A Seed Saver's Garden

[flowerbug]

i should have also said that with all the rocks and gravel around here having something softer to kneel on or sit on is also very nice.

 

[heirloomgal]

I don’t really understand how tomato cages work. Do you reach into them from above to prune your tomatoes and then to pick them? How do you stop the cages falling over when the plants get heavy?

As far as I know it’s unusual in UK to grow tomatoes in cages. Under cover mine grow up strings, which is quite a common practice here, and out of doors up a cane supported by a bit of a wooden structure. I do much prefer growing indeterminates though and never quite know what to do with determinate varieties which sprawl everywhere and take up a lot of space. I can imagine cages being useful for those.

I think the main reasons behind the diy cages are to maximize the amount of tomatoes you can harvest & not have to manually deal with the plant during the season, whether that be with pruning or tying or staking. It's a type of support that allows you to just set it over the plant and then do absolutely nothing. The cages also give the best protection from sunscald.

But you're right, harvesting can be a hand over hand situation at times, though with the wire at 4 feet tall I can mostly reach over and take what I want. I don't cut any branches, so this gives me the most amount of tomatoes. I have never staked the cages over the tomato plants, and they've never fallen once the tomatoes start to grow in size and connect with the cage. All the pressure is downward in the cage so the tomato plant holds it in place really. But this year I am setting in a bamboo stake beside each and tie wrapping it to the cage just to try it, I have spare bamboo. We've had a bit more wind than usual the last 2 years, especially with the trees gone, so it might be of help if I need them anchored even further.

 

[heirloomgal]

It's been a long time since I grew sunflowers. I had forgotten how quickly the plants can grow, but being such a large plant I suppose it's to be expected. It's sort of funny how all of them are angled slightly in the same direction. Given how much critters like these, I'm fortunate to have not lost any.

The tragic comedy of life! The peonies last for so short a time even with ideal weather, so it comes as some kind of cosmic humor that juuust as the blooms were opening we got hit with heat in the low 90's, and THEN we get 2 days of rain - kryptonite of the peony bloom. So, not only are they prematurely haggard from heat, sopping wet from the rain but also MUDDY with their heads hung in the dirt. Haha, so much for a *peony show*! Oh well, that is how it goes this year. At least the delphinium are yet to bloom, so not yet wrecked, lol. And I even chopped some of the peonies roots last year so that they'd be less likely to droop in 2025.

At the stage now of trying to remove all traces of the stumps/trees that were here. All 4 of us worked at picking at the surface roots, tilling and raking. We're making progress slowly, this area needs a slope left toward the easement so we're trying to figure out just how we'll do that. But for sure a garden is going to take up some of this spot. I've always dreamed of a carpet of lush green grass in the front yard, but now that my dog just had his spleen removed due to a tumor (the stats on dogs & tumors in regards to fertilized & herbicide lawns is crazy https://www.dogcancer.com/articles/causes-and-prevention/lawn-chemicals-herbicides-and-pesticides/ ) I'm even less inclined to consider fertilizer to create that dream grass. So, a new garden will be born this fall sometime. DH & DD want an eggplant shape, I'm thinking a rectangle with soft edges.

Everyone laughs when they see I planted carrot rows against the house as part of the edible landscaping project. My dad had quite the chuckle when he was here this week, but he said he liked the idea. I think carrot foliage is pretty! It looks a bit like cosmos!

I think I have the slowest garden of anyone on TEG this year, but despite being so darn late things are chugging along. The sunchokes and corn are finally catching up, and the potatoes in behind as well. Nothing grew in that back row last year because the shade was too much from the big tree.

Growing a lot of dwarf tomatoes this year, and they don't need the big cages so I went hunting for some more small ones - for a decent price. Not easy. Finally settled on some at Home Depot for $2.25 a piece. They're total crap quality wise (one leg broke off in my hand on a cage as I pulled it back a little) but they'll do. It's a simple job to just stay put and let tomato leaves grow through you. My raised log tomato bed got these kind, all my older ones and some gifted to me this year by a retiring gardener. Mostly Russian tomatoes in that bed so I'm guessing they'll be smaller plants. Not spending any more this year on fencing, so it'll have to do. 'Turboreactivnyi' is the first dwarf tomato (aside from the mini-dwarfs) to have tomatoes forming - clearly an early variety!

They say a picture is worth 1000 words.

 

[heirloomgal]

Miner's Lettuce now in flower.

I'm also noticing something odd about the newest holy basil plants. They don't look quite like the originals (which are still there; basil is perennial if you take it in over the winter,) they don't smell like them, and they don't ACT like them (they handle heat and drying out much better.) But they HAVE to be descendants; I've planted no other basil for at least two or three years.

I suppose insects could have brought pollen from regular basil plants in the neighborhood, but I could have SWORN these popped up while the plants were in for the winter, where there were no insects to do that, (and, probably, no regular basil pollen to do it with). Hmmm.......

