I've been investigating growing potatoes from seed after my russets produced so many seed pods. I kinda made up my mind that there's too much variability in what you get. But then it occurred to me that since I planted some Canela Russet seed potato yesterday for a late crop that there will only be flowers from those plants then. So maybe I'll try a few plants. I'll have to ask around the neighborhood to see if any one else is growing potatoes, let alone fall potatoes.

John - I'm in the computer information systems business as well but I don't go as far back as you. The system I work on now was built in the late 90s and early 2000s and was written in COBOL with a VB6 GUI. We are in the early stages of replacing it right now and I'm not looking forward to it at all. I'd rather just cruise into retirement on our current system that I am familiar with and a SME on but the technologies are obsolete.

True potato seed (TPS) is interesting but I don't think I have the patience for it. What is interesting is that EVERY potato grown from TPS is a new unique variety. I'd rather know that what I am harvesting is actually going to be edible! I've only had tomato berries form on my plants 2 times. One was on a fingerling and the other was on German Butterball.

I didn't have good luck with a fall potato crop that I grew 3 years ago. The yield was low and the tubers were small possibly because the plants got killed off prematurely by a October frost. IIRC I planted in late July.

It's amazing to think that the "smartphone" that's here in my pocket has more computing power than the computers you started out working on John! The first one I remember using was an Apple II back in elementary school. The first one my parents bought me was a used TRS80.

The company I work for is highly technological, sometimes to a fault. They have multiple mainframes that they have been talking about retiring for almost as long as I've been here hahaha.

Jamie - we got rid of our mainframe about 8 years ago. It was not a very fun transition to say the least. We're now on a Linux platform using Microfocus products to replace most of the IBM software suite.

Back to gardening...I have soaker hoses springing leaks left and right. I'm going to change over to drip irrigation next year and get rid of most of the soaker hoses. I also cut through one of my soaker hoses in a tomato bed with a T post early in the season but didn't notice it until a few weeks ago when I had to finally start watering.

I'll have to do some research on brands and style. Any advice is welcome.

My acorn and butternut squash are setting fruit like crazy! I counted at least a dozen Honeynut and even more White acorn. The Honey Bear acorn aren't setting as well as the white.

Jack - Yep, the seeds were waiting for me when I got to the office today. Thanks! I pulled out my Rocdor plants yesterday due to spider mite infestation and they just weren't really producing much any more. They had little beans on them, but they didn't seem to want to grow. I think I'll poke in some of your provider bean seed in their place.

I am surprised at how many engineer-types there are here among the frequent posters. +1 for me. My degree was Computer Science Engineering. So, Jamie, Kevin, Jack, John all fit in this category. Did I miss anybody?

I'm having a hard time keeping up with all the yard/garden chores. I managed to get about 4 quarts of tomatoes skinned and seeded and very coarse chopped yesterday. There were visions of turning them into something, but then the day ran out. Maybe today it will turn into something and get canned.

I've been weighing all my harvests, but as of yet, it's just a notepad with dates, type of harvest, and weights. At the beginning of the season I said I wasn't sure I was going to weigh everything so I dawdled at getting data entered in the spreadsheet I used last year. So, I just keep on writing down numbers. Maybe some day I'll have the chance to start entering it all.

Jack - I bought the "Medium" version of this drip kit with the automatic timer last year.

https://www.dripworks.com/garden-bed-irrigation-kit-medium

We have used it for two growing seasons and it's been great for most things. The dripline has emitters every 12" so it matches the spacing that we use in our beds. It doesn't work so well when you have something like beans with a closer spacing, so I water things like that by hand. For tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, etc that system works great. The timer has done well also- the only thing I had to do was change the battery this spring.

I did have one piece of dripline blow out an emitter, but we replaced it with some extra that we had left over. I have it covering 6 beds that are 4' by 8'.

I am considering getting some of the other emitters to help with things that are spaced more closely, but I have not done that yet.

The main appeal for me was the fact that the kit contained everything I need to set the system up.

Margi- my degrees are in Civil Engineering

I really can’t believe it’s almost August.

Cindy, one of those Honeynut butternuts you sent me has over 20 squashes growing on it!! This variety is a keeper. Thank you again for introducing me to it. The squash bugs wont touch it, but they are decimating my other squashes.

