Gardening: My Tomatoe and Pepper Progress

[Deadalus]

I'm using the biocontrol for the caterpillars, some sort of powdered bacteria that you mix up with water, kills them really fast and it's not toxic like many pesticides to other insects.
We tend to get bright green caterpillars down here and they go for the tomatoes and brassica family. End of season for our tomatoes and they'll be pulled up in the next few weeks.
I'm going to try and overwinter the Chilli / pepper plants though.

BT, works great on the cabbage worms. They will tear up brassica. There's a white moth that lays the eggs. I was so close to getting a salt gun to shoot the bastards last year. I'd see them in the afternoons, they are territorial I've read. But as soon as I killed one, another would come by. Row covers work if you get them in soon enough. I will be trying. that this year as well as the BT.

 

[Hanglow]

Cabbage whites can be a scourge here too, I use scaffolding debris netting to keep them off my brassicas as its cheap. It also keeps the pigeons/rabbit/deer off during winter and acts as a bit of a windbreak too which is good for salad crops. Shame it doesn't work for carrot flies or flea beetles

 

[Hanglow]

Tomatoes and peppers outside whenever its warm enough and I remember

Also have planted all my frost hardy spring plants now, things like peas, lettuce, herbs, cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi, onions, spinach

 

[NeilMac]

Did a eight day time lapse.

 

[Oldskewl]

That was really cool. I didn’t realize plants moved so much. I need to get one of those grow lights. My plants are so viney

 

[corkybstewart]

Good luck this season everyone. I had a ton of potato beetles last year, so I'm taking a hiatus from everything in the nightshade family this summer. Keep posting your pictures.

I had a really bad blister beetle infestation on my Romas mostly last year. Persistence, and Dawn detergent in a spray bottle eventually beat them into extinction. But once again aphids destroyed my cabbage, broccoli and Brussels sprouts. I'm done trying to grow them.

 

[Apple_Jacker]

I got some Rutgers tomato plants split them up from the 6-pack flats I bought from the store and into larger pots 2 weekends ago, and got some collard greens planted. I hope to get the rest of my garden going tomorrow:
zucchini
yellow squash
butternut sqush
various bush and pole beans
more collard greens and kale (for my wife's tortoises)
cucumbers
Jalafuego peppers
cayenne peppers
habanero peppers
and another type of tomato, but I don't know which one just yet until I see what's available at the store this weekend.

 

[passedpawn]

My tomatoes are doing well enough now that I'm thinking of creative ideas to use more tomatoes than you can eat. Might make fermented ketchup or similar.

 

[Hanglow]

I repotted 22 of my toms yesterday for the greenhouses. Still have another 22 as backup/to give away plus another 12 I will try outside.

 

[Apple_Jacker]

So I managed to get the following in the ground:
8 Rutgers tomatoes
6 Marzinera tomatos
zucchini seeds
yellow squash seeds
10 Contender bush beans (to start; I'll end up tripling that amount over the next couple of weeks)
9 Sumter cucumbers
4 Jalafuego peppers
6 cayenne peppers
2 habanero peppers - briefly thought about doing more, but the 3 plants I had last year produced so much I had to give away a bunch of peppers

 

[passedpawn]

I had nachos last night with my own jalapenos and tomatoes! Nom Nom. I'm a picture person, didn't even think about it until this moment though. Won't make that mistake next time.

 

[passedpawn]

I have this raised bed garden I put in around christmas. It's got a variety of veggies and herbs in it. I thought I'd put in another one if it worked out (it has worked out), but I get a great assortment of stuff every time I cull through it. Every few days I pull off a ton of cherry tomotoes, a few large beefsteak tomatoes, a bunch of various peppers. I only cut off the herbs (basil, cilantro, parsley) when I need it though.

 

[passedpawn]

I've been canning the jalapenos (1 part white vinegar, 2 parts water). Love these, and they store for a long time. I put a few chopped up red chili peppers in there to pump up the heat

 

[passedpawn]

Anybody every get dark cherry tomatoes like these? They taste awesome, but many (not all) get a dark skin when vine-ripened.

