What I learned this year - Page 5

fonseca · July 30, 2015

I learned a few things:

-I need to get trellises up well BEFORE they are needed.
-I need an irrigation system to keep self-watering containers topped off. 5 plants in a 100 gallon container can use 20 gallons of water in a day during heat waves. Also manually refilling 20 self-watering containers takes a lot of time.
-Use floating row covers on brassicas! My yard has been a haven for cabbage white butterflies this year, and I have surely killed thousands of caterpillars. They reduced my harvest by half.
-3 gallon growbags get too hot in 100 degree weather. The same plants in 5 gallon self-watering buckets survived the worst of the heat.
-I need a physical barrier between my plants and squirrels. I lost HUNDREDS of tomatoes in just a few days to half a dozen squirrels. They don't care about cayenne/garlic/onion spray, predator urine or tufts of cat and dog fur tied everywhere. They drank the water and ate the sunflower seed I left out for them, but still took a few bites out of every green tomato.

July 30, 2015	#61
fonseca Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2015 Location: Raleigh, NC Posts: 205	I learned a few things: -I need to get trellises up well BEFORE they are needed. -I need an irrigation system to keep self-watering containers topped off. 5 plants in a 100 gallon container can use 20 gallons of water in a day during heat waves. Also manually refilling 20 self-watering containers takes a lot of time. -Use floating row covers on brassicas! My yard has been a haven for cabbage white butterflies this year, and I have surely killed thousands of caterpillars. They reduced my harvest by half. -3 gallon growbags get too hot in 100 degree weather. The same plants in 5 gallon self-watering buckets survived the worst of the heat. -I need a physical barrier between my plants and squirrels. I lost HUNDREDS of tomatoes in just a few days to half a dozen squirrels. They don't care about cayenne/garlic/onion spray, predator urine or tufts of cat and dog fur tied everywhere. They drank the water and ate the sunflower seed I left out for them, but still took a few bites out of every green tomato.