Next Year's Tomatoes

It's time to get next year's crop underway. We had a ripe tomato on New Year's Day this year.

Research indicates that Better Boy is the best variety for greenhouse growing under my circumstances and climate. We've had success with Better Boy.

These are ready to pot into big containers. They're staying outdoors until the greenhouse is cleaned. They sat out in the rain today while we were in town.

I lost my enthusiasm for many of the plants I used to grow but the idea of a ripe tomato every day or two from January through half of July is very good incentive for tending a couple of plants.

A Summer Peek into the Greenhouse

It takes  much effort to keep plants from frying in the greenhouse when outside temperatures are in the nineties with 'feels like' temps in the hundreds because of the humidity.

Bits of rooted Iberis cuttings, a red Pentas that finally decided to grow, a seedling Gerbera daisy that may or may not be white and 4 Purple Alternanthera seedlings need homes outdoors.

  

The Tomato Factory is doing quite well I think, considering the heat. Last summer's tomato plant that fed us all winter is about to finish up the last fruits and be discarded. I'll need to start another to put in that corner.

Amaryllis are just marking time and growing bigger until time to rest a bit before blooming again. Most of them are labeled this time around except for seedlings.
They seem quite happy inside with moderate watering.

Just outside the door is a white echinacea, a daily reminder that in a month or so I'll need to plant seeds to start more of these from seed. We'll have to see if they remain true to color.

I'm thinking that I need to pull culms off this Areca palm

and grow more palms for indoors. I started one last year when I accidentally pulled a piece out of the pot. It thrived. This one might be happy just divided into 3 or 4 new plants with new potting soil.

Despite the heat, I find it hard to stay indoors. Then I find it hard to remain outdoors long enough to do everything that wants doing. Blueberries are begging picking, weeds need pulling. Dead limbs need picking up. 

Ripe Tomatoes in December

Two days ago I was showing off green tomatoes on my Seedscatterer Blog.

December 6, 2014

Today I noticed a different hue.

December 9, 2014. 

And up above where I had not looked carefully before, a ripe tomato!

Definitely its best side!

He-Who-Mows and eats tomatoes

spotted another from the outside.

He-Who is already asking whether I can plant enough next year to share with neighbors and wondering just where I could put them? I am thinking they could climb up behind south shelf and the electrical panel board. 

Some Chlorophytum comosums may have to take their chances outside next year or come live as house plants.   

Barely Inside the Greenhouse

Peeks into the greenhouse are of little interest these days. I mostly go in to turn on the vent fan, start or stop the mist system and do things with water.

This is my hope for tomatoes in cold weather. 

Started from a tiny sucker in the axil of a bigger tomato plant, it sat around rooted, waiting for a home. I finally put it in a big nursery bucket. Too hot now even outside for fruit to form, it should start to put on tomatoes come cooler weather.

There are a few plants left inside that never joined their friends summering outside in shade. Every little piece of succulent material is saved and set to root.  

Yesterday when I checked on the post garden, a squirrel had dug into the pot of Burro Tail on the left below. I have BIG pieces to root now.

Sedum morganum could go back inside. With ample water they can tolerate the high temperatures hovering around 100 degrees at time inside the greenhouse. 

Maybe the cat can keep squirrels out.

I keep looking at containers and wondering just how many will fit in there.

I can give the Firecracker Fern (Russelia equisetiformis) a haircut. Some years it blooms all winter. Long stems on Graptopetalum in the pot with it could stand breaking off and re-rooting with shorter stems too. On the other hand I kind of like the sinewy shape the stems take.

I made a mistake, moving Calla lilies to sunnier spots outside the greenhouse. Some leaves are sunbleached. I moved them back to shade. 

Inside the greenhouse, I pulled out a great bale of purple alternanthera that was reaching for the rafters. I pulled the front half of the south side; much more remains. I think it helped some with shade but shade was beginning to crawl to the center of the room.

