Hey Fellow Floridians - Year 2

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by efisakov

How was it?

It was really wonderful Ella. When you move here, you must attend one.

[kurt]

Originally Posted by Ricky Shaw

Wish I'd of checked in on this thread, the event was presently 12 miles from us. Or in Miami drive time, about an hour. Rained 4 inches in Pembroke Pines on Saturday, that's a lot of rain to me, but locals seem to shrug it off as nothing much.

That would be 4 ft of snow up your way,I spent time in the Alps probably slow down a road or two.During our rainy season proper,two weeks of rain ,drizzly,4ft High splash monsoon,horizontal 15 plus driving rain,then sun comes out one side of street,asphalt steams up,you have a flat tire yippee,now that’s our rainy season.

[Zone9b]

Picked beans on Sunday. Both Pike and Boone varieties were quite productive. This is the best fall bean season that I have had in a long time. Fall is often challenging for snap beans here in Central Florida. At least for me. Rust can be an issue. Boone but not Pike is resistant to rust, but I didn’t have a problem with rust this fall. Pike is said to produce a concentrated set and that is my experience. Two good picks and that is about it, however, this can be an advantage of continuous set if you want to use your bed for something else, like Broccoli. Boone was a complete surprise. Given that it is said to be continuous set, I assumed that 1st pick would be small as it usually is with a continuous set variety. To my surprise Boone’s first pick was even better than Pike, in fact the best first pick I have seen from any bean variety.
I’m not sure what this means. Will Boone turn out to be a concentrated set variety or will it produce ,as a continuous set variety, several large picks. Time will tell.

I have often thought that one of the reasons that my fall snap season is in general worse than my spring season is the fact that it is said that nematodes are a bigger problem in the fall then in the spring. However, I am somewhat unsure of this. Look at my second picture, which is of roots from one of the Pike bean plants I pulled. Would you believe that this plant was actually loaded with beans which were of acceptable size. The nematodes are certainly there in the bed but don’t seem to have actually hugely affected the production of beans. If I had a tomato plant with nematode activity like this I would be very lucky to get a single tomato from the plant.
Speaking of tomato plants and nematodes, the third picture is of a Brandywine Cherry Dark OP (BCD) tomato plant. It is hard to see in the picture but the BCD plant has a lot of tomatoes on it. BCD appears to be quite resistant to nematodes. Tomande F1 plants are also doing very well in my RBs.

After pulling and picking the Pike beans I transplanted Castle Dome Broccoli into the bed. A picture is attached.

[Barb_FL]

Everything looks so good; including your soil. No problem with weeds in your raised beds? I've been using the weed barrier and if any mix/dirt pools in one area, a tiny weed will grow.

I ate my first tomato of the season this year. Two were ready and I ate them both; the early winner was Pink Bumblebee. Very good and a beauty to look at.

I have another tomato that changed color and will be ready in a couple of days. Sun Peach owns the honor.

After that everything is green, growing, and setting a lot of fruit.

I usually eat my first ripe BIG tomato on Dec 1; that is the goal I shoot for. It won't happen this year though; hopefully a lot of cherry tomatoes will be available.

---
One day last week I went to the hydro store for ProMix. They were having a vendor day on Saturday with 20% off coupon. The vendor sells Water Only Potting mix and worm castings.

On the water only Potting mix, everything is suppose to be in it. It's pretty pricey $25 for 1 CU foot; so that would be $50 to fill an EB. (vs $41 for 3.8 CU Promix which fills 3.5 EBs) Well the vendor ended up giving me a bag to try in the EB and report back. So I thought I should have a control EB and test using the same plants / same area (ie sun exposure). Since I only had some Sun Peach/Gold/Chocola seedlings left and Sweet Scarlett, I went with Sweet Scarlet. The cherries would be just too easy and set fruit regardless. Will log progress.

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by Barb_FL

Everything looks so good; including your soil. No problem with weeds in your raised beds? I've been using the weed barrier and if any mix/dirt pools in one area, a tiny weed will grow.

I ate my first tomato of the season this year. Two were ready and I ate them both; the early winner was Pink Bumblebee. Very good and a beauty to look at.

I have another tomato that changed color and will be ready in a couple of days. Sun Peach owns the honor.

After that everything is green, growing, and setting a lot of fruit.

I usually eat my first ripe BIG tomato on Dec 1; that is the goal I shoot for. It won't happen this year though; hopefully a lot of cherry tomatoes will be available.

---
One day last week I went to the hydro store for ProMix. They were having a vendor day on Saturday with 20% off coupon. The vendor sells Water Only Potting mix and worm castings.

On the water only Potting mix, everything is suppose to be in it. It's pretty pricey $25 for 1 CU foot; so that would be $50 to fill an EB. (vs $41 for 3.8 CU Promix which fills 3.5 EBs) Well the vendor ended up giving me a bag to try in the EB and report back. So I thought I should have a control EB and test using the same plants / same area (ie sun exposure). Since I only had some Sun Peach/Gold/Chocola seedlings left and Sweet Scarlett, I went with Sweet Scarlet. The cherries would be just too easy and set fruit regardless. Will log progress.

Barb, I adore your experiments. I can't wait to hear.

[Barb_FL]

I'm thinking the season is going to be a good one. Weather has been fantastic.

