Plot 206

[DriftlessRoots]

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120+ peppers and tomatoes back from the babysitters and starting their hardening off process. Big thanks to all the MMMM participants who made this diversity possible!

[MissS]

You sure had a fantastic babysitter! They did a fantastic job.

[DriftlessRoots]

I've not been to religious about keeping this up but then again I knew I wouldn't be when I started. Anyway here are some update images from this morning. I spent a couple of hours there doing a deep water first thing this morning before it got warmer.

Flowers on the tomatillo! I hope this one isn't like last year's it got enormous but produced a paltry number of fruits for its size.

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The beans have settled in and are looking pretty good. Only grew pintos and black turtles this year plus some winged beans I picked up on the share shelf to try for fun.

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Tomatoes have started the "let's go nuts" phase so next trip up to the plot will be focused on starting pruning and training. The variation in growth of the different varieties is interesting to observe.

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Garlic is starting to get brown tips. Still should be at least a couple of weeks until harvest so I watered them, too.

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Onions, the ones that survived the initial transplanting, are doing well. I think adding some mulch would be a good idea, here and in some other spots as well.

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Still have some chard in the fridge from the co-op so of course ours is now getting harvestable size. We're not pros at timing.

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First and second (or third?) planting of beets look good. I'm sure we'll eat the grocery store ones in the fridge long before these are ready.

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Natural pest control was hard at work in the plot next door. They payed me little attention while I was working only a few yards away from them.

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[PlainJane]

Wow, love that natural pest control!

[DriftlessRoots]

Got to spend a couple hours by myself in the plot this morning early. When my husband and I go there together he feels "done" before I do so we end up leaving sooner than I'd like more often than not. That's OK. But then I feel rushed and forget to take pictures. I think of them as references from year to year but they also give me something to look at and look forward to in the depths of winter. Anyway, here are a few of the hundred or so shots I took this morning.

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I'm only going to show a few of the better looking tomatoes. This is Brandywine Cowlicks. I like working with the PL plants because they are so open I can see what's going on.

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Daniel Burson has some nice sized fruits coming on. I'm looking forward to tasting this one (and all the others, of course) after all the good things I've heard about it.

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Joya de Oaxaca looking good. Will of course make some Oaxacan recipes with these.

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Yay! Juliet turned out to actually be Juliet and she's a huge plant already and promises to be productive. Got this because my sister raves about it. This is the only F1 tomato in the garden this year.

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Lithium Sunset looking groovy.

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Mikado Rozovyi. I planted two of these so I must have been thinking canning/sauce when I did that.

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Estler's Mortgage Lifter here. Looking forward to saving seeds from these and passing on this historic variety.

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Rebel Starfighter is the tallest non-cherry so far and a franky gangly looking plant.

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I can't wait to see these Thorburn's Terra-Cottas when they are ripe but for now I'm just really pleased with the shape and smoothness of the fruit.

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Looks like Ukrainian Purple is going to have a nice, slightly pear-shaped fruit.

I was going to do one big mega-post today but I think I'll follow this with the non-tomato updates.

[DriftlessRoots]

Part two of today's update:
A few peppers are forming fruits. Here's Aji Colorado

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This is Hinkelhatz. I've got three plants and I hope it's prolific so I can pickle some.

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A wee Poblano. We use a lot of these in Mexican cooking. These and Serranos.

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The tomatillo plant is getting big and I picked a couple little ones this morning. Maybe I'll make a tiny portion of fresh salsa.

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The first of the Straight Eight cucumbers was harvested at the straight five stage. I like crunchy immature cukes.

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The Chinese cabbage is not heading up. Heat? Day length? I'll try again for a fall crop. My plan for this one is to harvest some of the inner leaves and make a batch of kimchi.

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The last celtuce is bolting and I hope it's self-fertile. This was my first experience with it and I really like the flavor so I'm hoping to save seeds. Looks like I need to get a bag on it soon if that's going to happen.

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Likewise the garden cress is bolting. I'm on the fence as to whether I will save seeds. It was a nice addition to salads.

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First tiny broccoli flower is forming.

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The winged beans are poking along and finally starting to climb a little bit. I thought being a more tropical plant they'd like this heat and take off sooner. Another new-to-me crop I'm looking forward to trying.

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Loving these big marigolds. Would be nice if they were still putting out blooms for el Dia de los Muertos but I'm not holding my breath.

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I planted cosmos in the areas where the squash is intended to sprawl but they're getting wide and not just tall so I've started reining them in. Only after I left all the cut stalks laying in the garden and got home did it dawn on me I could have had a nice little bouquet on the table. Too late now!

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The Tub o' Calendula dries out too fast but they seem to spring right back from a wilting. I need to research what I can add to the mix to hold more moisture next year.

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I'm pretty sure all these plant stems in the bee hotel had pith in them when I put it up this spring so it's been seeing some action. You can even see a couple are mudded shut. Don't know whether the critter on that top one there is nesting or a parasite but I'm glad to see it's not being ignored.