While the days are so hot I tend to stay in the house, only going out to water and check on things. There's a heat advisory today. Temperatures are not predicted to get to triple digits, but the heat index may approach 109º because of the humidity.

Like Transplanting in a Steam Bath

We had a half inch of rain last night. Today is alternating cloudy and sunny. The temperature and the humidity were neck and neck for a while.

Just before noon, the temp was 79 and the humidity was 81. When humidity gets that high, sweating doesn't cool you, the moisture beads on your skin and rolls off rather than evaporating.



White Shrimp Plant

I transplanted Shrimp plants and some others. Everything went into the Upper Garden in part shade. There were red Shrimps and a big Gerbera seedling.

Echinacea in the Upper Garden in shade

The red Shrimp Plants went in beside some Echinacea and the little Mariesii Hydrangeas.  I tucked the Gerbera Daisy near another one.

The greenhouse needs to be as empty as possible for summer. Ike the Cat is still going in there but he crawls under the potting bench to rest on the cool floor just out of reach of the mist.

I transplanted a half dozen Tomato seedlings today, one to replace the one the cutworm got in my Tomato Patch and more in sunny beds where I used varieties with more colorful fruits that are not red.

Christmas and Easter Cactus cuttings.

 

 

I am keeping a close eye on Cactus cuttings for viruses. They may need to move back inside this week until rain is over. I already removed some in plastic pots from cache pots that do not drain.

 

 

 



 

 

 


 

If I had a Potager, It Would Be Here

It is a wanna be Potager, not at all compact and neat with paths and borders and an enclosure. Well, there are paths but they have to be at least 54" wide for the mower or a narrow path between two rows that you will see below.

Tomato Patch, Grape Arbor, Blueberry Bushes and Pear Tree. There are other pears not seen.

 

Heirloom Tomatoes, 20 of them, with a hasty path in the middle weighted with pieces of brick and stones. Irrigation is by tiny drippers on two lines.

 

Each line has a tee in the center so the water pressure is equalized to each end.

Grass is already starting, needs a good hoeing and a layer of compost, waiting in the wheelbarrow.

I had 5 pounds of collected earthworm castings, so each plant got a half-cup.

 

The name of the one with the funny shaped leaves is Brandywine, I think.

 

I wondered if Heirloom tomatoes can compete with soil nematodes. I read that Bahia Grass is toxic to nematodes. This little patch was fallow last year and Bahia Grass was part of its makeup. I pulled enough out I think to have done battle with any nematodes.

 

Every tomato needs to have some dwarf Marigolds to help with the battle. I think I have seeds.

 

 

Master controller for the tomatoes and grapes.

Blueberries and pears are watered from a different standpipe.

 

 

Beneficials were really busy when the blueberries bloomed, pollinating so many blooms.

 

 

I thinned some of the pears so the limbs don't break.

 

Figs and peaches are elsewhere.

There are more tomato plants still in the greenhouse, bumped up to bigger pots for now.

Peppers are in containers.

We ate small tomatoes today from last year's plants that survived winter in the greenhouse.

 

The Herb Garden I planned for here has not happened.

My Thyme died. There's Rosemary galore in the Upper Garden, and Oregano gone wild in a flower bed. Parsley from last year is blooming and will soon seed out. I need to start more.

 

Do you have an Edibles Garden? Does it have all the Elements of a Potager:

1. Pathways
2. Enclosure
3. Borders
4. Structure
5. Order: Formal or Informal
6. Focal point
7. Ornamental plants
8. Potting shed or tool storage

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heirloom Tiomatoes Are in the Ground

A month ago I planted seeds of 8 kinds of Heirloom Tomatoes from TomatoFest that I won.

Today I put 20 plants in the ground. He-Who-Mows dug my little plot and I smoothed the ground into two rows and marked off spaces. Buffy was so much help that she had to go in the house to rest before she got in real trouble.

I planted 3 of some and 2 of others for a total of twenty in 2 rows of 10 each. He-Who suggested that I plant them 3 feet apart in the row. Thirty inches worked out well for the length which we didn't measure ahead of time.