I‘m a few days away from my first cucumber harvest of the year. I’m ready for a sliced up salted cucumber. That makes a great snack. My tomatoes are setting on a decent flush of tomatoes. Our temps have been average, upper 80’s by day and mid-upper 60’s by night, the last week. That is pretty much what this past spring and summer has been, average! Our last frost was in late April, we had a fair spring that turned consistently hot about the 3rd week of June, and our temps have yet to exceed the low 90’s. Rainfall is now close to average, although it did get a bit dry for a few weeks until this morning. We had a couple inches of rain early. As I type this, it is raining again.

i was aiming for 3 lb per plant for my potato harvest this year. So far I’ve surpassed that at 3.5 lb per plant. By the time all is said and done, I should have over 200 lb of potatoes harvested by this fall. Next year I am going to aim for 5lb per plant with a hopefully better fertilizer routine. Kennebecs are now a favorite of mine. The flavor is outstanding, and the texture is so creamy! I planted mine in mid April, once the dogswoods began blooming, which seems to work best around here.

Tony, I really enjoy your tomato reports. I have Bolseno seed from Jack that I had intended to plant this past spring, but I wound up running out of room. I’m going to prioritize it this next spring, as I really want to try it. As you have said before, Mortgage Lifter does not stand up to disease, at all! Even with routine spraying, it has really been taken over. My Cherokee Purple, however, has shown little sign of Septoria. That being said, the Mortgage Lifter has put out a lot of green growth towards the top, and it is forming a great second flush of tomatoes. The flavor is great, but its not disease tolerant at all. I’m not sure if I’ll be growing it again.

I also need to figure out a better way to organize my seed. Gosh dang, it takes forever just to find a packet of lettuce!!

I am horrible with organizing also, Jacob. But, I did make an effort at it this year. I bought some Sterilite containers like these: https://www.amazon.com/Sterilite-16428012-Quart-Liter-Storage/dp/B002BDTETW/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=sterilite+storage+containers+6+qt&pd_rd_r=a05282d5-7165-4a36-801c-b88c7eb46ceb&pd_rd_w=BI08y&pd_rd_wg=gxSs9&pf_rd_p=8c50fb3b-71cc-4f59-971a-9f0f19b41fd7&pf_rd_r=QX6DTGARRSVBR8F0SZ7R&qid=1564425295&s=gateway&sr=8-3 (I think Walmart has them also) and grouped like things in each container- one for tomatoes, one for flowers, one for lettuce and greens, etc. It's working well for me. I have considered doing something more sophisticated, but I have not taken the time to work out a better plan.

Jamie, you might like John Jeavons Biointensive growing books, videos, etc. One calculation he shows is food calories/sq. ft. I was surprised to see some crops that I considered low yielding place high on that list...I don't have my book nearby now but it seems like garlic, onions, and parsnips were ones that surprised me. Of course lots of veggies are very nutritious but don't have many calories at all so they would rate low. I certainly will still grow them, especially when home grown taste is much better than purchased items. But if it was essential to produce more of my yearly calories myself, I would need to change up my selections. I think he showed good, very good, and excellent yield averages calculated for individual veggies, too. Those totals would be for beds, not including walkways. Yup, John has lots of tables and graphs for all the number geeks.

LoneJack, you did a lot over the weekend. Gotta love a table saw storage area for tomatoes. I guess you won't be letting any stay there long enough to start leaking! Our truck bed becomes a storage area at times since we mainly use the truck to pull our travel trailer. Sometimes I have to move quite a few things like garlic or onions if we decide to do a last minute trip.

Not too much computer work or expertise here, but DH and I know our math which helped with biology, chemistry, and accounting jobs. We keep a few household spreadsheets. None for the garden this year, though. It wasn't fun for us anymore. I did track some crops I was curious about-mainly asparagus. I raised my computer expert and don't understand much of what he does today, just know he loves his work and from what I hear is very good at it. Guess that is what moms are supposed to think :)

Jacob, I like the info on planting potatoes when the dogwoods bloom. I've heard about planting corn when oak leaves are the size of squirrels' ears. Seems like lilac blooms are an indicator for some veggies, too, but I don't know which one.

It sounds like your squash and potatoes are doing well. It's great to have some harvests that can be stored and used as needed throughout the next several months.

Traditionally people planted their potatoes on St. Patrick's Day in the northern part of Middle Tennessee where I grew up- at least that's what my maternal grandfather always said. Here in West Tennessee we can generally plant them the first weekend in March, so a couple of weeks earlier than in Middle TN.

Thanks for the recommendation on the book!

