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Post by canadamike on Sept 5, 2009 22:42:38 GMT -5
Not only one grungy, many ones, as now there will be a whole bunch of folks asking for them to others and growing them in their gardens...
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Post by michaeljohnson on Sept 5, 2009 22:53:51 GMT -5
Regarding Lime,- the best possible lime that you can ever add to your garden and containers-is Dolomite lime, if you can get it ??, as not all places stock it, and when they do it is usually in small bags at that, but it is marvelous for stopping B.E.R in your garden provided you dig it in early Jan/Feb time.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Sept 6, 2009 13:13:37 GMT -5
We get dolomite lime pretty easy around here. At the "big box" store it's in 40 lb bags for less than $3 each. Alternatively, it can be purchased by "scoops" and tons from ag stores who will come and spread it for you as part of the delivery service. I'm of the opinion that the lime we added to this plot is the ONLY reason we got any tomatoes at all this year! But heck, with late blight, BER is sort of immaterial! ::sigh::
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Post by canadamike on Sept 6, 2009 15:08:31 GMT -5
Ber problems can easily be solved with a lil' watering of diluted milk...around here, in the old days, spoiled milk from dairy farmers always ended up in the tomato patch...
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Post by mnjrutherford on Sept 6, 2009 17:36:56 GMT -5
Really? now that IS interesting Mike. We put all our spoiled food into the TP. Milk seldom gets the opportunity to spoil in our house though... Any idea what it does to the soil?
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Post by canadamike on Sept 6, 2009 22:20:29 GMT -5
Here are some pictures of Tom's taters in my garden, taken today september 6 2009, long after the apparition of blight around here. I will post a few of them plant pictures, without saying too much, Tom already knows which is which, nobody else but him and I could otherwise, but they were taken today and prove that the plants are well behaving. I lost my battery power for the 5th one, but have faith, it is true, and on top of that I would add that GRANOLA is showing SOME tolerance, the plants are very affected but survive here. The actual yield is roughly the equivalent of a commercial one, about 1.5 pound a foot, nothing compared to my usual yield, not even remotely so, about one third or less of it, please note I love to grow them in freshly turned ground, the more clover the better. I still haven't read much about clover importance in potato growing. I read about freshly turned ground being the best, I witnessed it with experience, but who is talking about clover??? I have seen the difference in the health and production of the plants so much. AQnyway, we will know much when I come back from Europe, this is a new field and these are new potato varieties for the most, One ''dipoid'' ( according to Tom who apparently can recognize them ) The tater..note it is small, they call it late blight....for late potatoes... I did not taste that one, I had to clean it in some stale water and did not feel I needed any disease... A bigger earlier tater with blue flesh, absolutely delicious, the plant shows some redishness at the end of only a few leaves,I saw a couple of petioles dried, but that is it, so small a damage it could be something else, almost invisible but looks healthy. If it was not for late blight all around I would not even have noticed. The tuber, really delicious and bigger, hence earlier than a really late tater: Here is a white flesh one, small tuber, hence late tubering, but a healthy plant: The tuber: Here is a fantastic one, with so much dry matter you can't easily chew on it raw, it is almost like eating a rock. So much so it is not even a pleasing experience for your teeths to eat it raw. Please do not translate that to cooked results. For newbies, more dry matter can mean more true nutrition...more potato and less water. And it is also the biggest tuber I got from the late ones at the moment ( earlier in the late ones ), so some hope is in order. Please note it has been a terribly wet summer after the June draught, July1 it started raining for 50 days or so, leave out 4 in the lot, and raining a lot. Many potato cultivar busted in the ground, exploding like cherry tomatoes. The healthy plant: The tuber I can't easily chew on: This is as much as I can say before leaving for Europe I guess, but , all of you, these pictures are yours and use them liberaly, they mean a single stubborn man and a few friends can change the world... Michel
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Post by maricybele on Mar 13, 2010 19:10:13 GMT -5
Does anyone use corn meal tea or corn meal to treat soil? I had 2 beds last year with tomato blight and I want to give that soil and surrounding a boost with some corn meal tea. Any tips or opinions on best timing? I tried cornmeal (in February)on my rose bed in the front yard and the a lot in the back yard. The rosebed is shared with cilantro(read cornmeal was good for roses and lawns and trees)and now my 100 or seeds of cilantro are not coming up, the ones that were already sprouting came up. In the back yard(where I sprinkled corn meal all over the place, I did notice that the dandelions are noticeably less aggresive and flowery than the front yard which I didn't spread around except for the roses, which by the way are unusually weed free. I think regular cornmeal also has pre emergent qualities. I have a green house and will start my seeds all there this year just in case I have the same issue in all the places the cornmeal sprinkle fairy did her magic. I know cornmeal isn't super long lasting, as far as pre emergence control because I have used it before on my lawn. I am thinking of adding cornmeal tea to my almost finished compost before placing it on beds where I am reviving the soil. I sent all the dead diseased tomato plants to the dump last year, but blight was in the garden and is long lasting and I can't remember if this compost pile heated much, I am a pretty lazy composter in the winter I use the aerating stick about twice and turn it about twice and a few times in the spring and summer, My compost usually takes about 6-8 months. Besides good sanitation any other precautions? How many years does one rotate tomatoes/potatoes out of a bed?
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