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Post by walt on Jan 10, 2018 14:24:46 GMT -5
I'm suprised at the comments about Roma tomato. I like it and it has always given me good results. I have always gardened organicly, or rather I've never used pesticides. I've bought fertilizers and used them sometimes when I didn't have manure in good supply. Never blossom end rot on anything. Might be due to limestone bedrock here. I think calcium is recommended for blossom end rots? Not sure. I never had to look it up.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jan 10, 2018 15:04:56 GMT -5
I don't grow Roma tomatoes mostly from a philosophical standpoint really. Didn't know they had blossom end-rot problems. I used to eat lots of roma tomatoes and considered them fine. But then it seemed like the ones we got in the stores tasted worse and worse and got paler and paler over the years. Maybe my taste buds changed, or maybe i just became more aware or picky. The roma types have turned into my minds image of THE Cardboard tomato. So i don't eat them anymore because of that. Too artificially bred. Taste terrible, at least they did last time i ate one. I also have an aversion to anything Italian so i don't grow Italian tomatoes due to principle anyway, not that i particularly think they have superior genetics anyway. According to others, these tomatoes do not.
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Post by RpR on Jan 10, 2018 16:48:37 GMT -5
In mid-Minn. with gardens fifty miles apart I also never had blossem end rot on Roma.
I do not grow that type much any more as I do not make as much chilli as I used to and they are good for chilli base.
Last year was the only year ever I had problems with some sort of disease of any type.
I will get my tomatoes from different sources and see if it has gone away.
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Post by reed on Jan 10, 2018 18:51:19 GMT -5
I'm glad I don't care about the pros or cons of particular varieties anymore. As far as tomatoes go I'm real happy with the ones I have now, some of mine for a long time, some great ones form Joseph and Tom and some good F 4 or 5 de-hybridized ones. I'v never had much issue with blossom end rot but if it shows up on a plant or plants they will be immediately discarded.
It's been warm today but ground thawed on the top but not underneath is just a layer of slop with the constancy of baby food so I stayed in mostly and read lots more about bees. Wow to say there is a lot of spirited discussion on the issue is an understatement but I figured it out.
I'm gonna build my hives and one of them will be prepped appropriately with the recommended baits and the like and hoisted the recommended height of 12 to 15 feet in a big tree not far from where I will eventually place it. I don't see the need for the separate trap box and the step of moving them from it to the hive.
If When the bees move in I will do nothing except watch. After they settle in a week or so I'll lower it to the stand where it will stay. I'm putting in the glass observation windows although some people say they aren't worth the effort but I want to be able to look inside easily.
I might feed them if I think it's necessary but other than that ALL I'm gonna do is watch. I'm not even gonna swipe any honey. If they are happy and if they do well then I'll learn to split hives till I have enough and know enough to feel ok about taking some honey.
Being easier for them to defend, with me helping defend them from other insects such as wasps that might try to move in, protected from bigger critters by electric fences, I expect my hive will be superior in many ways to just any old tree hole. SO, if they succumb to mites or disease it won't be my fault and it won't be anything that wouldn't have happened anyway.
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Post by reed on Jan 26, 2018 10:35:05 GMT -5
Well shucks, after encouraging performance thru the first bad cold spell (-14 F) most all of my brassica and choi plants look pretty much dead. The first spell was actually colder and almost no snow but several were still alive. A period of much warmer followed that and then the second cold spell ( -10 F) seems to have done them in despite a little more snow.
I wonder if warm following cold encourages a little bit of growth that makes them more subject to the next cold spell. I am pretty certain that absent the sub-zero temps I could have pulled it off. There are 1/2 dozen across all crops that may still be just barely alive. I won't get in any hurry to rip up the spots this spring, maybe some live roots are still in there.
Due to huge populations of the white and yellow cabbage flies these crops are worthless to me grown in the traditional way. Besides I don't want to wait months for a stupid head of cabbage or a Brussels sprout. I want fresh greens in late winter or very early spring, I'm not giving up or giving in to the use of netting, at least not yet.