A smart phone has about 5 times the technology as the computer used to land a man on the moon

I suspect that today's computer hardware doesn't have as power as said, when you compare it to some of the larger mainframes of yesterday. Univac's 1110 of 1972 became the 1100/80 in 1978 which became the IBM 3080, in 1983, and then the 3090 a few years later. Amdahl copied IBM's version. Those computers had up to 4 processors and multiple I/O. They had multiple memories even back to the 1972 machine with 5 memories that could all be accessed at the same time.

I suspect the biggest difference comes in the software that's been developed in the intervening years. It's also my opinion that another big difference is the monitor gives you the ability to do so much more than an old terminal could. It could only display characters. Much of what people marvel about today are really simple protocols that are very small. Modems are faster, hard drives are bigger. CPU speed is much faster, but memory is no faster than it was 20 years ago. The CPU speed doesn't go to executing the programs we run, it goes to executing the microprogram that determines how instructions are executed.

I think the PC was ready for a major overhaul 20 years ago. The floppy device has the same priority as 127 hard drives do. There's a big bottleneck in running multiple memories. There's even a big problem running multiple printers which I've been told is the major reason a powerful government agency keeps their mainframe.

The moon lander was limited by size and weight. You would never get a Univac 1108, of that era, in space let alone to the moon.

Oh, I am a forensic psychologist so only had a couple of computer classes but about 8 statistics courses. My specialty is forensic psychological testing and reports for the court. New Mexico is where I get the majority of my cases.

Jacob - I dug a Kennebec plant on Saturday and there were about 3.5# of spuds underneath! There were still some babies and the plant was still partially green, so it might have added a bit more weight had I left it. I still have a few more to dig, but since they seem to be pretty happy just hanging out at the back of the garden, I'm not in a rush. A couple weeks ago I immediately replanted the Purple Majesty spuds that were sprouting when I dug those plants and I also planted the Kennebec spuds that I had left (and stored in my fridge in a paper sack) from my spring-planted potatoes.

Wow...active day here...will have to come back later to answer posts.

Jamie, I like how you organize your seeds. I’m pretty sure I’ll make a similar setup. I’ll be in town tomorrow and may stop by Walmart and find some cheap bins.

Naturegirl, most people plant around St. Patrick’s Day here, but I just find that they don’t do as well when planting them that early. It seems like most of our family plants them about the time the dogwoods bloom, sometimes even later. My aunt in southern Indiana (their climate is pretty much the same as ours, frost dates and all), plants in May every year. They just seem to yield best if planted once it begins to warm up, for me. I’m not sure why. I imagine it depends on the garden. There are many factors such as the direction the garden slopes, spring sunshine, etc.

This year I’ve been experimenting with planting according to how native plants are responding to the weather patterns. So far it seems that lettuce and other leafy greens (except Swiss chard), cold tolerant roots like carrots and beets and radishes, and onions do best if planted after the forsythia have bloomed (usually sometime during the last half of March here). Lesser cold tolerant crops like brassicas, potatoes, etc, seem to perform best if planted once the dogwoods have bloomed (mid April here). Now here’s where I need to experiment more. Most people say to plant warm weather crops once the white oaks have leafed out. This usually is an indicator that frost is past, but we still sometimes get cold snaps that the warmer weather crops don’t always like. So I’m watching other plants that tend to bloom or leaf out after these last cold snaps. One such is usually Dutch Irises in mid May. Somehow these did not bloom this year! Maybe they’re too sensitive to changing weather patterns to be a reliable “sign”? One tree in our backyard, a hickory tree of some kind, always waits to leaf out as soon as the last cold snaps are past. It HATES cold. It’s very reliable, but I’m waiting to observe other hickories next spring to determine whether all are like that. My guess is that not all hickory trees do this, but only certain species of hickory.

Another area of garden phenology I would like to study is for the autumn garden, which is partially why I’m so excited to finally have a small plot that gets full sun in the autumn. What signs can I watch for in the summer to determine how much time is left in the growing season? Some say that cicadas will begin calling 6 weeks from the first frost, but this has proved inaccurate, as last year they began calling in mid June, but the first frost was Oct. 12th. There are certain trees I notice, dogwoods being one of them, that develop a reddish tint about this time of year. I wonder if there is a correlation there.

The reason I’m making such a big deal out of this is purely to give my garden the best start it can possibly have. It seems that the early life of the plant influences the rest of its life. If given optimum conditions early on, most plants seem to thrive later in life, being more pest-resistant, drought-tolerant, producing more, etc.

Anyways, that’s a topic I enjoy studying. I tend to get a bit carried away when someone mentions it, so forgive me if I ramble a bit haha.

