Thanks, I was hoping for a reply like yours :). I hope I haven't shocked the root system too much by opening it up. Upon re-potting, do you recommend putting some soil at the bottom or just filling with soil from the top?

Kiwinut: Hey that's the kind of response I need. As I said in the first post "it looked like it was a graft." I was not certain by any means. After hearing what you and Gorgi have said, I have to agree that it probably is not. I'm happy either way. I'm glad knowing the BJ fig I bought is coming back. If you both said something different, and indicated it was a graft on something like an LSU. That would have been great too. Since those are good figs for my area, and are supposed to be tasty. I just wanted to know what the plant growing from the roots most likely was, a volunteer from the rootstock, or the original BJ tree growing back from its roots in order to take care of it the best I can as it recovers and grows back.

Hey Ill, Wishing you a great 'mater season. It's probably a good idea to plant some quick to mature tomatoes in the fall, since the days are shortening, and it does get cool in December. Here are a few that have done best for me. A great tasting, full size, indeterminate that produces early, and lots of 'em is Jetsetter. Never fails to amaze me. Another quickee with decent size fruit on a determinate plant, that just keeps going and going has been Burbank for me. Excellent in a 7 gallon pot. Nepal (indeterminate) did well in cool weather with slightly smaller fruits growing in clusters, the one year I grew it. I liked them. Early Wonder is a nice determinate with good flavor, but it's not so early. Did seem to have good resistance to RKN though. Sungold is by far the best cherry size tomato I've ever had. It keeps producing through frosts, whitefly, cool, hot, and even spidermites. Always tastes great. Black Cherry is a productive, sweet, large cherry size tomato that comes on early. I was very impressed with the flavor and decent production last year. Black Plum comes on quick and heavy, but I found them kinda bland and mealy. Green Zebra has always been a sturdy plant with lots of zingy fruits. If you want to grow some sweet cherries in a windowbox or as a border plant or in small pots, I highly recommend Red Robin. Nice red balls really load up on plants that don't get more than a foot tall. And they produce over a long period. I have grown Sunleaper and Kewalo in the past. Wasn't impressed with either. They had perhaps less resistance to the pests and problems around here than others. And the flavor wasn't good. IMO. Down here I try to hold off til September to start seeds. I've done it in August, but they grow lanky in the heat and stress out too much. I like to have small thick plants ready to plant by mid to late October. But it hardly ever freezes here either. Looking forward to hearing and seeing pictures of your (everyones) veggies this fall & winter. Treefrog

Paula, The issues you'd have in soil that had sat underneath a burn pile likely would be lower levels of microbial activity which could indirectly affect the nematode populaton but since you added lots of cow manure, the manure should have cancelled out the burn pile, so to speak. With sandy soil, the nematodes are just there in the soil. It isn't a city or rural issue, just a matter of what type of soil you have. One of two good things about clay soil (the other is a high fertility level because of high mineral content) is that it is too thick and dense for nematodes to move around. In sandy soil, they move at will, which is the problem. This is why, as much as I really and truly hate my dense clay, we did deliberately look for clay soil because it is the lesser of the two evils. Nematodes feed on plant roots. The more plants you put in the soil for them to feed on, the worse they get. If you keep putting roots in that soil year after year, the nematode population eventually grows to unmanageable levels. Once the levels are that high, you can see a lot of plant death. Right now, your nematode levels likely are very low because you haven't cropped repeatedly in that area, but each year they'll get worse. Still, even with low levels you can see plants wilting even when moist because they have root damage or you can see lower productivity and lower disease resistance. Some plants are more or less immune to nematodes, including grass (like corn!) and Elbon cereal rye. I think carrots and lettuce also are resistant. So, one way to combat them is to plant tomatoes in one area one year and then, the second year, replace the tomatoes in that location with carrots, lettuce, corn, etc. Practicing crop rotation like that can help keep nematode levels manageable. The second technique is to plant Elbon cereal rye in the soil every chance you get. The nematodes get trapped in the rye roots and die! Some people with a real nematode problem use Elbon cereal rye as a part of their regular annual crop rotation even though they'd rather have producing crops in the rye area. The third technique is to add all the organic matter you can to the soil, and the more you add the better, and the more deeply you add it, the better. For most sandy soils, if you can add a layer of organic matter 8-12" tall to the soil, that is enough to really make nematode activity slow down drastically. Since you can't till in 8" of stuff at once (nor 12"), this usually means adding several inches and tilling it in and then doing the same over and over again. When fighting nematodes it is virtually impossible to add too much organic matter to your soil. Organic matter translate into more biologically active soil and that translate into fewer nematodes. Adding ordinary granulated sugar or dry molasses to the soil helps in the same way because it stimulates microbial activity. Fourth, when planting tomatoes and other crops that are known to be highly susceptible to nematodes, choose nematode-resistant varieties. Normally these are indicated by the "N" after their name....like if Better Boy is VFN, that "N" means resistant to nematodes. Unfortunately, no tomatoes are immune but some of the resistant ones are strongly resistant. Fifth, add chitosan to the most important areas of your garden if you can. You can google and read about it. I've never seen it offered locally and it may be too expensive. Otherwise, if you can get shells from any shellfish and compost them in your compost pile, they have the same effect. Sixth, apply beneficial nematodes to your soil at the right time and when temperatures are in the right range. The beneficial nematodes are Mother Nature's way of controlling nematodes. Seventh, practice excellent garden sanitation, taking care to remove all nematode-infected roots. Doing all these things together will help. You could move from one garden plot to another every year, but that makes permanent fencing to keep the in-laws...ooops, the deer and rabbits....not the in-laws....out of the garden very hard to manage. Since our place is 99% clay, I take clay dug from the ground and piled up for me by a guy with a dozer, and add the clay to my lone band of sandy soil. The more clay I add, the better the sand gets....but you have to add oodles and oodles of very dense clay while also adding tons of organic matter. Nematodes can exist in clay soil that has a high sand content. I don't envy you having to deal with the nematodes. I do want to emphasize again that bark mulch/tree trimmings incorporated into the soil is the best solution and doesn't give you nematodes. If I had pure sand, I'd double dig and put all the mulch and compost and such that I could down in the lower level (because I'd only intend to double dig once!) of the soil. Then, I'd improve the upper layer as previously discussed here. And, another thing about adding pine bark fines and shredded hardwood mulch: they say only add small pieces and not large ones because large ones tie up too much nitrogen as they break down. I totally and completely ignore that and add all the big chunks of wood I can to my beds to break up the clay. If the big chunks of wood are tying up nitrogen (and I cannot tell they do), I can always add nitrogen and it isn't a big deal. I think I can do this without negative consequences in our climate because of our extreme heat--it makes everything, including those chunks of wood, break down relatively quickly. Hope this helps. Dawn