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This is something I hardly ever do but I accidentally took this selfie while trying to get a shot of some tomato flowers and thought I didn't look to haggard. The gardener at work. The cap says "Happy Camper" and that is me when I'm camping and when I'm tending my little plot of food and therapy.

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[DriftlessRoots]

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Turns out the first tomato to be ripening was not the first to be ripening. This coloring is caused by blossom end rot most likely the result of our severe drought and my irregular watering. A Wes fruit suffered a similar fate. Also, this was labeled as Ukrainian Purple but the descriptions say it's supposed to have plum-shaped fruit and I'd call this more pear-shaped.

[bower]

I've seen that happen before with BER. Maybe the rot gives off some ethylene, the fruit ripens around it, what a bummer.

I missed your earlier post, but wanted to say, in my experience with napa cabbages you can get them to head up by removing some outer leaves. I had these wierd flattened heads indoors under lights, and thought it was the environment, but it turned out that they really do their thing when you pull that outer ring of leaves.

Your garden is looking amazing! Lots of gorgeous tomatoes coming on, so I hope you get some ripe soon.

[DriftlessRoots]

I've seen that happen before with BER. Maybe the rot gives off some ethylene, the fruit ripens around it, what a bummer.

I missed your earlier post, but wanted to say, in my experience with napa cabbages you can get them to head up by removing some outer leaves. I had these wierd flattened heads indoors under lights, and thought it was the environment, but it turned out that they really do their thing when you pull that outer ring of leaves.

Your garden is looking amazing! Lots of gorgeous tomatoes coming on, so I hope you get some ripe soon.

Thank you! Was up there again today and a Jewel of Oaxaca had BER. With all the fruit so low right now the only way I’m finding them is by the color change. Otherwise I suppose I could go around and palpate all of them

And an update on the cabbage. It started heading up a while ago and is now huge. I’ll bring it home when I’m ready to make rolls and kimchi right away as the fridge is perpetually crowded now. Next time I’ll try pulling off the outer leaves to speed things up.

[bower]

I have never grown the usual RL Joya de Oaxaca and always wondered what it's like. I got a PL version of Oaxaca Jewel from a place in Quebec, which became earlier every year I grew it here and a huge household favorite. I wanted to use it as a mother in a cross but it rejected all my affections, time after time, so I finally tried as a pollen donor and am really enjoying the offspring of this cross!

So far I have one plant that turned up BER on a green fruit, which I picked and discarded, but I am in fear of more. It's been a tough year for water management. First they were too cold and wet, retaining moisture too well, and now they're really being put to the test in drying out too severely in the run of a day. In the past I've managed to give BER to plants that never have it, by doing an extra watering (and feeding) in the evening instead of sticking to the once a day morning water (that is in containers, must be daily). So it's been hard not to give them extra water when I see how dry and sad they are by evening of a hot day peaking outside the goldilocks zone, but so far I'm resisting that temptation, in fear of the BER.

[DriftlessRoots]

The first three actually ripe or ripening OP varieties this year: Thorburn's Terra-Cotta, Daniel Burson, and Lithium Sunset. Unfortunately as I was so carefully cutting the LS off by it's stem the other three in the cluster decided to break off.

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[bower]

Lovely big fruit! I hope those others are mature enough to ripen!

[karstopography]

Thorburn's Terra-Cotta seems to get mixed reviews. What’s your take on that tomato?

[DriftlessRoots]

Thorburn's Terra-Cotta seems to get mixed reviews. What’s your take on that tomato?

I only had a small piece before the balance went into a salad, but I thought it was ok. Not super tomtoey, little bit of clean acid at the end. I’ve got a few more coming on that I’ll taste more mindfully. Although, I can’t vouch for the sophistication of my taste buds.

[DriftlessRoots]

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First visit to plot 206 this year and, as expected, the garlix is up!

[DriftlessRoots]

I wanted to summarize our 2024 gardening season somewhere and I suppose this is as good a place as any. TLDR: It wasn't a great year. Frequent rains early in the season both kept us from visiting the plot as often as we would have liked and made fungal issues worse than usual. So, consulting my little plan here, I'll do a crop-by-crop rundown.

Beds A and B were alliums this year. Leeks did well enough and we had enough to freeze some. Perennial shallots I started from seed in 2022 and transplanted to this spot in 2023 did nothing as far as I can tell. Are they supposed to bulb up? I just had clumps of little shoots like chives so to the compost they all went. Garlic got mildew and had to be harvested early. One variety seemed to resist it better. Walking onions I transplanted last year died completely. Bulb onions, yellow and red, also mildewed, early harvested and cured. When checked a couple months later we found more than half had rotted. Guess we'll be buying onions for the first time in years. Scallions did so-so. I didn't keep up with planting enough and the ones we had got shaded by zinnias I didn't expect to get so tall.

