Anne's 2021 Dwarf Garden

[aclum]

Hi again. Thanks for all the nice comments!

ddsack - I encourage you to give Kratky a try. I find it sort of amazing how well things grow and, although certain aspects of the process can be a bit of a pain, it's generally a fun thing to do (at least for me). You mainly just have to be careful not to drown the plant's air roots or let the buckets dry out (as I have done due to leaks ). I'm still very much a novice at the whole thing, though - and I suppose not everyone will be as easily amused as I am .

Raybo - You're too kind ! I see the garden more as unintentional "wabi-sabi" than "professional."

Funny - I was just thinking that my favorite thing besides selecting and starting seeds is garden infrastructure. I love creating, rearranging, and repurposing things for the garden each year. Once the heat comes on and I start to get overwhelmed with tomatoes (and/or I start getting pests and disease ), I tend to lose interest .

jmseiglaff - The stuff on the Kratky lids is reflectix insulation material and I have just plain silver plastic mulch covering the rest of the buckets/totes. For the Kratky, the purpose is both to keep the nutrient solution and plant roots cool and to block light to keep algae from forming (obviously more important if you're using a lighter colored bucket). On the raised beds, I've got the standard silver plastic mulch.

From the Burpee's site
Silver Mulch is one multi-tasking garden superstar! Increases photosynthesis by reflecting sunlight to the undersides of plants, leading to rapid growth; fends off aphids, cucumber beetles and squash vine borer; and aids in soil temperature control—all of which helps increase yields by up to 20%! 1¼ mil. Suitable for all types of plants and ideal for organic gardening.

Other sites also note that it keeps down weeds (to some extent) and helps retain moisture.

I've also found that it tends to lend itself to a more "professional" look to the garden

Anne

[aclum]

Hi,

Here are a few more quick photos that I took today, May 18.

First a photo of the main tomato garden after the gardeners had done their yard clean-up. They kicked up a ton of dust and, believe it or not, there are actually landscape fabric paths (covered in dirt/dust) in some areas. I'll put down new fabric in the bare areas. I'm leaving the rest of the raised beds empty for now as I put more stuff into Kratky - although I may try some corn in one of them if I can work up the energy.

Second is a photo of my kratky tomatoes showing all the dust and more of their trash can nutrient solution containers. I'll be adding a new nutrient reservoir and gravity fill system soon to keep the nutrient solution at the proper level.

Third is a photo of my Garfield Bell Pepper showing the dust

Forth is the little (but total) surprise I got when I pulled aside some of the Garfield leaves (PingTung Eggplant in the background and Wonder Bell pepper to its right)

Fifth PingTung Eggplants doing well in the Kratky

Last a photo of my new cucumber set-up made from "found objects" in the yard. You can see the float valve bucket and part of the elevaled 20 gal trash can nutrient reservoir that feeds into the float value bucket to maintain the tote water level. This is the sort of thing I'll be adding for the Kratky tomatoes.

That's all for now.
Anne

[ddsack]

Eggplant looks fantastic, and I bet you'll be enjoying that pepper soon! Very impressive set up!

[aclum]

Thanks ddsack!

For those who haven't seen Kratky roots before (or those who have but want to see more), here are a few photos of Wild Fred's roots that I took this morning (May 19).
The plant is in a bucket lid 6" net basket filled with hydroton clay pebbles. I'm guessing that the water level in the barrel (trash can) is about an inch below the bottom of the basket. It started out about an inch above the bottom of the basket. In one of the photos you can just barely see the inside of a spigot attached to the bottom of the barrel.

(I accidentally attached a near duplicate photo and am too lazy to figure out how to delete it at the moment - sorry about that).

Anne

[ddsack]

My goodness! Those roots are really doing their work. It seems so strange to me that eventually part of the root doesn't have to be in actual contact with any water (or soil) but of course it is humid inside the container. But when I think about it, perhaps plants grown in soil only need it for what micro-nutrients it can provide, and not because of any root support issues. Hmmm.

[cedrich99]

First time on site..yeah me. Have been container growing determinate type toms for past 10 years & last year decided to try a few DTP tomatoes & was very impressed. Live in the greater Seattle WA area (yes, a native) & our weather last year wasn't great & this year has been bizarre so far but seems to have settled down finally. I'm lazy & have an unheated basement & upstairs well, we have cats, so starting from seed has never worked out for me. I purchase starts & finally found some places that I can order from & after repeated requests to a local nursery they are finally in '21 carrying 8 or so different variety of DTP starts. Last year I was impressed with Velvet Night, Taz. Chocolate, Firebird Sweet & Sweet Scarlet so reordered & added Sneaky Sauce, Gold Finch, Moby's Cherry, Wild Fred, Wherokowhai & Rosella Purple to the driveway container garden. That's enough tomatoes for us two retirees. Changed out the container "soil" this year to Happy Frog so we will see how growing goes for '21. Best part I love about the DTP plants is that they stay smallish which at just under 5' I really appreciate & the variety. Thank you so much for the efforts everyone involved has spent to develope this type of tomato.

[aclum]

First tomato of the season Dwarf Pink Passion! I planted out April 4 and today is June 2 so 59 days. It's growing in soil (as opposed to Kratky) and has had couple of applications of AgroThrive. I counted 16 more green fruit on the plant.

