Hey Fellow Floridians - Year 2

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by efisakov

Marsha, wow. That is impressive. So much work in such a short period of time. Your back must be in pain. Nice job, girl.

Thanks you. It was a little sore.

[ginger2778]

Swap plants safely at the community garden.

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by Zone9b

Very impressive.

Thank you!

Originally Posted by greyghost

Marsha, that's a beautiful set up--you've really put a lot into your garden!
Can't wait to see it grow--hope you have a great harvest! Darlene

Thanks Darlene. Many of those plants are from your seeds. I'll be taking photos.

Originally Posted by Worth1

I see nematodes crawling up the sides of the containers.
Worth

you see microscopic nematodes, huh? Great eyes!

Originally Posted by Fiishergurl

Marsha those are just beautiful!!

Ginny

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Thank you so much, Ginny

Originally Posted by Zone9b

Marsha,
I'm curious as to how tall is the fence you are using for cages? They seem to be simply wrapped around each container. Do you not have to stake them in some fashion as well?
Larry

They are 5' tall cages made from galvanized field fencing that my husband and I just cut into pieces and bent to fit. They are closed every season with zip ties, at the bottom, and we cut those at the end of the season.
There are smaller tomato cages around each plant because otherwise they slump when the fruit gets large. Last season, no extra trellising, I just let them grow over the sides, but
I probably will trellis this season. We use 3 8' firring strips, 2 on one side, 1 on the other, hammered outside the box, but inside the cage, then just weave wire or cord around them for extra trellising. We mostly just do this when a plant is so large that it tips the box over.

[Zone9b]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

Thank you!
Thanks Darlene. Many of those plants are from your seeds. I'll be taking photos.
you see microscopic nematodes, huh? Great eyes!
Thank you so much, Ginny

They are 5' tall cages made from galvanized field fencing that my husband and I just cut into pieces and bent to fit. They are closed every season with zip ties, at the bottom, and we cut those at the end of the season.
There are smaller tomato cages around each plant because otherwise they slump when the fruit gets large. Last season, no extra trellising, I just let them grow over the sides, but
I probably will trellis this season. We use 3 8' firring strips, 2 on one side, 1 on the other, hammered outside the box, but inside the cage, then just weave wire or cord around them for extra trellising. We mostly just do this when a plant is so large that it tips the box over.

Thanks for the answer Marsha, I bookmarked this for potential future use.

This week end I pulled volunteer Sweet Potato plants from my native soil garden. I never fertilized or watered them but rainy September must have helped for when I turned the area over with a potato fork I retrieved quite a few sweet potatoes. I planted a couple of items in their place. First, I transplanted 42 Lacinato Kale plants. Second, I transplanted 13 Jade Cross E F1 Brussel Sprout plants. I haven’t grown this variety before and if it works I may try a greater number of plants next year. Brussel Sprouts don’t seem to be particularly easy to grow in Central Florida and they take a lot of time to mature.
I have quite a lot of Broccoli heading and I picked the first 2 heads this morning. The heads are just a bit over 5” but I got a lot of tender Broccoli stem with them. This first crop, as well as the last crop in May, take a beating from the heat and in this September a substantial amount of rain. I have my new transplants ready to go in as soon as these come out. Also, as soon as the new transplants go in I will use the seed cups to seed the third crop. I will try to have larger transplants ready for the third crop. My experience is larger transplants results in shorter days to maturity. While some write that there are disadvantages to large Broccoli transplants that has not been my experience. Maybe it is variety related.
Larry

[Fiishergurl]

Marsha the plants look great! !

Edited - oops I already said that. Looking at the pictures on my phone I thought they were new pictures. Either way they are so lush and healthy... :-)

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[Fiishergurl]

My Datil pepper plant that I posted before and asked what was wrong with it is doing much better. I guess is was probably lack of fertilizer after all and I didnt give it enough time to respond.

My tomato plants that took a beating in the storm are doing better also. I was going to pull them but instead just picked off all the bad leaves and they are starting to bush out again.





Also my Shi-shi-tos took a beating in the storm and I cut it back and it has lots of new growth. Yay!