Jack - It wasn't an army, just five of us. There are certain foods that I really enjoy the leftovers from for the next day, though there are not as many leftovers this time as I expected.
I am also disappointed in several of my dwarf tomato plants. Some varieties I doubt that I will ever grow again.

Jamie - The octopus was a disappointment. First of all it shrunk to about half of it's original size. And the flavor was just so so. I had made octopus once before and didn't experience this. We ended up eating that one before it made it to the grill.
Have you eaten any of your Honeynut mini's yet?

Jacob - Glad that you are happy with the production of the Honeynut. Hope you enjoy the taste, too.

Margi - I hope to get the iris in the mail this week though we are having another hot spell until Wednesday. It's brutal out there right now.

Met some friends for lunch today at a Virginia winery. Virginia is becoming quite the wine state. I tried growing grapes a few years ago and the Jap. beetles destroyed them.

This must be the day to confess. I'm a former teacher, taught Fine Arts (visual) for 37 years and loved it. Three degrees. No phd.

Now I love retirement!

Cindy - I have your iris out of the ground and will get them packaged up and shipped soon! I finally had the time and remembered to dig some. Ought to do some more thinning, but at least I have yours ready. :-)

Jacob

I noticed that in the past two years my Morgage Lifter produced my first tomato. I only grow heirlooms. So this year I planted a Mortgage Lifter first. It's not doing well. It's my only tomato suffering from Septoria/blight, and it doesn't have the same green as the other 24 plants. Some of those are growing slower than others. But I think I agree with you that a plant can be set back by the weather and or environment. Last year the Mortgage Lifter was the 7th plant I set out. I don't have records of the dates planted but I'd guess it was at least a week later as I usually only set out 2 or 3 plants a day that early in the season. Some days get skipped and if the long range weather doesn't look good I don't set any out till that issue passes.

I noticed today that all but one of the tomato plants I set out have bloomed, except one. Those I set out as late as July 6 are blooming except the one I set out on June 29. The one from July 6 is a much smaller plant. I didn't put the 4 inches of manure there as that one is planted where the manure pile was all winter. I was wrong in assuming the nourishment would soak in from the pile. The clay was dark down 4 inches or so.

Cindy - I haven’t cooked any of the Honeynuts yet, but I will tomorrow evening. I’m looking forward to it!

I have never pressure-cooked an octopus to tenderize it. I have always just let it simmer on the stove until I could stick a fork into one of the tentacles. My better half is allergic to seafood so I’m afraid to cook one now hahaha

Jamie - Yes, that may have been my mistake. Last time I cooked it on the stove for about two hours. Learn something new . . . . .

Jack - I just checked on my dwarf tomato plants and Dwarf Maralinga has fourteen tomatoes on it! None ripe yet so the taste verdict is still awaiting.

A few pictures:

NT Half runner beans forming up nicely

Half runners left tomatoes right

Purple Podded bean arch with Tobacco Worm bean arch beyond. The Purple podded are earliest pole beans and have just about caught up with the bush beans. Have only eaten a few picked in the garden and they are very sweet and tender.

Here they are on the vine...will let some get to be full beans to see if they stay tender enough to steam and eat. I'm testing all of the pole beans for that feature.

Harvest

First tomato...tiny Galina from seeds Cindy sent me. Plants are growing fast and covered with green ones. We tasted this one and it has great acidic flavor...of course we are starved for a real tomato.

Love this Early Scarlet Hoorn carrot, surrounded by salad greens. It tasted great too; not very sweet but with real carrot flavor.

I think some of my beans have bean common mosaic virus. Never saw this before...or if it was around I didn't realize it. The plants are distorted, small, and weirdly colored. Pods are weird and few in number. Guess it may be time to pull them out and bag them up :(

LoneJack or others, it seems like you mentioned this virus in the past. What varieties do you avoid? What ones do you use? Does planting time play a part in all of this?

I have a planting of Jacob's Cattle Beans in a separate location. They look fine. I planted them for dry beans but have found the young pods make fine snap beans. I think I'll be harvesting most of them for fresh eating and buying dry beans in the winter.

Naturegirl - I put the ripe tomatoes in shallow cardboard box tops and then set those on the table saw. I've had a few leakers here and there but I usually catch them before they leak through the box.