More later....Anne

[rnewste]

Anne,

That's great - welcoming your first tomato of the Season! Hope you get many more.

Raybo

[Heritage]

Anne,

Great to see you are still the Mad 'Tomato' Scientist!
Things are looking great!

Steve

[aclum]

Thanks Raybo! Best wishes for you garden, too! Have you harvested your first tomato of the season yet? I always recall the one year some of us had a little "contest" to see who had the first tomato and whoever lost had to paint your house ! Looking forward to some garden update photos from you soon.

Hey Steve, Thanks for popping in to this thread. Very good to see you here . I think it's been a while since our paths have crossed on the forum. I sort of miss those "old days" when it seems like so many of us were experimenting and a few starting out with commercial enterprises with tomatoes, etc. Don't know about being a "mad tomato scientist" - at least the "tomato scientist" part . Still experimenting with things and trying to reinvent the wheel, though (it's sort of a compulsion at this point)

How are things down your way? How are you coping with the heat?

Anne

[Heritage]

Anne, I'm glad to have found this thread, you always have the most interesting and informative experiments!

I have about 250 tomatoes planted this year(1/2 dwarfs, 1/2 non-dwarfs). I also am still raising dahlias commercially and have about 1200 of those planted. PM me if you need any dwarf seeds for your experiments!

[aclum]

Thanks for you post Cedrich - very interesting. Keep us posted on your progress!

Steve - Thanks so much for the seed offer, but I think I'm OK for now. I think my "projects" can only be considered experiments because I'm never quite sure of what I'm doing . If I always knew what I was doing, it would just be regular gardening - if you know what I mean ....

Well, here's my June 16 garden update. I've got a bunch of photos. I'm going to try and post them in this order, but if I mess up, you can probably figure things out .

The Tomatoes
1 - Overview of the garden from the North East corner (previous overviews were from the South West corner. First row on the bottom shows - left to right: a Ping Tung Eggplant that somehow survived a major earwig attack, a weed , Sweet Scarlett, Wild Fred (also an earwig attack survivor) and Mt Gem. Next row up in photo - left to right: Boronia (discovered it wasn't getting enough water so is behind the others in growth), Rosella Crimson, Wherokowhai, Loxton Lad, Pink Passion. Next bed over - left to right: Uluhru Ochre, Wherokowhai, Purple Heart, Bunderburg Rumball.
2 - North West half of the main tomato bed. Row in the foreground, left to right: Sweet Scarlett, Wild Fred, Magic Gem. Behind them, left to right: Wherokowhai, Loxton Lad, Pink Passion.
3 - Rosella Crimson
4 - Loxton Lad on the right, Wherokowhai on the left
5 - Mountain Gem
6 - Wild Fred in Kratky 20 gallon Trash Can. I think it probably needs pruning but not quite sure how to do it exactly. Suggestions welcome! I sort of live in fear of poking around and inadvertently grabbing a hornworm

Eggplants and Pepper Kratky Bed
7 - Eggplants - left to right: Ping Tung, Rhapsody, Kamo. The Ping Tung is having some issues - I think probably due to the heat and water level issues, plus I discovered a leaf footed bug on the plant today. Will have to work on that. A second Ping Tung is in rehab currently (more on that later). Other do doing OK (so far!)
8 - Peppers - left to right: Felicity Jalapeno, Garfield, California Wonder Bell, Jimmy Nardello
9 - Eggplant in Rehab - It had root rot (probably due to water fluctuations and heat) and was attacked by aphids with the assistance of ants. My efforts to restore it to its original glory didn't work so I pruned it severely, pulled and rinsed off the root rot, and transferred it to a new bucket with fresh nutrient solution and some hydrogen peroxide. There are quite a few new shoots so hopefully it'll pull through. (My kratky lettuce bed can be seen in the background).
10 - FINALLY A view on my patio near the shade house thing. Left to right: corn to be transplants to soil, basil, beans, partenocarpic Dunja zucchini to go into 20 gal kratky, another Rhapsody Eggplant, a few dwarf tomatoes, more peppers and a dwarf tomato in the foreground and 3 parthenocarpic Eos Cucumber plants (have harvested 15 so far - they're very good!).

I've harvested a couple of Pink Passion (excellent but sort of mild), Bunderburg Rumball (loved this one), Mt Gem - not quite ripe. I have 3 very red Mt Gem fruit in my patio 3 gallon pots (with old Wonder Soil) that look great but are still hard as a rock! I've got 2 unlabeled dwarfs in one of my 2 gallon buckets. I just put them there because I didn't know what else to do with them and I can't bring myself to let them die (that'll come later in the summer ). I was surprised to find a ripe black smallish boat shaped tomato on it. I suspect it was Boronia and I thought, whatever it was, was very good.

Sorry I resized the photos so big!! Next time I'll keep them a little smaller.

I'm not sure if it shows up in any of the phtos, but a big branch just fell of the tree in our backyard lawn so the plants on the patio now have a little more light

That's what going on here today. Very warm day but not enough for the AC yet - that comes later in the week. We'll see how things go!

Anne

[rnewste]

Anne,


Your Mt. Gem has beautiful fruit coverage! You should get an excellent crop.


Raybo