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Post by sandbar on Aug 31, 2009 21:22:39 GMT -5
Sandbar, and anyone else that got toasted by the blight this year: Anything that we have seeds available for is yours for the asking when trading time starts. We will post the new list(s) and addresses to them and the albums when they are ready. Trades not required. Cheers Dan & Val Dan & Val ... bless your hearts. I will certainly get in contact with you when you post your lists. I exhausted my supply of Guido, Guernsey Pink Blush and Girafe Abricot (all obtained from you folks) this year so I could save a large quantity of seed. I wanted to return the favor and pay your genorosity forward to some of the 4-H clubs in our area. I judge vegetables at the county fair and am forging a relationship with some of these young people and their parents ... I am coaxing them into heirloom gardening! So, I had a couple dozen of each in the garden. They are now all dead. It's particularly frustrating because I chopped my variety count in half (90 varieties last year and only 45 this year) to make space for about 12 varieties that I wanted to save a significant amount of seed. We had a near record cool July and that gave the late blight the boost it needed. Also, we are contemplating selling our home and moving to the farm (wife's idea), and then, hopefully, building a new home out there. That will make tending the gardens much more convenient. We live 15 minutes away right now. So, it looks like winter time will be a time of home repairs as we prepare to sell this place and migrate to the farm. I am very interested if we could compile a list of late blight resistant heirloom varieties from our gardens. About the only thing that has survived for me is Berkeley Tie Dyed. It is just now showing signs of stress and the rest of the garden is toast. Hillbilly also hung in there but is now succumbing to the blight. Any other tough varieties out there? I saw a few mentioned in a post by Alan in a different thread. I would like to trial some of these for next year. Last year, I seem to remember that Aunt Gerties Gold hung in well right up to frost time. See ya' Steve.
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Post by grungy on Sept 1, 2009 0:17:18 GMT -5
Sorry to say, Steve, since we haven't seen either blight here or at the coast I couldn't be able to give you a list of varieties. However you might want to contact Tom at TaterMaters or here on the forum and ask him for some heirloom recommendations. Cheers, Val/grungy
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Post by PatrickW on Sept 1, 2009 5:06:40 GMT -5
Steve, There aren't a lot of good choices around for blight resistant tomatoes. There are lots of tomatoes around that CLAIM to be blight resistant, but few really are. It's a very regional thing, because there are a lot of different late blight variations around (it's mutates very quickly), so you are best talking to someone who lives near you about specifics. In general, the most blight resistant varieties are the small current or wild varieties, which are the least interesting for eating. In Europe the variety Tomatito de Jalapa has become very popular and shown a lot of resistance, but it may not be resistant in North America. On his blog recently Tom Wagner explained why it's difficult to breed blight resistant tomatoes: tater-mater.blogspot.com/2009_08_18_archive.htmlIn short it seems you can have small blight resistant tomatoes, you can have big tomatoes, but you can't have blight resistant big tomatoes, and no one really fully understands why.
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Post by PatrickW on Sept 1, 2009 6:27:17 GMT -5
Steve:
The other approach to take with late blight is to grow early varieties, since late blight normally appears towards the end of summer.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Sept 1, 2009 10:53:02 GMT -5
I need to plant fall stuff behind the tomatoes... IF I can. Onions, garlic, cabbages, carrots... a few other things but that's all that comes to mind at the moment. Is it safe? (I won't pull anyone's teeth whether it is or isn't! ;o)
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Post by PatrickW on Sept 1, 2009 11:37:25 GMT -5
No problem Jo. Go for it!
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Post by mnjrutherford on Sept 1, 2009 15:09:36 GMT -5
WHEW! Thanks Patrick! We put out 40 lbs of lime in that plot before planting it. I'm thinking that is probably why the tomatoes performed as well as they did. I'm hoping that the lime will also give a tremendous boost to anything else I plant there. The Genovese basil in particular is spectacular having reached a height of maybe 5'? Not quite as tall as me, but then it's bent over a bit with weight. I won't pull it, but I will trim it back severely. With any luck I'll get a second harvest of tender herb before the cold sets in. I'll have 3 types of dried basil to offer along with seeds!
By the by, is it of note that the peppers do not seem to be affected by the blight? They are right next to the tomatoes.
