Indiana Organic Gardener's Association Meeting - July

Hey All,

Miss 38th Street and I attended the July meeting of the Indiana Organic Gardener's Association.  It was at Traders Point Creamery, an organic dairy farm northeast of Indy.  They had a pitch in lunch, which did not pitch in.  We were a little to busy with puppy sitting her parents new 7 week old Boston Terrier Puppy.   Which she is awesome.  Her name is Button.  Anyway, it was informative and enlightening.  I got to share my tomato problems with older, wiser gardeners, but no one had a good answer for at that time.  The problem is that I have tomato plants with lots of flowers, but they soon seem to dry out, turn brown and die.  No tomatoes.  I have heard it could be the warm weather, or a mineral deficiency.  I don't know. All I know is that I don't like it.  Any advice would be appreciated.

If you would like to learn anything about Trader's Point Creamery, then check out their link.  It seems they are good people with good ideas.  I would have done what they have done, if I inherited a dairy farm, like they did.  I really want to support any operation or individual who tries to keep it real.  I hope you try, too.

Miss 38th Street Likes My Watermelons

Ah gardening.  It's so great.  I love to see how everything grows from day to day.  The two sugar baby watermelon plants are going crazy!  One of the two grew a foot in one day.  We now have little baby watermelons starting.  Frickin awesome.

 This watermelon has run out of real estate.  I'm not sure where this thing is going next.  Well, see.

We also got our first two cucumbers.  They are beautiful!  They tasted great.  I can't wait for more. 

The new 8 green beans I planted have sprouted, well most of them.  The rest are about to poke through. 

Oh, I have a problem.  Maybe someone might have an opinion on this one.  I have seven tomato plants.  All of them have lots of blooms and very few tomatoes.  Most of the blooms are drying out and they're done.  No tomatoes!  I've read some things around the internet saying it could be the hot weather or a mineral deficiency.  I don't know.  If anyone has any advice, I would love it.  I want tomatoes!

Peace/Love.

I have a fever. And the only cure for my fever...

IS MORE GARDENING!!!            !

Today, I did another round of Espoma Garden-Tone on most everything in the garden.  It's been almost a month since it last got a good dose of fertilizer.  Some things got some fish fertilizer.  Man, that stuff smelled just like it should have.  Stank fish. 

And since I have a gardening addiction, I added some new plants to the garden area (50% off plant sale at Sulivans!).  Yes, I found another spot for some more plants.  No, not MORE pots lining the sidewalk, but a spot on the southwest corner against the fence.  We now have three Jersey Blueberry bushes living there.

I don't know if we're going to get any blueberries this year, but hey.  We have something in the front yard to make it look even nicer.  This cultivar says it's cool with having "partial sun to shade."  Nice.  I did read something that concerned me in Rodale's.  It said that if you plant blueberries, that it is important to plant two to three different cultivars to produce fruit.  If that's true, then that sucks.  Does anyone have any experience with blueberries?  If so, please lay some knowledge on me. 

I do have some nice pictures of the garden.  I had a good picture day, by my standards.

A nice overall pic of the 38th Street Garden

 The cucumbers are coming in.  Very exciting!

 This is the first sign of the Sugar Baby Watermelons.  A little out of focus, but you get the point.

 Here is one of the Pakistan Chunky Chili plants.  Filling out nicely.

 Jalapenos are looking good.  Not too long now!

 Here is the cucumber plant I snuck in by the gutter.  I'm training it up and now onto a tomato cage.  And holy crap, Chu-nation made it into the photo!  Go Chui!  (Side note:  Chui got into a bag of the organic fertilizer and threw up all over the house while we were at a friend's wedding.  Little scary, but he's doing much better now)

 Here are a bunch of tomato pictures.  Everyone loves tomatoes!

This is the Big Beef Tomato.

 

 This is the sickly Stupis Tomato.  I can't believe this has any tomatoes on it.  It looks unhealthy.

 Here is our Black Krim Tomato.  I like this picture because it looks like a butt.  

A butt.

ok, next picture.

 

Here are our carrots.  Very nice.  

Ok,  That's it for today.  It was a very busy day in the yard and garden.  I prepared soil for the blueberries, fertilized everything, harvested another round of green beans, PLANTED another 8 green beans, trained the watermelons and cucumbers more, planted the blueberries and another basil plant (to replace the one I trimmed to death.  Sorry Miss 38th Street.)  I'm tired.  I'm going to bed.

