.

black russian.jpg

So it's not really a technique, more of look at plant , see how it's growing and trim I guess..

[Amateurinawe]

So for dinner tonight we have:

Cherokee Purple, Marzanno Fire, Black Russian, Venus, Orange Stripe and Tasmanian Chocolate

dinner tonight.jpg

Nom, nom, nom...

[GoDawgs]

Thanks so much for the info. I will have to try that next spring as it's probably too late this season to make much of a difference. You get the Edward Scissorhands Award.

[Amateurinawe]

@GoDawgs lol, snip snip snip.

Measure twice cut once, I guess it's never more apt with a living thing...

[GoDawgs]

Oh yeah, how right you are. Earlier this summer I went to cut off a big squash leaf close to where it attaches to the stem since it's not hollow at that point. Well, don't ya know it seemed rather tough so I applied more pressure to the pruners and....I cut the main stem. Bye bye, squash plant! Decapitated!

[Amateurinawe]

Took in some Fred Limbaugh which were blushing as we were predicted some rain. Well when the 30 seconds of rain was over....

Got some other usual suspects as well...

Fred Limbaugh plus.....jpg

[MissS]

I enjoyed Fred Limbaugh's Potato Top very much last year. I hope you do as well. It was quite productive too.

[Amateurinawe]

He ain't ugly he my bruvver...

Fred and bruv.jpg

Fred limbaugh

[Amateurinawe]

Some more come through

Dolly Parton
Verde las Landas
Yellow Brandywine
Red Indigo F3

mix.jpg

A bit disappointing that the antho expression is so diminished in the F3 but these fruits were down low so maybe the higher fruits are more in the sun, we'll see...

[Amateurinawe]

dinner.jpg

[Amateurinawe]

Can't leave it out any longer. Barbastro, fish lake gone ugly and a couple of Heidi plum

mix.jpg

[Amateurinawe]

Barbastro and landas are coming to dinner tonight...never mind the conversation

dinner.jpg

[Amateurinawe]

Does anyone know anything about these ? They were from the last but one MMMM swap, only just grew this rather compact plant (about three foot and still growing plant).

It was labelled timpurii , which now having looked on the web is Romanian for early. I haven't a c!ue.

IMG_20220727_193142_kindlephoto-36064220.jpg

[Amateurinawe]

Bringing in some of the big fruit

1) they are blushing
2) I need to deep water
3) I see signs of cracks
4) I need to give the higher fruit a chance to grow

rosado de ayerbe.jpg

Rosado de ayerbe (thanks @Nico )

IMG_20220727_181207.jpg

Garotte bicolour all from one cluster (thanks @Nico )

dolly parton.jpg

Dolly's ripening (thanks @Tormato )

[Amateurinawe]

So the glut of tomatoes is starting to build. So I wanted to dehydrate some and looking at the price couldn't justify a dehydrator. However, my instapots come to the rescue, and a small purchase from Amazon for a five level rack to insert in the big boy look sensible for a starter.

Well the mix of large fruit and small fruit and fleshy fruit is something I need to learn, but some of the bigger slivers dried out after ten hours and I could not resist trying them. Wow, knock your socks off, so much better than bought sundried tomatoes. The flavour intensity after 30 minutes is still incredible after eating. Just shows quality in, quality out.

Putting them in virgin Olive oil till the rest are done.

[Amateurinawe]

Fish lake Ox Heart starting to come through now.

fish lake.jpg

[Amateurinawe]

Still waiting for the blush on copper river, either side of the fish lake

copper river left and right.jpg

And the ramalet de colgar 100 are slow to blush considering their size

ramalet 100 de colgar.jpg

And trying to record the red indigo growth now over 7 foot and double stemmed and still thick , it's almost invasive...

IMG_20220731_200039.jpg