Are you sure your beans have common bean mosaic virus? I believe I've only had bean mosaic virus on beans before which is spread by aphids with clover as the vector plant. I'm not sure what the difference is. The only bean that I have grown that is highly resistant to either virus is Provider. It doesn't even seem to be phased by the virus at all. I found this chart from Cornell that lists dozens of bush bean varieties and their resistance to various diseases. From the list I have grown Contender, Jade, EZ pick, and Blue Lake 274 and of those only EZ pick seemed to show the same resistance as Provider but the quality wasn't there.

Jamie - thanks for the link from Dripworks. I looked at their site in the spring but didn't put in an order because I had so many soaker hoses already. Now that several of them have sprung leaks I think I will go ahead and switch to drip for most things. I will go through my soaker hoses over the winter to figure out which are worth keeping and use those on things like beans and onions that are planted too close for emitters to work well.

Len - I love your bean arches! Congrats on the first mater! You and John will be buried by tomatoes when the rest of us are mourning the end of the tomato season.

Margi - have fun planting the beans. Are you supposed to get the cooler weather down there from the cold front that passed through?

Cindy - I think Dwarf Wild Fred has set the most fruit so far of my 6 dwarf plants but I don't think any of them are over 4 oz. There must be close to 20 on the plant. Maybe I should have culled some of them to allow others to grow larger. I haven't fertilized any of my tomatoes for 3 weeks now because it was so hot I didn't think that any new fruit would set. Now that it has cooled off I may go ahead a hit the plants that are still relatively healthy one more time.

Jacob - you sure are in touch with nature! I'll try to pay more attention to the signs that you mentioned next spring to see how the correlate to my planting times.

Well, LoneJack, I'm not sure what is ailing my beans now. I see some symptoms match photos of high pH and nutrient solubility problems. But I may be leaning that way now because I just harvested a few potatoes and they had scab....not a problem where I usually grow them. I know that can be pH related. The troubled spot is at a community center with "soil" that was brought in for the raised beds. It looks more like gravel to me :( I'm not sure if I want to deal with gardening there next year....maybe I'll expand things at home instead. The soil at home has lots of clay, but it usually does not cause problems. However, with heavy rains in the spring, the home garden has trouble, too.

Good news, though. I still have plenty to eat. Garden failures don't leave me without a way to get food like it may for some people in some parts of the world

Here's another tomato evaluation: Dwarf Firebird Sweet. These tomatoes are real beefsteaks and the plant has six more on it, plus a couple more flowers. Taste is nice and it is one of the sweeter tomatoes that I've grown. However, it is not overly sweet. It has a nice flavor.

Websites state that the tomato is between 4 and 8 ozs. My first one was about a pound and I was going to take a photo but my DH ate it all before I thought to do it. We had BLTs for breakfast today. I did save seeds from it. You can see four of them in this photo.

Jack - What cool front?!?!? Ha! Still hot here. Tomorrow and Thursday I'm looking at 97*, Weather.com says 93 today and Friday and only 88 on the weekend. I guess that's all the 'cool' I get. I REALLY need a good soaking rain. night before last it stormed for just a bit, but there was only about .15 or so in my gauge.

Margi - that's about the same amount that I got here Sunday night. The weather guesser said that there was a high pressure dome over the high plains that was going to keep it hot over the central plains but it would also cause multiple rain chances here in KC just to the east of the high pressure area. We have decent rain chances in our forecast from Thursday morning until Saturday with highs in the low 80s. Sorry that you are on the wrong side of the 'good' weather!

I accidentally left the soaker hose running overnight on my cucumbers and yellow summer squash bed. At least it was just barely running. I bet the cukes are going to really size up fast with all that moisture to soak up.

It has been 100+ every day here. We did have two days in a row where it was 67 degrees at 5:30 am. Only the Umamin tomato plant is still putting out blooms other than the cherry tomatoes. Okra, white eggplant, and the medium heat and bell peppers slow down but never stop no matter how hot it gets

Been there, done that...leaving water running in the garden. My dad, who had the house built that I currently live in, rigged a warning system for just that thing. He ran an electrical line in the basement from the pump/pressure tank to light a small lightbulb that he positioned in front of the air-return vent in that room. So...every night as he was going to bed he knew if that light was on, there was water running somewhere. Just last week that warning system alerted me to the fact that I'd left a hose running. It had only been a few hours, but if I wouldn't have seen that light, I wouldn't have discovered the water until the next morning when I checked the garden.

It's been in the upper 90's here for the last few days. Temp reads now at 99F! The only tomatoes still setting fruit are Bolseno and BHN 589 -- the rest are dropping blossoms ...sad!