The Garden Is-A-Poppin

The 38th Street Garden is in full affect.  It is blooming, reaching and booming (thanks to my neighbor's cars).  This being my first year as a dedicated gardener, it's going well.  Most everything is producing or on it's way, Lord help me.  Plus the square foot garden experiment is pretty cool.  I know some things that I'll do differently next year with the square foot.  Mainly, giving certain vegetables more room.  The green beans, tomatoes, and watermelons need more space.  I'll plant the spinach and lettuce differently, as well. 

Harvesting is getting started.  All the spinach has be harvested and eaten.  It was the best tasting spinach I have ever had.  We just took two heads of Vivian Lettuce from the garden a couple days ago.  It's healthy and all, but the flavor is just Ok.  Not planting that next year.  And all the green beans are ready every other day.  That is awesome.  We've been blanching them and freezing them right now. 
I hope to give the garden some fertilizer tomorrow.

I have some new pictures of the garden!

The Thai Sun Chili are doing good.

 I have little cucumbers showing up now.

 Tomatoes are starting to take over.

 All the vines are doing great.  The cucumber and the watermelons are in climbing mode!

 

Green Beans!

 The carrots and the marigolds are filling out.

 The garden is just looking good.

I'll have more picture tomorrow.

Garden Extended

A few days ago, I think Thursday, I extended the garden west.  We had an area that we planted shasta daisies, foxgloves and cosmos.  The only thing that sprouted were the cosmos at the end of the bed at the fence corner.  By the way, the cosmos that popped up are right beside the ever encroaching Peppermint. 
This area was just a bare area that I just had to weed.  It was getting to me.  Now we have it filled!

There are two shasta daisy mounds and three sentimental blue balloon mounds to bring some flowery goodness to the garden area.  Plus, I have an addiction that I had to feed.  I bought some more tomatoes and peppers.  I added these to the garden and potted one.  We now have a Jalapeno and a Green Pepper plant.  We also added a Big Beef and Big Boy tomato plant. 

We had a couple garden surprises.  Good surprises!  I found these last week.  When was doing my almost daily garden maintenance, I moved a pot to reveal foot tall tomato plant! 

It's kind of hard to see in this picture, but it's in the cage.  It is right on the edge of the sidewalk.  We don't know what kind of tomato it is.  Last year we had Brandywine, Roma and Super 100 cherry tomato plants in the area.  We'll see what it is.  Pretty cool!

Right after I discovered that tomato, I found the other tomato surprise.  It was at the west end of the bed right the edge of the lawn.  I caged it and it is doing well.  The one thing about the tomatoes from last year, is they were monster producers.  They were over 7 feet tall and full of tomatoes!  It was awesome. 

I hope these new additions flourish and give us a nice harvest.  Like the spinach.  I just got our third harvest of spinach of the year tonight.  I love it!

Garden Envy?

I think I have a little garden envy. 

This is a complement to Rochelle and Brian.  A couple days ago, I stopped by to visit my sister for a bit.  Brian and Rochelle showed me how their garden was progressing.  I was impressed.  Their lettuce was abundant and healthy.  The squash was everywhere.  Tomatoes were big and flowering.  The chard was looking great, too.  And to my amazement, the peppers and cucumbers I gave them were twice the size of mine!  And I put mine in the ground before theirs!!!  Wow.  They have their garden working! 

So, today I went to Habig's Garden Center to get some organic fertilizer.  I got a few different kinds to cater to my different veggies.  We got a good rain today, which my garden needed.  Then everything got a good dose of fertilizer.  This should do them good till next month.  I hope this gives everything a boost.  I did leave the green beans along.  They're doing great. 

Also, when I stopped by Habig's, they had some peppers and tomatoes left that were doing great and were on sale.  So I might have to go buy a few more pots and add to my veggie pot collection.  I'm sure Miss 38th Street will be thrilled.  I'll report later.

We did put Miss 38th Street's upside down flower pot on the hanger a few days ago.  It looks good.  See?

More Peas

After Miss 38th Street harvested the first spinach of the year on June 4th, I planted 16 more peas the next day.  I'm puttin this info in here for my records.  The other peas are doing fantastic.  Actually, the peas, green beans, Vivian lettuce, Thai Sun chilis, and spinach are all doing great.  The watermelons are not looking good.  Something is eating away at the few leaves they have.  I didn't see any insects on them.  The cucumbers beside the watermelons are looking healthy, though.  I have to do some investigating. 

I also planted a couple things in the landscaping without telling Miss 38th Street.  She saw one, which was a Thai Sun.  The other she hasn't seen yet.  I wonder where it is?  And what it is?  Hmmm...