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[Beekissed]

Et tu, NY? Discouraging being a plant killer on a gardening forum, isn't it? We need a support group.

"Hi, I'm Bee and I killed my whole tomato crop this season with a fungal infection and my potatoes were all lovely green and lush tops but had no tubers to speak of.

I was raised by incredible gardeners but I have been unable to repeat their success with any degree of consistency....I'm a disappointment to my family.

But, I'm on the road to recovery....it's been three hours since I last killed a plant!" (Smiles shyly and with evident pride.) <insert a pause... and then a light, insincere and dismayed smatter of applause as people look at one another with a deer in the headlights gaze>

 

[Nyboy]

Hi I am a plant killer also. I can now stop the early warning signs. leaves start to change to brown, death soon to follow.

 

[Beekissed]

A few pics of various garden things...my wild tangle of squash and pumpkin vines, cantaloupe and watermelon are in there too.

My poor diseased tomatoes making a gallant effort to produce anyway...

Pruden's Purple tomatoes...produced better than the rest but an odd fruit.

Beans and cukes...

Flowers sneaking into the vines...

Front porch things...that platform rocker was bought at Good Will for $60.

 

[Beekissed]

Pics continue...

Mater pics again...

My prettiest and most perfect tomato of the season, a Brandywine of remarkable shape, size, skin quality, and ripeness. I'm saving the seed on this one. Put a quarter in the pic to show relative size...most of my Brandys get much bigger than this but also much more ugly the bigger they get. This is about the prettiest tomato I can recall growing.

Joel's tiny BTE garden experiment in his front yard. Most of the greenery there is from 4 watermelon plants, though there's a tiny cantaloupe in there somewhere.

My dog, Ben, eating a peach he stole off my tree...just stood up and picked it off as casual as you please.

 

[digitS']

I'm reluctant to save seed from odd tomatoes and the first ones are usually the oddest that will come off the plants.

Later, they will grow and mature in a more even way but the chance of cross-pollination increases. That's what we are told, anyway.

You have the chance to compare Prudens with Brandywine, Bee. Tell us what you think, please. I have grown Prudens and was really pleased but it pushed the boundaries of the frost-free season. Still, it is supposed to be earlier and competitive in flavor with Brandywine. I wonder ... I have only experienced Brandywine OTV, because it is earlier. It is a cross of Brandywine and an "unknown."

Both in my experience, I'd rate as excellent but I wonder what I'm missing ... gardening so far from that Brandywine River .

Steve

 

[Beekissed]

I think the Brandywine has a deeper flavor than the Pruden's, with more sweetness, though the Pruden's is a good tasting tomato. I didn't like how easily they split...every single one split this season, when the Brandys, Jetstars and Mr. Stripeys didn't. Could be they just have very thin skins?

They did outproduce all the other varieties under enormous stress of that fungal blight, so they seem to be at least as resistant to the disease as the Brandywine. I don't know that I would grow them again...I just didn't fall in love with them like I did the first time I grew the Brandywine.

 

[henless]

Love the pics from your garden Bee!

I had trouble with blight this year also. I only had one plant that actually produced. It was one I transplanted from my compost pile when I moved it to expand my garden for next year. The ones I bought as transplants died.



Everything I planted grew, but not everything produced. My yellow squash did good. It's still producing, but slowly dieing out in this heat. My zucchini grew good, but didn't produce much. The plant in the front was the only one of the two that produced. Vine borer got into it, but it never fazed it.



My pumpkin, watermelon & cantaloupe vines did great. I have pumpkins still growing on a few vines & I was able to harvest some cantaloupe before the rabbits got them all. My watermelons started producing then just dried up. This is some of my vines expanding out over my new garden section.



I planted corn this year for the first time. I planted 2 rows in among the pumpkin, cantaloupe & watermelon. I put 2 more rows in with my carrots & turnips. Most of them sprouted, but then got covered up with the large pumpkin leaves so only about half of the 4 rows actually grew. There wasn't enough to put up, so we've been eating most of the corn. So much better than fresh corn from the store! My granddaughter requested that I plant more of that "yummy" corn next year.



My okra did great. It has been producing for about a week now. These are from seeds I saved from last year. I planted a few plants in my small raised bed. I kept the seeds from the best plant for saving. I wanted to can some tomatoes & okra for soup. Maybe next year.