Tomorrow I'll give them a drink of SuperThrive, and shade them if they look wilty.

I should record the names and where they went in case my homemade labels get lost in the dirt.

Let's see if I can remember:

From the west end: Flamme, Black Krim, Green Zebra and Black Cherry

Row 2: Brandywine, Staffords; Kellogg's Breakfast, Aussie and Dagma's Perfection

There are more plants. He-Who-Mows suggested that I plant them in flower beds. That would work.

I was too tired and dirty to make pictures. Didn't think of it before I started.

Rootin' and Sproutin' and Dividing

'The wind is fierce here today. It got so rough I closed the greenhouse at one point. The sun came out and we opened up again, turned on the fan. Ike the Cat was right back in there, his favorite hangout.

Rhipsalis from a tiny pot I bought in late winter, now divided into 3.

The smallest piece is back in the original 2" pot.

Tillandsia pups. Unlike other Bromeliads these grow in the center of

the plant rather than around the mother plant.

 

 

Every little piece that fell off my Burro's Tail Sedum was saved and placed in a 5" pot.

Most have new growth. The one

at left was a piece, not a leaf.

 

Salvia leucantha divisions

 

Cassia alata seedlings, Candlestick Plant.

 

Iberis that rooted has blooms.

 

Heirloom tomato seedlings, no true leaves yet.

 

Busywork: I hauled the bricks out that I hauled in yesterday, disassembling the rough shelves and reassembling them on the north side outdoors. Now I've decided that there might be more sun out there than the epiphytes want. When the winds settle and the sun is out all day again, we'll see. It's hard to remember the sun's path in a particular spot from year to year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toads in Flower Pots and Heirloom Tomatoes

'Delmar' dug in in a pot where I put Duranta cuttings to root.

Only 2 of 5 rooted. I think Delmar may be the reason for failure.

He sits in this same position for days. I wonder how many fruit flies he catches?

 

I first noticed Delmar sitting in a big clay pot where I'd put a dozen or more little succulent leaves off the Burro Tail Sedum I bought. They have teeny leaves formng on one end, pinhead sized. There sat Delmar. No insects about, but the pot of soil with vermiculite on the top must have been cool  

or Kewl, to Delmar. I moved that pot out of his reach and he set up housekeeping in the Duranta pot.

 

Elsewhere in the greenhouse:

 

Mixed success with rooting Iberis.

 

I planted tomato seeds this week.

 

These are seeds I won in an online contest by Dirt du Jour blog.

They are from TomatoFest and are the collection known as 'Gary's Favorite'

-- Gary being Gary Ibsen of TomatoFest.

 

Each packet has about 30 seeds. I planted a few of each. They have such glamourous names as 'Green Zebra' and 'Dagma's Perfection and 'Kellogg's Breakfast' and 'Black Krim.' All heirloom tomatoes.

 

Gary, and Dagma Lacey, are currently active in supporting numerous urban, school and community gardens world-wide with their TomatoFest Tomato Seed Donations Program in their effort to support bio-diversity, ensure that heirloom tomato varieties will be preserved, and to feed those in need.

 

I also planted seeds of Candlesticks (Cassia alata).  There is one plant up of Pride of Barbados.

Pride of Barbados outside have new foliage coming from roots, only 3 have no growth. Yet.

 

Seed trays are up high where Delmar can't hop. Any insects will be taken care of by the anoles that frequent that bench.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When is Spring? My Plants Are Ready

We are expecting 33º tomorrow night. I hope that is the end of near-freezing temps. My plants are ready, starting to stretch.

I've never had too many Pentas: pink, rose, red, white, lavender.

Butterfly magnets, little care except deadheading.

 

 

'Ruby' is the Pentas I've planted longest. I start some Pentas

cuttings  in August. Just before Christmas I picked a bouquet

of red and white Pentas. Toward the end of February,

I cut off the ends of the stems and stuck them to root.