Beds C and D were mostly tomatoes with basil tucked in at the corners. The basil did very well despite the damp. Tomatoes were probably the worst year ever. For the first time some varmint actually ate leaves of some plants and completely killed a few. I replaced them, including one that was a rooted cutting from another plant which didn't add an inch of growth after I got it in the ground. Plants produced very few tomatoes so I ended up having to accumulate, strain and freeze some to can passata and just freeze others peeled for canning. There were 44 plants--the most ever--so pruning and tying up took a lot more time. That led to neglecting weeding. Many plants were mostly or completely defoliated much earlier than usual and an awful lot of the fruit actually suffered from sunburn once the rain finally stopped late summer. I will never do that many plants again. (he says) I bagged zero blossoms for seed saving.

Bed E was peppers this year. Very low production except for Sugar Rush Peach. For the third year in a row we had horrible poblanos. Used to get nice three-foot plants with lots of big fruit. Again it was plants less than half that height and few, small fruit.

Bed F is storage and the asparagus patch. Got some nice asparagus we enjoyed for weeks. I'm going to try to remember to fertilized the bed this year. Haven't done that in a while.

Bed G was more tomatoes. See above. It also featured a row of little red Biquinho peppers that produced very well. I love those things and am looking forward to growing the yellow ones this year, too.

Beds H and I were legumes. Pinto and black beans did very well and we had no Mexican bean beetle issues this year! The Royal Corona beans I planted from Rancho Gordo did very little and the beans they produced were mold stained and deformed for the most part. Next season I'm back to Christmas limas. First planting of sugar snap peas got chewed off above the cage I put around them so I replanted and caged up over four feet. Got a few in the end.

Beds J and K were random stuff. Arugula and some of the lettuces did well. Carrots, too. Had a couple decent bulb fennel. Got zero beets and broccoli. Got tons of chard but gave most of it away because we still had some in the freezer from last year.

Bed L, the last one, was my milpa plot with Coral sorghum, Oaxacan black beans, and a couple butternut squash. As I reported elsewhere on this wonderful forum, the beans grew very well climbing the sorghum but not blossoming until after the equinox because they were day-length sensitive. We got half a dozen decent squash. The sorghum grew taller than I'd expected and the seeds proved almost impossible to thresh so I left them all up for the birds this winter.

Lots of disappointment above so I'll end on some of the positives from the year. The plot to our southwest that had a tree growing on it that was starting to shade ours a bit (until "someone" illegally snuck in and cut off all its branches...) was finally completely removed. The plot to the west of us has been neglected and eventually abandoned almost every year since we took our plot 11 years ago. This year it was abandoned early enough that the garden committee had workers "clear" it which meant they weeded it but poorly so the grass roots remained. I took the opportunity to bury some 2x10 boards along that edge as a root barrier. To the south, the similarly often-abandoned plot was reassigned and we met the new holder one day while she was expertly and thoroughly weeding it! It's been a source of our bindweed invasion so we are very happy. Also, the bindweed in our own plot didn't seem too bad this year even though we were lax on weeding.

There were times this last season I was seriously considering not renewing the plot another season. But we did plant garlic this fall and I have some thoughts on how to do things differently this year. So, if the weather cooperates I expect 2025 can only be better than 2024.

[JayneR13]

Don't feel bad, you're not the only gardener who had a really challenging year! Mine was really mixed too. I'm in zone 5, as you are, and those spring rains were nuts! But there were some bright spots so that's a good place to focus. We'll try again next year! As you've said, it won't be too difficult to have a better year.

[DriftlessRoots]

Peppers started last week. Some are already coming up:

• Aconcagua
  Airetama Biquinho
  Aleppo
  Ancho San Luis
  Blot
  Chimayo
  Gatherer's Gold
  Golden Greek
  Pimenta Biquinho/Chupetinho
  Poblano
  Sakura
  Sashito
  Serrano
  Trinidad Perfume
  Unknown from a broken ristra

Tomatoes started this week:

• 1884
  African Queen
  Aunt Gertie's Gold
  Big Cheef
  Black Strawberry
  Blue Ridge Mountain
  Bulgarian #7
  Dancing with Smurfs
  Doctor's Green Frosted
  Domingo
  Earl's Faux
  Elgin Pink
  EM Champion
  Estler's ML
  Girl Girl's Weird Thing
  Godzilla
  Heart of Ashgabat
  Heatherington Pink
  Johannisbeertomate
  Karma Purple
  Meme Beauce
  Momotaro
  Mountaineer Mystery
  M's Sun Sugar
  Namio
  Olive Hill
  Polish
  Pomidor Paw
  Post Office Spoonful
  Queen Aliquippa
  Rebel Yell
  Risentaube
  Rosa De Barbastro
  Rozovyi Gigant Ukrainskiy
  Sandul Moldovan
  Soldacki
  Sunrise Bumble Bee
  Zapotec

[AKgardener]

Wow such a big list!! Hope all goes well.. won’t be growing any peppers or tomatoes this season .. think it’s gonna be a colder summer..

[MissS]

This is a great list. You should enjoy eating all of these wonderful tomatoes.