 

[passedpawn]

My cilantro went from a beautiful mature herb plant to wild in a month. Before and after pics below. It's gone too seed too. Cilantro seeds are coriander, and coriander in seed form is almost impossible to find locally, so not the worst thing in the world.

 

[Apple_Jacker]

Got the rest of my stuff in the ground today. Squash, beans, and cucumber seeds already sprouting too. Just waiting on the okra to pop up.

 

[estricklin]

Really enjoy reading through this thread. I have completely missed gardening the past couple of years. I moved from rural Arkansas, where I had plenty of land and the best soil one could ask for, to a house with a small yard in Oklahoma City. As for the soil I'm not sure how the damn grass even grows here. I'm planning to have a couple of trees cut down in the back yard, that would allow in more sunlight and at that point, will consider raised beds or kiddie pools. I miss my peppers and tomatoes, also miss eating greens on a regular basis.

 

[bwible]

We have ours started indoors but its still been too cold here in PA to put anything outside yet and we’re getting notices from the weather channel about colder temps expected. Damn global warming

 

[Hanglow]

Anybody every get dark cherry tomatoes like these? They taste awesome, but many (not all) get a dark skin when vine-ripened.

View attachment 768200

I'm growing "Cherry Rosella" this year that look to be similar to those


Managed to put in all my inside toms in this year, 10 in greenhouse and 10 in a converted shed

 

[Oldskewl]

We have ours started indoors but its still been too cold here in PA to put anything outside yet and we’re getting notices from the weather channel about colder temps expected. Damn global warming

I know what you mean. I am hoping to get my plants in the ground next week. We have had a couple frosts here in my part of PA recently. Somehow I started my plants inside way to early this year. Pepper plants are coming along nicely, tomatoes are very viney. Not sure if they will do well or not.

 

[passedpawn]

I'm growing "Cherry Rosella" this year that look to be similar to those


Managed to put in all my inside toms in this year, 10 in greenhouse and 10 in a converted shed

I think you nailed it. I have the label on the tomato cage. Midnight Snack cherry tomato, from the interwebz:

Midnight Snack is a unique indigo-type cherry tomato that ripens to red with a beautiful glossy black-purple overlay when exposed to sunlight. This coloration comes from the accumulation of anthocyanin pigments, the same reason blueberries are blue and contain healthy antioxidants.

 

[Deadalus]

I know what you mean. I am hoping to get my plants in the ground next week. We have had a couple frosts here in my part of PA recently. Somehow I started my plants inside way to early this year. Pepper plants are coming along nicely, tomatoes are very viney. Not sure if they will do well or not.

You can plant tomatoes deep with their stems either straight down or even sideways. They'll root along it. Afterwards, you'll want to trim the lowest branches to avoid rain splash which transmits disease from the soil. They are very resilient to trimming so the sooner the better (not immediately of course).

 

[Deadalus]

My cilantro went from a beautiful mature herb plant to wild in a month. Before and after pics below. It's gone too seed too. Cilantro seeds are coriander, and coriander in seed form is almost impossible to find locally, so not the worst thing in the world.

View attachment 768201

View attachment 768202

They always seem to do this to me prior to getting the ripe tomatoes I need for salsa.

 

[passedpawn]

They always seem to do this to me prior to getting the ripe tomatoes I need for salsa.

haha! Exactly what happened here.

 

[bleme]

My youngest is in 6th grade and they haven’t used the swing set in years. I’m going to turn the swing portion into a trellis and get some asparagus beans growing on it. I’m also thinking about picking up some 2nd hand plexiglass and turning the fort section into a greenhouse.

 

[Apple_Jacker]

Can't say I've ever heard of asparagus beans before.

Edit: i didn't realize yardlong beans were also called asparagus beans

 

[Oldskewl]

Cilantro grows fast. I try to put the seeds in the ground 4-6 weeks before the vast majority of my tomatoes ripen

 

[Deadalus]

Cilantro grows fast. I try to put the seeds in the ground 4-6 weeks before the vast majority of my tomatoes ripen

I completely agree they grow fast, much less than the 70 days on the packet! I thought it said 50 days on the packet and that's too long too.