This is my lets see garden. It's my unused breeder run. I had some leftover seeds, so I just threw them on the ground to see what would happen. It actually did pretty well. I never watered this over the summer. My main garden I watered 4 times. This is okra & cantaloupe. I have cantaloupe growing up the sides of my run. I think next year I will make a trellis for my cantaloupe to grow on. The vines seem to hold the melons well & it will help keep them up off the ground.





My green beans grew and bloomed, but no green beans. I'm assuming due to the heat? I'm keeping them watered hoping they will produce once it cools off. The are planted in my strawberry & asparagus bed. I had a few asparagus come up. I got the roots from Tractor Supply. They were purple passion.





Next year I will plant earlier and space my rows wider, even if I have to use an umbrella while planting!

 

[Beekissed]

Your gardens did WELL!!!! Very lush, very beautiful and a very lovely place you have there too. Thank you for posting the pics....gave me garden envy though. That is one mamma jamma breeder pen you have there too....really, really nice.

My beans did the same....slow to grow, now look very lush, no beans. But, come cooler weather in the fall they usually take off.

My son's yellow squash was HUGE and lovely, started to produce well, blossoms galore...then we noticed rot in the blossoms and fruit, pretty soon we realized the whole stem was eaten out from the squash borers. Tried to pile up chips around it to retain moisture but it died a horrible death.

I think all these vines that travel are pretty much like chickens...you can give them the nicest roosts ever and they go roost elsewhere. My vines were given some trellis but they wanted the fence, which is just not built for the heaviness of those vines and the fruit they will bear...but nothing would have it but they MUST climb the fence.

 

[ninnymary]

Bee, I've been thinking about what to do to my beds next year as far as soil prepping goes. As you know I attempted the BTE method but in a much looser fashion. I put wood chips, horse manure, and some leaves. For all that effort, I couldn't tell much of a difference. The only difference in my garden this year is that some of my tomatoe plants got blight. I've never had it before and I always try new varieties of heirlooms. I'm wondering if perhaps the varieties I choose were not very blight resistant.

I love your style of gardening so I'm always following what you do. What are you planning on doing next year to your beds? I figured they already have enough "good stuff" so I can't see adding any more amendments to them. I will probably only top mine with more compost. My containers certainly need more. I just hope I have enough, otherwise I will have to buy some which is going against my grain.

Mary

 

[Beekissed]

Bee, I've been thinking about what to do to my beds next year as far as soil prepping goes. As you know I attempted the BTE method but in a much looser fashion. I put wood chips, horse manure, and some leaves. For all that effort, I couldn't tell much of a difference. The only difference in my garden this year is that some of my tomatoe plants got blight. I've never had it before and I always try new varieties of heirlooms. I'm wondering if perhaps the varieties I choose were not very blight resistant.

I love your style of gardening so I'm always following what you do. What are you planning on doing next year to your beds? I figured they already have enough "good stuff" so I can't see adding any more amendments to them. I will probably only top mine with more compost. My containers certainly need more. I just hope I have enough, otherwise I will have to buy some which is going against my grain.

Mary

You and I both added leaves to it and got blighted tomatoes....may not be a coincidence. I had chips on it last year and didn't get any blight, so not sure if it's the garden method, the addition of leaves or what.

This BTE is supposed to get better with time as the chips decompose, so next year I'm doing NOTHING to it. I did too much this year and got a lot of lush, green growth but no fruit of which to speak...at least, not as much as one should from that number of plants. Same thing happened to all our flowers...even our old clematis, resistant to any disease all these years, got a fungal infection that nearly killed it. Same with all the roses...most of them died.

Could be that's just the world in which we live now or it could be the leaves I put everywhere, sourced from all over the place and bringing in who knows what to this land.

One thing I will do, though....I'm going to move my tomato trellising to where the corn is now, which is as close as I can come to crop rotation. I'm also going to rake back the chips as best I can where I plant the potatoes and corn, work up that soil with my little Mantis before planting both things, hill them up with soil when they come up, then replace the chips for mulch.

Taking a step backward to see if I can go forward, so a light tillage seems in order...my soils are still pretty hard underneath all these chips, which isn't supposed to happen, if you believe the film.

Then I'm going to plant some things later in the season than I normally do.

After that, I'm committing it to the Lord and letting the chips fall where they may, so to speak.