Mostly just because we like em but also because they sell good I put over on the seed trade thread that I was looking for pelargonium seeds. I finally found then from a little outfit in Greece, I just got notice they have been shipped. Funny, as I was searching for seed I came across serious advice that they should not be grown from seed cause they don't breed true. O the horror, what if a rose scented one comes up smelling like pineapple?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 26, 2018 10:53:51 GMT -5
There are 1/2 dozen across all crops that may still be just barely alive. I won't get in any hurry to rip up the spots this spring, maybe some live roots are still in there. Sounds encouraging! |
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jan 26, 2018 11:10:08 GMT -5
Reed, just my opinion, but I pretty firmly believe that what usually kills winter brassicas isn't so much the cold as dessication from wind. Basically they get freeze dried by below freezing air that's at essentially 0 relative humidity. My best winter brassicas with the best winter hardiness all avoid the wind by staying as flat to the ground as they possibly can in a rosette. Tatsoi does this and is the hardiest B. rapa I've grown. The hardiest B. juncea I've got is Green-in-snow and that stays flat as a pancake( Did I give you some of that?). The winter annual and perrenial brassica weeds that are very common around here do this too, Barbarea cress, and Pennycress all have a flat winter survival rosette, I'd say selecting for the flattest plants will go a long way towards upping your hardiness. I've had Brussels sprouts overwinter unprotected, but they only live in the parts that remain below the snow level, out of the wind. Russian kale will sprout from the root system. You can also propagate olearaceas and napus' from root cuttings, so any survivors can be expanded to give you more plants for seed. That's a cool trick that I learned from ottawagardenerIf you don't want to use something like floating row cover (Agribon etc), I'd say a good option might be to have runs of snow fence perpendicular to your prevailing winter wind? It would stop the freeze drying effect I think, and also possibly dump extra snow on top of them for added protection. I'd probably use the orange stuff, but you could easily make attractive wooden snow fences if you care about aesthetics in the garden. |
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Post by reed on Jan 27, 2018 4:33:06 GMT -5
Joseph Lofthouse, I guess it is encouraging that a handful still show life, look on the bright side so to speak. Any that do make it will be treasures. The two very cold spells this year were really hard on things. I'v learned my lesson though on giving up too soon and won't be too hasty to till and replant the areas that might have some live roots. oxbowfarm, yes you sent me a nice assortment and the one called Green in Snow really caught my attention. I'v got a lot to learn about growing some of these crops. I know the traditional way around here of planting in spring so that they mature in hot weather with clouds of cabbage flies doesn't work very well. When it comes to my goal of winter greens I also need to learn more just basic stuff, like the difference between the various species.
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Post by steev on Jan 27, 2018 5:56:30 GMT -5
The cool thing is that there are different things which suit different conditions; then there are locally developed landraces, which suit our personal needs. It's an adventure. We'll learn, one hopes, perhaps faster than the plants.
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Post by richardw on Jan 28, 2018 12:12:51 GMT -5
Due to huge populations of the white and yellow cabbage flies these crops are worthless to me grown in the traditional way. Besides I don't want to wait months for a stupid head of cabbage or a Brussels sprout. I want fresh greens in late winter or very early spring, I'm not giving up or giving in to the use of netting, at least not yet. |
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jan 29, 2018 10:06:34 GMT -5
reed I hope it works out well for you. We definitely have cabbage whites, but they aren't a super serious problem with regard to brassica growing IMO. Although they do tend to jack up cabbage if you don't use rowcover. I don't typically grow much cabbage, enough for us for a few batches of kraut. Cabbage is not a profitable crop for a market garden in my opinion, people expect it to be cheap and act like you are ripping them off when you are charging a break even price. Similar to sweet corn. For us, the serious brassica pests are flea beetles and swede midge.
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Post by reed on Feb 3, 2018 17:00:56 GMT -5
I don't see a lot of flea beetles other than on potatoes and occasionally tomatoes. They don't seem to do a lot of damage, just some little holes although I suppose that could spread disease. I'll have to keep a better eye on that now that I'm growing more potatoes. Don't know what a swede midge is, other than what I just looked up on google. Hope that is far as my knowledge of them goes.
We have clouds of the cabbage flies both the white and yellow ones. If they are different species no one told them that not at all uncommon to see them in the act. Big swarms of them chasing each other around are actually pretty but there are way too many to go to the trouble the fight them. If I can get my greens before they show up they can have the leaves on the plants as they go to seed.
Around here not much of anything to eat is profitable on a small scale at least. I sell a few plants in spring, mostly tomatoes and marigolds also cabbage and the like. In fall decoration corn and squash sell good. People are happy to pay high prices for flowers and decorations but not food. I want to develop corn and squash for that purpose first but I also want to be able to eat it. Swarms of stink bugs often destroy all my squash, so bad I may give it up completely and focus on sweet potatoes instead.
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Post by gilbert on Feb 3, 2018 18:52:57 GMT -5
I have white cabbage moths, but they are not much of a problem, I've found. Aphids are a much bigger threat to my cabbages; the whole head turns into a mass of aphids that can't be easily washed out. The same thing happens to kale, but I can notice it and wash them off. Flea beetle damage on young brassicas can sometimes be devastating here, and they also like eggplant.
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Post by richardw on Feb 4, 2018 15:16:08 GMT -5
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Post by reed on Feb 4, 2018 15:34:58 GMT -5
richardw, O WOW those are tremendous. I'v never had them that tall but I also never actually cultivated them, just let them do on their own. Hope you get the full range of color. They are selected for larger flowers with fewer petals, I cull the little flowers as soon as identifiable but they have never gone away completely. The holy grail for me is larger flowers in pure white. The best one ever showed up last fall right against the kitchen window. I shook it's seeds all around the place and marked the plant, it should live another year or so. Anxiously waiting to see yours in bloom. They are the last flower here before freezing and stay pretty after frosts start. I wonder what they will do with your milder climate, they may stay bloomed most of the winter.
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