This weekend, I planted basil and cilantro, and some flowers. I harvested some purple bunching onions and the 1st artichoke of the year. My oranges are sweet and abundant. I don't know about the tomatoes, though. I'm trying a couple heirlooms this year for the first time. One keeps dropping all its blossoms and the other one ( a cherry ) has little fruits, but the leaves are small and covered with black spots. Anyway, that's what's up here. How about you?
it seems im contstantly transplanting little tomato seedlings. i must have over a hundred of them. theres four different heirloom varieties. i have two varieties of peppers too. my garden has lettuce, spinach, chard, beets, garlic, peas and kale but its all little babies. its pretty chilly here still. for your tomato that wont set fruit, you could try giving it wood ashes for potassium. the black spots, if it looks like fungal stuff, spray the leaves with baking soda and water, i found that really helped mine last year and kept them going long enough to get lots of fruit out of them.
Well on the winds swept west coast of Scotland we have actually had some sun and warmer weather so the pear, quince, apple and rowan (we make jelly from rowan berries) are all either in blossom or starting to pop into bloom. The raspberries , blueberries and strawberries are also coming back and sprouting green leaves and the rhubarb is coming thru. We planted broadbeans back in Feb and they are growing nicely as is the garlic set in Oct. All the herbs are coming back and the shallot onions are set too. Once we are sure to be over the risk of frost we will be planting more veggie seeds. Hope your tomatoes are better!!
We have a table full of seeds just coming up. I was worried because we're redoing the backyard to have patches of garden instead of one big garden, and it's a lot more work then I thought it would be. But, as it turned out...there was a blizzard here last week, so we don't have to hussle so much. I'm excited though. We're growing a little bit of a lot of things....and I'm anxious to see if we'll have more raspberries this year. Last year we had about 8 all summer, but the plants were just starting out.
Technically known as "abscised flowers", blossom drop, can be caused by many things. What variety tomato is it? What are your night time temperatures? What is the dew point locally? How often are you fertilizing and with what? Some older varities of tomatoes are just more prone to dropping flowers, in some cases night temperatures of 55F or below can do it, sometimes humidity and sometimes too much or too little nitrogen is the cause. Another possible cause is magnesium deficiency. Epsom salt is a good source of magnesium. Dilute a tablespoon of Epsom salt in a gallon of water, and spray the plants as needed. Is the pedicel (small stalk on which the flowers form) turning yellow before the flower falls off? Another cause is fungal problems, which can also cause the black spots, even though the flowers are falling off the other varity. Can you give more discription of the black spots? Peace, poor_old_dad
I was really suprised at how fast our seedlings came up this year. Anyway we transplanted them today. We have squash(yellow crookneck),cucumbers,green beans, sugar peas, 3 different peppers, tomatoes(5 kinds of those including cherry), broccoli,cauliflower,4 kinds of lettuce (which we're already giving away), radishes. We don't plant onions or potatoes as we have a friend who grows those and we just trade out produce which works out ok. My herb beds,( I have 5) are producing well also. I hope everyone has a very productive garden this year.
native corn , beans , amaranth , sunflower and squash . it's a staple food garden . this is my second year of lawn-mower gardening . that means i got 5 ft of grass sod that i mow between 30 inch wide tilled rows . afterwhile the squash vines cover most all the garden - then even the mowing is done . it's not much work . very , very minimal weeding . i think the grass trips catch windblown seeds . i'd rather sit there and sing and sip wine than work . wish i had some company though . anyway , i'm off to the rainbow gathering soon . won't really have to be back until fall and harvest-time . best wishes to all .
I find out here in California most of the problems with tomatos not setting fruit is people take too good of care of them. They feed them too much, and mainly they water too much. Sometimes letting them get almost to twp (temporary wilting point)while in flower will cause them to think they are about to die and they set fruit up the whazoo, trying to procreate first. Once the fruit is set don't do this.