 

White Pentas in yellow pots, kind of scrawny next to

Brugmansia cuttings.

 

Yesterday I saw a very frost-bitten Persian Shield plant in the garden

that managed a puny bloom, first I've ever seen outside the greenhouse.

These Strobilanthes dyeranus cuttings are ready to go outside and

get some size on them, the blooms were just a winter bonus.

 

Leggy Salvia elegans and Fern ready to summer outside.

 

Lots of plans for Begonias in shade. On the end there's a Gerbera Daisy seedling with a bud anticipating growing in the ground. Tomatoes would prefer outside air as well.

 

Tomatoes in containers are possible all winter. I had to

prove that to myself.

 

Plants that sometimes don't make the winter outside: Pentas, Porterweed, Brugmansia, Esperanza and others fared very well this year. Tiny sprouts are emerging from roots at the base of many dead stems.

 

Two of my Durantas in the ground stayed green all winter. They did stop blooming after Christmas. The gingers, except for Curcuma, did not die all the way to the ground the way they usually do.

 

It will be another while before we know how Pride of Barbados fared. They usually wait until I've despaired of ever seeing a Caesalpinia again and then Surprise! We are not yet safe from a final killing frost, but things are looking up. How many days to Spring?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rearranged the Greenhouse Furniture

There isn't that much room to begin with. Plants tend to hang out over the walkways. Esthetics begin to plague me. We must be able to walk all the way around and I have to reach everything to hand water.

The shelf unit was against the shelf on the north wall. Changed it out with

the little table in the center. It has hardly a larger footprint than the table and

a metal stool on which a tall plant sat. The metal cart that partly blocked

the door is now in the back. I've covered part of the patchwork floor.

 

My thinking was that the shelves are taller but their openness keeps them from looking  as bulky as I'd feared. Trays of seedlings and cuttings can get sun here while tall plants sit on the top.

 

 

The ability to walk all the way around whatever is in the center

is primary. The camera caught the ventilating fan in a way that

it doesn't appear to be turnng but it was.

 

Tomato plants lean against the water barrels behind a burlap skirt.

 

I was reading formulas for figuring how muich thermal mass per square foot.

We need three times as many barrels for most effective temperature

mediation. If I had 8 more barrels, we'd have no room to walk around.

We'll just make do with supplemental heat. Two small heaters on low

have worked well to keep plants from freezing in our coldest winters.

 

 

We ate a tomato tonight that

I had tossed into the basket where compostables go when it fell

off the vine. I thought it too small to ripen. I knocked the basket over

today and the ripe tomato rolled out. Tiny, but tasty.

 

 

Here's Ike in his wicker perch surrounded by Epipyllums. They are the

bulkiest plants in the greenhouse and awkward to place. Ike's pot of

Lemon grass is the red one in the center. It helps keep him from

shredding leaves of whatever is near him. He loves to shred Bromeliads.

 

 

A sudden rainshower caught me inside, so I made pictures.

This is a homemade fogger with three nozzles. It helps with

climate control, both humidity and summer temperatures.

 

I want to move the potting bench farther toward the back so

that it doesn't get so wet when the fogger is in use. I measured

and it looks as if the shelf unit will fit into that space.

Sounds to me like a summer project since I don't want

tender plants on the north wall now.

 

The entire water system:

a single faucet with a Y which controls

water to the fogger on the left and a short

hose on the right that I use to fill watering cans.

 

We put the greenhouse together late in 2007.

We've made it work.

 

 

Green tips have emerged on all the hyacinths.

I used to set pots of forcing bulbs in the utility

room sink. This is better.

 

This is the only seat right now other than the step

stool that I use mostly to reach plants that are too

high for me to water from the floor. I sat there

until the rain shower was over.

This is a little bench that my late father in law built.

 

Today was unusually warm for January. I'm always concerned that we'll get a storm with high winds when there are warm breezes from the south. Fortunately the rain was straight down, no wind.