Tony

It is 102 here today. My melons haven't grown past tennis ball size for weeks and the flesh is already red. The strawberries look pretty good but I am only getting about 5 a day

Naturegirl, I have what seems to be mosaic virus too. I have gardened here for 40 yrs and this is something I have never seen before. It's in my pole beans so everything is intertwined, it's only in a small area and I can't pull affected plants. I didn't have any noticeable aphids on my plants, but I did have Crimson clover in the garden this winter. The plants are producing so I'm not going to worry too much about it.

I'd like guesses on what these squash are! I planted Acorn squash Sweet Reba with seed from two different sources, I have some lovely acorns on most of my plants. Then a long vine showed up and now I have 3 ? that are growing nicely. While looking at that plant I discovered this odd warty yellow squash...??

Leah, the puckering looks like mine, but I also have lots of yellowing and few beans. I think mine are coming out even if I'm not sure just what it is.

Interesting squash...no idea what they are...perhaps some cross pollinated seeds that got into the seed stock. They will make fun fall decorations if you decide not to eat them!

Cindy, making cold cucumber soup? We make this one with one exception -- instead of mint ... lots of fresh Dill.

https://www.yummly.com/recipe/Cack-Cold-Cucumber-Yogurt-Soup-512344?prm-v1

Thanks for the recipe, Tony.
I was afraid that we were going to get as hot here as you did today. Was relieved to see that it was only 97 here. Whew. Dodged a bullet. :-)

Cindy - some how I missed your post about Dwarf Firebird Sweet. Those fruit are bigger than any on my dwarfs. The striping looks a lot like Girl Girl's Weird Thing. Do you have it growing in a container or in the garden?

So far I've saved seed from 10 tomato varieties this year. I finished off cleaning 6 of them last night. Dwarf Mr. Snow, Dwarf Beauty King, Dwarf Tasmanian Chocolate, Pink Ping Pong, Jaune Flamme, Pruden's Purple, Girl Girl's Weird Thing, Kellogg's Breakfast potato leaf, Brandywine Suddeth, and Black from Tula.

I still want to save seeds from Wes, German Johnson, Rebel Yell, NAR, Pineapple, and Livingston Yellow Oxheart. I might save some from the other dwarfs as well just in case someone wants some even if I don't plan to grow them again any time soon.

First Scotch Bonnet pepper of the season yesterday (along with another Habanero). And about 5 more San Marzano tomatoes.

Oh.... and I’m a little late... but I have a degree in Computer Engineering and currently working on my masters in Computer Forensics. Great to see other techie gardeners out there!

Good morning, Jack, Most of my dwarf plants are in the ground in the garden. Only two varieties are in my earth box and they are not doing well. Small plants and not much fruit set on either of them. In general, I've not been impressed with anything I've grown in my earth box.

I'm also noticing that the saved seeds from the dwarf varieties are slightly larger than the seeds from my indeterminate plants.

Jack

Some great tomatoes that you're saving seed from.

Cindy:

I've noticed that the seeds I saved from my tomatoes are larger than the seeds in the package I used to grow them. I assumed it was because I ripened my tomatoes on the vine.

Hab:

What's the odds that so many who post here have a background in computers? I used to live in an apartment and went fishing a lot. After I bought 40 acres in suburban Pittsburgh I didn't have the urge to get out fishing. I attributed it to having some contact with the outdoors where I lived every day.

This non-stop heat and high humidity is playing havoc with my tomatoes -- Septoria has overtaken each variety (except Bolseno) to the point where all plants are now half dead. The 10 Bolseno plants are the only ones that have completely shrugged off this disease and remain super healthy (all tomatoes were treated three times with Richard's Mycostop process). If I didn't plant ten Bolseno plants, I doubt I'll get any harvest worth noticing -- especially after August. In years past Bolseno kept producing till frost killed it -- lots of tomatoes in September (a bumper crop after hot August) and non-stop production (of smaller fruits) till early November! All taste fantastic regardless which time of year the ripe ones are picked !!!

Tony

Another tomato review: Dwarf Tennessee Suited. Good flavor, nicely balanced and I really liked it. I also saved seeds.

A little asymmetrical but it’s ripe! The first successful harvest of its kind from the balcony garden!

Early moonbeam watermelon and wow is it good... can‘t wait to eat it cold!

Cindy that is a pretty tomato! Looks a bit like the black krim tomato a friend gave me yesterday which was scrumptious. I saved some of those seeds although she did nothing to protect blossoms so could get some throwbacks.

Hppy August, all - https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5758772/veggie-tales-august-2019