I'm off the pool deck. I have 14 of the 17 EB filled, 13 with tomatoes and 1 with cucumbers.

Here's some pictures taken on 11-16-17. On the first shot, the first EB with the closest plant is a SunGold that was planted when we got back in October. It already has set fruit. Next to it is SunChocola also sowed in October after the ones brought back from TN didn't make it. Their sister fruit, SunPeach is an amazing plant; dealt with with heat/humidity much better than SunChocola. Set tons of fruit already. Equally as impressive as Esterina. Most of the dwarfs in the pictures were sowed in October.

I have since planted all the broccoli I sowed. Also planted 8 plants in my neighbors yard. Only using 16 of my 32 square feet of raised beds. Using a long corridor of raised bed with shading for the microgreens I'm growing.

[ginger2778]

Looking like you'll be killing it again this year, Barb.

[Zone9b]

Originally Posted by Barb_FL

Everything looks so good; including your soil. No problem with weeds in your raised beds? I've been using the weed barrier and if any mix/dirt pools in one area, a tiny weed will grow.

I ate my first tomato of the season this year. Two were ready and I ate them both; the early winner was Pink Bumblebee. Very good and a beauty to look at.

I like your pictures. Your garden looks great. I have some weeds in the old raised beds, which are approximately 5 years old, but it isn't much work to keep them clean.
I ate a tomato from the garden this morning. It was a Burpees Big Pink F1. It wasn't big but it really tasted good.
I picked another bed of Pike snap beans this morning. It was a first pick for the bed and the plants were loaded with beans. I picked 8 Colanders full which filled 4 grocery store plastic bags. May result in up to 20 quarts of frozen beans. Later Update: 23 quarts frozen in all.
Picture below. Our Cockatoo is keeping me company.

[BigVanVader]

If you like Pink BB you gotta grow Maglia Rosa.

[efisakov]

Barb, nice pictures. Beautiful setup. That is a lot of work.

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by Zone9b

I like your pictures. Your garden looks great. I have some weeds in the old raised beds, which are approximately 5 years old, but it isn't much work to keep them clean.
I ate a tomato from the garden this morning. It was a Burpees Big Pink F1. It wasn't big but it really tasted good.
I picked another bed of Pike snap beans this morning. It was a first pick for the bed and the plants were loaded with beans. I picked 8 Colanders full which filled 4 grocery store plastic bags. May result in up to 20 quarts of frozen beans. Later Update: 23 quarts frozen in all.
Picture below. Our Cockatoo is keeping me company.

That sure is a lot if beans, Larry. The garden looks wonderful. What's your birdie's name?

[Zone9b]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

That sure is a lot if beans, Larry. The garden looks wonderful. What's your birdie's name?

Marsha,
Thanks for the complement and the birdie’s name is Baby Mac. Baby has turned out to be quite appropriate given that each time we leave him alone he raises a big fuss; just like a baby.
On another note, I posted a picture of roots of a Snap Bean a few posts up. I assumed the root bumps were resultant of nematodes, but I am not 100 percent sure. When I look at online pictures of root nematode damage and nitrogen nodules on snap bean roots it is hard for me to see the difference. Last fall I tried again to grow Lima Bush beans and there was no mistaking the damage on them. They were swollen and a mess. Also, I had decent looking vines but very few Lima beans. Nematodes for sure. However, the snap beans roots in the picture above look more or less normal except for all the bubbles/bumps and the plant had a lot of nice beans on it. I’m hoping you or Barb or anyone could weigh in here and give an opinion Nematodes or Nitrogen bumps and what are the telltale signs.
Thanks so much,
Larry

[ginger2778]

Larry, I looked up photos of both. To my eye, your plant has nitrogen nodules rather than nematodes. It looks just like the photo I just posted. The nematodes have longer fuller root tumors, not lots of little round nodules. And you have some normal looking roots between the nodules, you don't get that when nematode infected.

[Zone9b]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

Larry, I looked up photos of both. To my eye, your plant has nitrogen nodules rather than nematodes. It looks just like the photo I just posted. The nematodes have longer fuller root tumors, not lots of little round nodules. And you have some normal looking roots between the nodules, you don't get that when nematode infected.

Marsha,
That seems perfectly reasonable to me. As I said above the plant with all the nodules on the roots was loaded with fully developed beans. That's why I pulled it to begin with; i.e. there were no small beans on it, so it would have taken weeks to get another set of beans on it.
From here on, I think I will have a better idea what I am looking at when I look at roots with lots of bumps on them.
Thank you very much,
Larry

[maxjohnson]

My tomatoes seedlings survived three days indoor without lighting during the hurricane so they were all leggy (since I was out of state), but most turned out well. These are 5 weeks from transplant.

I am using no fertilizers in my (nematodes) raised beds for the tomatoes this time.

I thought I was going to move so I didn't start vegetables sooner.

Jaune Flamme is the one with the earliest fruit.

Cosmic Eclipse is the biggest plant so far, which is also in the most shady spot of the raised beds. And side comparison with one in container which is much smaller, but probably due to too much rain which slow it down.

My biggest hope this season are the Paul Robeson and the corns. I'm going to use Bt more religiously this season. There are lots of white flies, but no curly leaves virus seen so far.