Robertz6, I suggest you post on the Tomato forum and see if your problem can be diagnosed. Were the plants diseased? (What are the symptoms?) Did you have smaller harvests harvests without apparent other problems? Did you have big green plants but no tomatoes? Or maybe poor-tasting tomatoes? Have you changed the varieties you grow? Which varieties did you grow? Do you grow other veggies besides tomatoes, and if so, what veggies and did they have problems as well? (And if not other veggies, have you had problems with other plants in the garden?) Have you had your soil tested lately? Providing your location would also give a clue about possible weather problems. [Don't answer me here: I know a little bit, but there are real experts on the Tomato forum.]

hi mark, glad to hear you did well, but i am not surprised, you are a genius at growing anything! now how's that money tree going? get any seeds yet? :) i am NOT a fan of mel bartholowmay (sp?) and his square foot gardening. i know people swear by it, i swear at it! for some things it's ok for others it is a disaster. maybe i did it wrong, any guess what a 4' X 4' square of bush string beans planted 2 or 4" on center looks like? it's a horror show. that said, i'm a big advocate of using 4' sq beds for some things. my garlic did fantastic! i grew garlic in '95 and '96 and it was a small amount, 1st year ok the 2nd was not good so i gave up. this past fall i allocated 4' X 12' for garlic (same as onions). i used my 6" onion planting guide to plant the garlic. i had 10 or 11 rows of music, 5 or 6 rows of german white, 2 rows of georgian crystal, 2 rows of an unknown hard neck i got at a health food store and 2 rows of softneck from stop and shop, the cloves for the sn were HUGE. of the hardnecks, 3 or 4 plants grew funky, maybe 2 or 3 never came up. of the sn, 1/2 did not come up and compared to the hn it did poorly tho ok. i dug it all about 7/25 and dried it in my shed. i trimmed the roots and stalks on friday. i did very well! i did have a problem (only with german white and only 8 or 10 bulbs with about 30+ that are fine) so i went to the farmers market looking for the farmer i bought my garlic from to ask about it but he was not there. so far i have not been able to get him on the phone. i did ask a few farmers why happened and the concensus was that i watered too much. my problem was that only the german white had 8 bulbs that had a white mold or fungus around the stalk within the bulb. the cloves were firm but looked water logged, a sort of translucent pearly grey color. the other 30 or so german white were ok. all the other garlic was ok from what i can discern. i did mulch with 5-6" of 1 or 2 year old shredded leaves, removing all but 1" in late march (which was too late but that did not harm anything). i thought that the leaves introduced the problem but then all the garlic should have had it. these guys told me they do not water their garlic, it rains enough here in the spring and summer to suffice. all the sources i read always said to keep it evenly moist but i 100% discount that now. unless we go for 3 weeks without rain, i will not water garlic again. however, if you saw the size of the hardneck bulbs they were selling you'd laugh. my german white has some cloves that are so huge that 1 clove is 2/3 the size of their entire bulb! i am not kidding you. my music cloves are just about the same tho i think the german white has larger cloves while music has larger bulbs, more cloves per bulb. my bulbs are about 2.5 to 3" in diameter, theirs were about 1.5 to 1.75"! so like i wonder about watering, you know :)! still, one guy told me garlic originated in siberia and they have wicked dry weather so the no watering does make sense. i harvested about 160 bulbs out of about 175 cloves planted. i used 48 sq feet of garden. to compare, i used 120 sq feet for potatoes. i grew 13 superior and 13 yukon gold and got a WHOOPING, SIT DOWN, HOLD ONTO YOUR HAT, 15 pounds of superior and 16 pounds of yukon gold and i use a soaker hose around the seed for adequate water. prior to that, my potatoes were often hollow or very small, so the soaker hose helps. garlic requires only cutting the scape and virtually no weeding with 1" of mulch. digging is easy. potatoes require work to plant, 2 or 3 hillings which is a lot of work in the heat, usually a lot of work killing colorodo potatoe beetles tho i saw only 12-18 this year and no larvae and the digging to get the potatoes is really hard work especially with a soaker hose in there. so i wasted 120 sq feet again! this fall i plan on planting at least 100 sq feet of garlic, NO potatoes, i may plant 125-130 sq feet. i plant 6" on center. i know from experience that if you crowd onions you get small bulbs. my red wings and copra are much larger now that i space them 4" on center vs the 3" i used to use. i suspect garlic is the same. i gather you used 6' too using the crw? storage is something only time will tell. i don't know what to make of the taste of all my garlics. georgian crystal is mild. the others are not like grocery store garlic which is HOT and SPICY. it is what i am used to. some of my cloves have been hot but most are so so. not sure what to make of this. but it is organic, it will be free once i grow enough to plant and eat for the whole year. this is why i need to buy garlic cuz i'd have to plant too much of the harvest based upon the amount i want to plant/grow next season, maybe 3/4! the guy i buy from charges just $4 a pound and he is organic!!!!! one of the guys i talked to at the farmers market told me he wholesales his to whole foods and he is organic and he gets $6.50 a pound, wholesale!!!!! so i gotta find the guy i dealt with last summer for about 30 pounds of garlic and that'd be $120! but i think that would allow me to have enought to plant and eat all year. yes, it was very successful and i am very pleased with the results. garlic is easy to grow. the hardest part is cutting the scapes when it's 90 and humid but anything is difficult under those conditions! as a side note, ever grow grandfather ashlock (i'm on tomatoes now)? i tried it this year and it is 1 heck of a fantastic tomato rivaling earl's faux! tom's yellow wonder was the only other new variety i grew this year and it too is quite good. i am not a fan of yellow tomatoes but tyw is very good. the 1st 1 i ate i would have thought it was a red tomato it had such good flavor. they are huge too 1 to 3 pounds. tom