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Post by canadamike on Sept 1, 2009 19:04:16 GMT -5
Do not mix lime and blight in your mind. Lime helps most vegetables that do not love acidic soil, and it means most of them. I have had lime added to desperately dying patches of veggies. No correlation, except for the fact a vegetable growing healthier in an easier set up is lless conducive to diseases.
You are talking about general health, not resistance per say...
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Post by mnjrutherford on Sept 1, 2009 20:19:02 GMT -5
Thanks for pointing that out Mike. But no, I'm not getting it confused. We added the lime before planting that plot. It is the ONLY plot that has had lime added and it has put forth the best germination and growth of all the plots. It also FAR exceeded it's own performance from previous years. I'm desperate to get carrots, onions and the other winter veg mentioned and I was hoping that this plot could be safely used for that purpose.
We need to add lime to all of our soil.... But that is also a work in progress! =o)
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Post by PatrickW on Sept 2, 2009 4:52:37 GMT -5
Jo: Too much of anything can be a bad thing. Different plants need different amounts of lime, and just because what you did for tomatoes worked out well, doesn't mean adding lime is the right thing to do for other plants. If you get too much lime in your soil, it can be a difficult problem to cope with. Easy does it, just add it in moderate amounts and only when you think it's really necessary.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Sept 2, 2009 7:20:00 GMT -5
I hear you Patrick. The "all over" picture is that we have a ph of about 5. We are getting ready to sample all the soil again to determine exactly what we need to do for each plot. We have the orchard area that needs to be at 7.5 at LEAST and I sure am hoping we are there or our $1,000 investment is down the tubes. I want to achieve about a 6 everywhere else but I don't want to go around liming everything willy nilly without the numbers from samples.
Which brings me to another question. All the trees that are planted around. Should I test the soil there or just put down a small amount of lime?
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Post by PatrickW on Sept 2, 2009 7:56:16 GMT -5
Okay Jo, you're heading in the right direction. You have the right idea in mind with the lime.
I have a pH meter. It costs about $15 and I bought it from the garden center. It's not terribly accurate, but it's good enough. The idea is you stick one end in the ground and on the other end is a meter that tells you what the pH is of that spot. After you stick it in the ground, it takes about 2 minutes before the needle settles down and give you a reading, but otherwise you get nearly instant results and you can keep reusing it over and over.
I suggest you get one of these and check the pH in different places around your garden yourself, and add more lime where it's needed. Remember the pH doesn't usually change instantly after you add the lime, so you should add the amount of lime you think is correct, then check the soil again several months later.
I agree a pH of 5 is to acidic for nearly everything except blueberries.
For fruit trees and other that need a high pH, it should be no problem to just throw a few handfuls of lime on them in the spring, if you don't have a good way of measuring the pH for each tree separately.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Sept 2, 2009 12:44:31 GMT -5
Well I'll be darned. I LOVE the idea of having a little meter doo dad! The price is right as well. I can get "official" testing done for free from the extension office, but that would mean collecting about 10 samples (to get all the areas I need done), getting them TO the office, then waiting a few weeks for results. Having a little hand held gizmo would be a tremendous bonus particularly since we really do need lime a lot. ::laughing:: By the by, not even the blueberries are horribly thrilled with the current ph!!! ;o)
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Post by sandbar on Sept 5, 2009 19:52:15 GMT -5
Steve: The other approach to take with late blight is to grow early varieties, since late blight normally appears towards the end of summer. But ... I want the BIG ones and they take the whole summer ... I am going to try a high tunnel for some early crops next year in an attempt to pull the production up by several weeks. On a bright note, I took several varieties of heirloom tomatoes over to one 4-H family that sells at the local farmer's market last week. They grow the hybrid baseballs (Mountain Fresh, I think) and I have been trying to get them interested in heirlooms for a couple of years. I wanted them to taste the difference and see if I could convince them to do something different with their tomato crop. This morning at the market, I grabbed a couple Cherokee Purple that had escaped the blight and went over to see them. As I handed them to the father, he said, "Will these taste like the ones you gave us last week?" I said, "Well, I don't know. This is one of my favorites. Did you like the ones I gave you last week?" He replied, "After eating your tomatoes, we won't eat our own tomatoes anymore ... your tomatoes were awesome!" ;D Yeeesssss! Another convert! ;D
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Post by grungy on Sept 5, 2009 21:34:36 GMT -5
Fantastic, Sandbar! one at a time.
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