That's odd. Maybe they acclimatize quickly. One year of droughty heat conditions and the next generation of some species will be reflecting that. The seed company Potager Ornamental Catherine does this as a practice, plants the seeds and then leaves them. What survives is what seed they collect, even if it's only 5 - 10% of the total planted population. They tell me that within 1 or 2 generations the % of survivors increases dramatically.

 

[heirloomgal]

i should have also said that with all the rocks and gravel around here having something softer to kneel on or sit on is also very nice.

Yes, I can imagine all the stones and pebbles are even more uncomfortable than compacted garden soil. Especially for long periods of weeding.

On that topic I wanted to ask a question; with the various carpet type perennials you have, how do you manage to keep the weeds under control? The periwinkle that has made a carpet for me is now inundated with grasses. It's awful, I can't imagine how I'll get it all out. I'm thinking to just pull all the periwinkle out as much as I like it. It's reminding me of when I grew that carpet phlox long ago which got infested with grass too, was impossible to get it all out. I'm thinking that these low growing ground covers are too much of a pain to care for?

 

[Decoy1]

The tragic comedy of life! The peonies last for so short a time even with ideal weather, so it comes as some kind of cosmic humor that juuust as the blooms were opening we got hit with heat in the low 90's, and THEN we get 2 days of rain - kryptonite of the peony bloom. So, not only are they prematurely haggard from heat, sopping wet from the rain but also MUDDY with their heads hung in the dirt. Haha, so much for a *peony show*! Oh well, that is how it goes this year. At least the delphinium are yet to bloom, so not yet wrecked, lol. And I even chopped some of the peonies roots last year so that they'd be less likely to droop in 2025

Sympathies. I do have a love-hate relationship with peonies. Here they always flop and that together with how quickly they’re over makes them constantly frustrating. Brief, flawed beauty.

 

[Decoy1]

I think the main reasons behind the diy cages are to maximize the amount of tomatoes you can harvest & not have to manually deal with the plant during the season, whether that be with pruning or tying or staking. It's a type of support that allows you to just set it over the plant and then do absolutely nothing. The cages also give the best protection from sunscald.

But you're right, harvesting can be a hand over hand situation at times, though with the wire at 4 feet tall I can mostly reach over and take what I want. I don't cut any branches, so this gives me the most amount of tomatoes. I have never staked the cages over the tomato plants, and they've never fallen once the tomatoes start to grow in size and connect with the cage. All the pressure is downward in the cage so the tomato plant holds it in place really. But this year I am setting in a bamboo stake beside each and tie wrapping it to the cage just to try it, I have spare bamboo. We've had a bit more wind than usual the last 2 years, especially with the trees gone, so it might be of help if I need them anchored even further.

View attachment 75828

Thanks for the full explanation. Your cages look splendidly robust and there is great attraction in leaving the plants to do their own thing. As a rather height challenged creature I think I’d struggle with the picking.
My plants are much more crowded and take much more controlling to keep to their allotted spaces but I think getting a lot of plants into a limited polytunnel space is probably my over-riding driver.
It’s quite common practice in England to strip off lower leaves after a while to encourage fruit to ripen which is quite different from the prolific foliage which the cage method presumably leads to.

 

[flowerbug]

...
On that topic I wanted to ask a question; with the various carpet type perennials you have, how do you manage to keep the weeds under control? The periwinkle that has made a carpet for me is now inundated with grasses. It's awful, I can't imagine how I'll get it all out. I'm thinking to just pull all the periwinkle out as much as I like it. It's reminding me of when I grew that carpet phlox long ago which got infested with grass too, was impossible to get it all out. I'm thinking that these low growing ground covers are too much of a pain to care for?

edges under control vs. edges bordering grassy areas or open areas that allow weeds to invade. the edges which are near gravel or other well defined borders along cement or gravel areas will not get many weeds and then can be weeded manually quite quickly, but it does require effort to maintain. once established though they do not easily get invaded by weeds other than what the birds or wind or water flows bring along or disturbed areas where seeds have been moved into their germination zone.

avoid having any kinds of fences, wires or bird perching whatevers over the areas you want to keep from weeds. the birds do spread seeds around...

for an example i can weed most of three sides of the large north garden in a few hours (they might have a weed per every few square feet and they pull out easy if caught early enough). the problem areas that will take more time are those along the north edge (along the grass/lawn area) and then the edge along the bare dirt inside (which will gradually get filled in) and then to the east side i have some Moneywort (aka Creeping Jenny) which isn't working as well as i'd like so i'll have to remove it and figure out something else. the low areas it doesn't like and do as well as slight slopes where it is doing great (even on mostly clay).

my main problem plants to get out are: chickweed, spotted spurge, purslane, oxalis and the corn speedwell. i don't have periwinkle here. we also have some nutsedge wandering around so i have to keep an eye out for that and remove it asap before it spreads... poison ivy, wild grapes and virginia creeper are all around and also thistles and milkweed are all popping up in the gardens and have to be kept after. there are other plants too which i consider weeds to keep after when seen, but they're not difficult to deal with as the others... i have eradicated infestations of some other plants that tried to invade (horsetail and creeping charley) and am trying to fend of others if i can. always something to work on around here.