Ginny

[Zone9b]

I am harvesting some of our first tomatoes of the season. Not many but enough for a salad.
Esterina Cherry F1 44 days from transplant
Bloody Butcher OP 45 days from transplant
Our nighttime lows are now in the 60s and our near term forecasted daytime highs appear to run between 79 and 82, which should be even more conducive for tomatoes setting.
Larry

[Fiishergurl]

Originally Posted by Zone9b

I am harvesting some of our first tomatoes of the season. Not many but enough for a salad.
Esterina Cherry F1 44 days from transplant
Bloody Butcher OP 45 days from transplant
Our nighttime lows are now in the 60s and our near term forecasted daytime highs appear to run between 79 and 82, which should be even more conducive for tomatoes setting.
Larry

Larry,

That's exciting! How do the Esterina Cherry taste? That's the one that was really growing a lot of tomatoes right?

Ginny

[Zone9b]

Originally Posted by Fiishergurl

Larry,
That's exciting! How do the Esterina Cherry taste? That's the one that was really growing a lot of tomatoes right?
Ginny

Yes, Esterina Cherry appears like it will be extremely productive. I haven't had a enough to get a good reading on the taste but they definitely are sweet and on top of that my taster isn't hugely discriminating.
You may want to look at Heirloomtomguy's pictures at the following link at post #226. He has a couple of great pictures of Esterina along with a lot of other varieties. On #226 he says, "This is the clear winner of this year so far. Prolific and delicious for me it beats Sun Gold all day long.......Esterina F1".
http://www.tomatoville.com/showthrea...=39703&page=16
Larry

[Barb_FL]

Ginny - your plants look great considering... You don't use a cover on your EB?


Larry - You win the first tomatoes of the season award. Definitely let us know how the Esterina tastes.

I went to the link you posted ! Wow - go down to his post #335; Amazing!!!! What is that stuff on the tomatoes though?
Where did you get your seeds?

Forgot to mention - Congrats on your broccoli - Mine always seem to need cold weather to set heads. I'm also growing some summer broccoli - just shoots no heads. All the broccoli has germinated well be growing so SLOOOOOWLY.

---
I'm getting quite a few flowers on the larger varieties.

ICD - (Indigo Cherry Drops) is the first fruit setter followed by SunGold. I hope ICD taste good because it seems to be very prolific. The tomatoes are larger than I thought - Big Cherries...which is fine with me.

For next summer, both of these can be sowed around 8/15-8/20....

[Fiishergurl]

Barb,

I do use a cover normally but i couldnt find them so I had to order more and didnt want to hold up transplanting. Well during hurricane cleanup, I found the ones that were missing and also the new ones arrived. Hubby is going to help me put them on when he gets home next week. We will have to cut larger holes and temporarily remove the cages but they are small enough still and then we will tape up the holes.

Ginny

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[Barb_FL]

I put the covers on last over the plant and just duct tape it. My plants are generally fairly large when I transplant them.

I had some covers from all the Replant kits I bought (get 2 per kit) but have been using compactor bags (30 for $10 at HD). This year I even cut the compactor bags in half vs having them doubled and I think I like it better....plus it comes out to $.15 for a cover.

And when the season is over, I use them for shading the EB from the blazing sun. Probably could wash them out and reuse them too.

--
When you buy the covers from EB, you get only 1 for $1.50, is that right?

[Fiishergurl]

Hi Barb,

I am going to use bags when these run out. I already use bags on my round 7 gallon swc's and that works fine.

I dont remember how much they were other than I remember thinking it was way too much.

How are your pepper plants doing?

Ginny

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[Barb_FL]

Originally Posted by Fiishergurl

Hi Barb,

How are your pepper plants doing?

Ginny

I only have pepper seedlings left.

On Weds b4 the storm, I brought all my tomato plants inside. I had stopped transplanting tomato plants earlier in the week, so only had 4 EB at the time and not that many root pouches. For the pepper plants, I pulled off all the peppers off the hot pepper plants and tossed the plant. For the other mature pepper plants, I put them behind the Lexan shutters; we didn't take the Lexan down until Monday because we were having huge Norfolk Pine trees removed on Sunday and the tree guy is generally careless. We wanted the Lexan to shield our floor to ceiling windows. Unfortunately once the trees were gone and no shade and having no water for days, the pepper plants in the EB cooked in there. However, he did hit the Lexan with tree branches. I had been seeing white flies so really was OK with losing the plants.

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by Fiishergurl

Marsha the plants look great! !

Edited - oops I already said that. Looking at the pictures on my phone I thought they were new pictures. Either way they are so lush and healthy... :-)

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Haha, they are gone gone Gone! Every one was taken, even the runts! That's a first. Thanks for the nice compliment, Ginny.