Member discussion regarding the methods, varieties and merits of growing tomatoes.
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September 15, 2010 | #16 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Seattle
Posts: 581
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With a December frost, you still have time to get in a nice crop of snow peas: about 50 days from seed to eat. Last planting about 4 weeks before frost - they'll get 12-18", then go dormant. As soon as the ground warms up in spring, they'll take off again. While your neighbors are planting theirs, you'll be watching for flowers.
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September 17, 2010 | #17 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: zone 5
Posts: 821
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Like this:
1. Enlist the help of the munchkins for about an hour. 2. Go in house and make large pitcher of iced tea to avoid yelling at munchkins. 3. Bring excellent tune selection outside with tea. 4. Dismiss munchkins to go play Wii and enjoy working solo with tunes and tea until around 2pm when munchkin tummy rumbling over-rides the magic of the Wii. 5. Post lunch pat self on back for not murdering munchkins and getting so much done and waste the rest of the day under a blanket reading! |
September 18, 2010 | #18 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: MA
Posts: 4,971
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More fun?
Well, imagining I'm in Bizzaro World is about the only way. |
September 21, 2010 | #19 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: PNW
Posts: 4,743
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Everything looks so clean and organized afterwards, that has
a certain satisfaction. Because I want to get as much cover crop growth as possible before they go dormant for the winter, I am always champing at the bit to get seeds planted in the holes where the plants were, so once they are pulled I can finally do that and stop worrying about whether they will be well enough established to survive the winter and hungry squirrels. (I started in mid-August for the paths between the rows, and those plants are looking good, but I like to get some winter annual beans or vetches growing right in the planting holes, too, where compounds exuded from their roots can go to work on the handfuls of rock phosphate that were worked into the soil under each plant at plant out.)
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September 21, 2010 | #20 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Anmore, BC, Canada
Posts: 3,970
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Dice,
This is so true! I am ~25% through the cleanup, and it is already getting visibly cleaner and prettier. Our weather has been certainly a complication this year (too much rain lately), and the soil is very saturated. Another complication is that everything is so late, that I am hesitating to pull many plants yet, hoping they'd continue to ripen a bit more fruits (i.e. peppers and melons), so I am risking getting to far into the late fall before I plant my winter rye... More rain is expected this week.
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September 21, 2010 | #21 | |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: PNW
Posts: 4,743
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Quote:
there are a lot of green tomatoes on some plants that just need a couple of nice days to blush. I have bell beans and hairy vetch in the paths, with some alsike clover and winter dormant alfalfa mixed in. Those plants are going to be fine over the winter. Last year one bed had a well-established cover crop despite planting most of it after all of the plants were pulled, but in another, larger bed, squirrels ate a lot of the emerging bell beans and some of the vetch, and coverage was rather sparse. (I could see little holes all over it where they had been mining seeds and seedlings with most of the seed still attached.) That allows more soil compaction from winter and spring rains [edit:], and it reduces the winter/spring rhizosphere available for winter habitat for beneficial bacteria and mycorhizzae.[/edit] The tomato plants in the first bed with the good cover crop growth last winter and spring grew better this year than the tomato plants in the bed where last year's winter cover crop was decimated by squirrels.
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-- alias Last edited by dice; September 21, 2010 at 04:17 PM. Reason: detail |
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