The splitting and scars on the tomatoes are due to the drought followed by days and days of rain. The drought toughened the skins, then the rains allowed the plants to take in a lot of water, swelling the tomatoes and causing them to burst their skins. Looks ugly but doesn't taste bad. However you can't leave burst, partially ripe tomatoes on the vine long or they will start to rot. I think a fantastic edger plant for a vegetable garden would be lamb's ear. The bees go nuts for lamb's ear, so I'd hope they'd also stop by the veggies while visiting. I haven't tried it but I just might. They really seem to like my pink Joe Pye Weed too, but that gets really tall. Do your tilling really well right now, so you don't have to till again, ever. Tilling is really tough on the worms. Cover with the plastic this year (to kill your weeds), then in spring, uncover, plant, and spread cardboard to cover the whole area around your plants. I'm telling you, a better weed barrier cannot be found. It's tough, but allows the water to soak through, and does a pretty good job retaining moisture in the soil. If you don't like the look of it, spread mulch over top. By keeping your soil covered at all times you will allow the worms to work their way to the very top of the soil - in effect, constantly tilling for you! In the late fall, uncover, throw on your compost and manure, scratch it in, then recover and let the worms go to work. Get your soil tested in spring in case you need to sprinkle lime or something to improve the pH of your garden before planting. Don't add the lime unless you've been told to by the soil testing people, though. As for growing "up", this year I created a bamboo truss for my tomatoes. I made of tepee of three bamboo canes (harvested a couple of years ago from a neighbor's house) and lashed them together. At the other end I did the same thing. I laid two bamboo canes across the top between them, spanning the length of my tomato bed. Each crosspole lay in the crotch of where the three side poles came together. I lashed them down on each end. There is about a 2" gap between the two crosspoles. Next I stuck a small bamboo stake next to each tomato plant, and I tied each plant to each stake with stretch tape. Then I tied a piece of twine to each stake, near the top. I threw the ball of twine up over the truss and tied it off so the twine was not overly tight or loose. Then I wound the tomatoes up the twine as they grew. This system works best for indeterminate, vining-type tomatoes, which are the ones that were trying to crawl away on you. This same method would also work for beans. For melons and winter squashes, if you have the space, try this: Put a bale of hay next to the young vine such that it doesn't block the light. When it's long enough, lay it over the bale. Add a bale next to that bale when the vine is long enough. Continue as the vine grows (this is great to do down the rows between your corn - the shade from the corn will keep the vine from stressing in the hottest parts of the summer.) Support the fruits on the bales or prop them up on stones or clay pots between the bales. This will keep the vine healthy and the fruits free of rot, plus make it easy for you to turn them to ripen them evenly.

I'm new, so I apologize for my ignorance, lol I just learned in a college class of mine, about the role of drugs and chemicals in our society, how they came to be, and generally(with my pre-existing knowledge) how they are used today and may be used in the future. I am trying to find a qualitative answer to a question I asked myself and my professor once I learned this information... If drugs and external chemicals have consequences, both bad and good, and were invented(or used once discovered) for temporary enhancement of _ What are some substances, whether in chemical form or otherwise that I or most people can intake periodically, and fit the following criteria?: 1. They Create positive enhancement of life by enhancing some sense(e.g. More energy, less pain, sexual performance, better hearing, better taste, everything else in the book) 2. Does not overwhelm natural homeostasis, and does not have chronic or substantial long term side effects.(e.g. cancer, diseases, loss of senses, loss of brain matter, etc) i.e. What foods, and drugs can we intake that will not be detrimental in the the future, whether used in moderation or daily? Keep in mind, i'm not talking about short-term side effects, because in the end...they end; you don't have to deal with them weeks, months, years down the road, so they can be dealt with in a much better way than long-term effects. I know that alcohol is an effective poison but for example, the hangover you feel after consumption of alcohol the next day is something i'm not worried about. The cardiovascular disease, CNS damage, and liver complications years later are things I am worried about. An example answer to my question might be, the Glycoprotein called Miraculin or "the miracle fruit"(i.e. Synsepalum dulcificum) people today are raving about, that causes sour food to taste sweet. I'm assuming this harmless fruit and chemical, if taken weekly or monthly would probably not have any crazy long term effects, though I might even wrong about that. Perhaps, even if the taste fibres were damaged long term, everything would taste better forever! haha. Anyway, I really appreciate any helpful information any of you can give me!!! Effects i'm truly interested in learning about are enhanced energy, and perhaps sensory changes as alternatives to caffeine(energy drinks), and alcohol for "life enhancers". I often lack energy throughout the day even though I workout every so often and have a decent diet(oatmeal, sandwiches, meat with vegetable dinners). I also drink alcohol every couple months and to be honest, i'm in my early twenties and it's fun :/ The thought of stopping is somewhat painful, though doa