 

[Hanglow]

I do love coriander/cilantro. The green seeds are great and the flowers are edible too. It wants to go to seed in the warmth of late spring and summer. It is much slower to bolt if you can sow it late summer/early autumn for autumn/winter/spring, an early september sowing can give you leaves till May. It can tolerate light frosts but doesn't like the wind and rain so I grow it overwinter in a greenhouse. Does depend on your climate of course

Not so helpful for fresh tomato salsa if you are picking it in winter though!

 

[Hanglow]

My outdoor tomatoes went out at the weekend. Growing tomatoes outdoors in Scotland isn't the most sensible of ideas, but in order to try and maximise any potential crop I've gone for Crimson Crush F1, a blight tolerant british bred variety. Aurora, an early russian determinant and Banan Krasnyi, an early russian semi determinant. I've since made a bit of a trellis over the pots for support

 

[bleme]

I ran the tiller through and hit a “rock”. Excavation revealed some odd cement blocks.

 

[passedpawn]

Need a farm jack to pull that up. From a clothes line post?

 

[bleme]

I finished digging it up last night and the cylinder looks like an old clothes line. No idea what the block next to it was. Got the beans and the okra planted this morning. It’s my first time working with landscape fabric, so we will see how that goes. It seems like it will be really handy for stuff coming up from seed.

 

[Deadalus]

Planted my pepper starts today: 12 bell. 4 jalapeño, 4 Anaheim, and 4 habanero. Also planted 4 eggplants, a couple rows of beans, some cukes. Working on my herb garden too. I have a shaded strip of border along my driveway that I am trying out some perennial and annual along with some herbs in the garden. I'm hoping the perennials take up there. Yes I did go ahead and plant the cilantro but I will plant more later!

Best of all was I got my drip irrigation working! I stupidly left it connected last winter and it sprung a leak. Surprisingly, I YouTubed how to fix it and there's a common threaded piece on the valve that will bulge out that if removed and rethreaded will work just fine. I thought for sure it was busted and I was hand watering. I had enough of that!

 

[bleme]

Beans are in. Yellow squash, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers are growing like crazy. I also have 7 tomatoes, 3 tepin chilis, golden beets and salsify in grow bags. I’m hoping to get all the bags watered by drip line this year, but we will see.

 

[Deadalus]

Beans are in. Yellow squash, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers are growing like crazy. I also have 7 tomatoes, 3 tepin chilis, golden beets and salsify in grow bags. I’m hoping to get all the bags watered by drip line this year, but we will see.

Good idea to claim the playground space for gardening. Our kids had outgrown ours and since it was falling down I demolished it. My wife has gotten the idea that it would be a nice spot for a she shed!

 

[estricklin]

I finished digging it up last night and the cylinder looks like an old clothes line. No idea what the block next to it was. Got the beans and the okra planted this morning. It’s my first time working with landscape fabric, so we will see how that goes. It seems like it will be really handy for stuff coming up from seed.
View attachment 769522

The rectangle one sorta looks like a shallow footer, maybe there was an old house or shed there at one time.

 

[jcfontario]

I am the family "greenhouse"! About 100 tomato plants (12 varieties including numerous heirlooms) and about 50 peppers (8 varieties). I grow them for our kids and for the in-laws who have a much sunnier garden than we have. I generally only keep about 10 tomatoes and about 8 pepper plants for our immediate use. The n-laws garden provides the veggies for canning.

 

[bleme]

100% germination in just 4 days. These beans are freaks!

 

[z-bob]

I just finished building a cinderblock raised bed and filling it with municipal compost (It's heavy and looks more like black dirt that compost) I've planted 2 tomato plants and transplanted some multiplying onions into it, and I'm fixin' to set out a few jalapeno plants. Wednesday we go out of town for a week and I don't expect any of it except maybe the onions to still be alive when we get back but who knows, it's got a chance, and a friend is going to keep a few plants in pots alive for me while I'm gone so I can replant if necessary. I'm moving those up to 1 gallon pots today.

So many things I was going to plant this year, but I'm lucky to get any of it in; been out of state more than I've been home since February and it's not over yet.

When we get back, I will plant some trombone squash Zucchino Rampicante Squash Also might start building another raised bed. I have I think 39 blocks left and a good bit of compost still in the back of my truck.