Some of Anne's 9a Garden 5-1-13

[z_willus_d]

Anne, your tomato plants look amazing. The number of humongous fruit your getting on each leader is very impressive. I also like the look of your corn. So do you hand-pollinate to get all that fruit set, or are your bees on pollen crack? BTW, you might need to hand-pollinate the corn, with such a confined row. Love your ingenuity with the stool, and also the garden as a whole.

Good job!
-naysen

[sprtsguy76]

Looking awsome!

Damon

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[aclum]

Hi Naysen and Damon,

Thanks for the nice comments!!

I do use a toothbrush to help pollinate the tomatoes and I think that plus the pruning makes all the difference in the fruit set and fruit size. Thanks for the idea of hand pollinating the corn, too, Naysen. For some reason that hadn't occurred to me. Had one big black bumblebee helping me out with the tomato pollination, but now that the cukes, squash, melons, etc. have blossomed, the honeybees have arrived in huge numbers.

Oh, you know those beautiful, near perfect looking Santa Clara Canners in one of the photos? I was just out in the garden and they were about cooked!! Literally!! They were getting sort of mushy towards the bottom with the skin starting to shrivel a bit. I took the temp of the biggest (and hottest) one and it was 115 degrees inside and at the surface!! I may need to provide some more shading for some of the plants. Unfortunately, I think it's supposed to stay hot for the whole week ahead!

Anne

[z_willus_d]

Wow. I 115F inside the tomato. Pretty soon you'll have tomato sauce! I guess there is a downside to having less foliage to protect the tomatoes. I'm sure you'll work out some way to protect them with all your shade cloth hanging expertise.

BTW, Santa Clara Canner is on my list for next year. Is it equally good force canning as for slicing on bread?
-naysen

[aclum]

Hi All,

Well, no photos of the garden as a whole today (although I might post some photos of some of my grafts later in another thread). Just wanted to do a quick post about my harvest so far.

I picked a few of my first ripe tomatoes starting about May 21. I estimate we ate about 4# worth before I started recording the harvest weights and numbers on May 26 - 3 weeks ago. Counting the 4# prior to the weight recording, I've now harvested 115 lbs of tomatoes!! We've eaten lots of variations on tomato sandwiches with various meats and cheeses, gazpacho, juice, and salads. I've been freezing the ripe tomatoes we can't eat right away and when I have the time and energy, have been defrosting them and running them through the tomato mill. As the tomatoes defrost, a lot of water comes out of them that I dump and I end up with a fairly thick juice-puree.

Have also been counting green tomatoes and have 478 still on the vines, with lots of blossoms in spite of the heat.

I can't believe that it's only mid-June and I've already harvested so much with more to come. In prior years I didn't start harvesting until early June!

I need to start topping plants and plan for the "fall planting." I'll post some more photos when I get things organized again.

Anne

[b54red]

Anne that is an impressive setup with impressive plants. You may have to up your watering quite a bit with the heat you are having in order to keep the plants putting on fruit. It gets kind of tricky balancing the watering for new fruit set and keeping it low enough to not split the older fruit or make them bland from too much water. Good luck with the rest of your season.

Bill

[remy]

Great set up you got there!
Remy

[aclum]

Hi Remy and Bill,

Thanks for the nice words!

Bill,

Actually, your garden photos remind me very much of my own garden in terms of construction - lots of conduit, string trellis, and cable ties LOL!

I've had a hard time this year getting my watering right. I've got 4 different beds with tomatoes and all are on the same timer although each bed has a volume control so I can sort of even things out. Early in the season I was on a regular schedule and getting nice fruits except a lot were cracking so I cut back on the watering. Then we had really hot weather so I upped the watering times but cut back on frequency. I had some BER at the beginning of the season but seems a bit more widespread now. So, since the cracking has stopped I'm trying to work back to more adequate watering on a more regular schedule to see if it cuts down on the BER. It's been sort of difficult this year due to our changeable weather, plus 2 new elements thrown in this year - the silver mulch and the shade cloth. I guess I'll figure it all out eventually <g>.....

Anne

[efisakov]

Originally Posted by aclum

Hi All,

I need to start topping plants and plan for the "fall planting." I'll post some more photos when I get things organized again.

Anne

Dear Anne,
I wish I was half as organize as you are. Please keep on updating with your garden progress. Thank you for all the info.