Carolina Reaper pods

PPP zone

Finally some PPP tomatoes

Ripening PPP

Sweet Pickle pepper

There is a new leader in the clubhouse: DESTER (definitely the best of the red tomatoes this year) although the Dark Star wasn't the best specimen and I had to pull the others early due to the evil blister bugs

Richard - The picture under the text " Carolina Reaper pods " seems to me to show a fairly healthy Poison Oak vine. I don't know of any plant that looks like that plant, but I don't know your areas flora and fauna.....

Richard - That PPP looks a little orange in the photo (for me) or is it just the photo? It should be pink, quite pink. http://www.tomatogrowers.com/PINK-PING-PONG/productinfo/3456/

I think it is the picture Cindy

John, I am not sure what you are seeing, but the only thing around it that looks like that is a blackberry bush-there is no poison oak

Are the postings all out of order for anyone else? I’m seeing new messages mixed with older ones. I tried sorting them, but that didn’t change anything at all.

Jamie - everything is in the correct order for me.

Maybe it’ll sort itself out in a day or two haha

in other news, it’s almost zucchini season

our other squashes are blooming also. I think it’s going to be a good season if the bugs stay away

Nice Jamie...I'm jealous! Costata Romanesco? My summer squash are still pretty small, especially the yellow straightneck that I had to resow due to no germination of the first 3 seeds.

Jamie, my feed is totally screwed up and has been that way since before Labor Day. it is reverse order where

one has to scroll up to get the next message. The drop down screen with newest and oldest are always set on oldest

It is annoying

Yes, Jamie, things are all mixed up. It’s really going to be challenging to keep track of a conversation. Grrrr...

Last night I picked two 1-gallon buckets full to heaping with peas again. This was from 2 of the rows. Today I will pick the third row of shelling peas and the row of sugar snaps. It’s turning hot in the next week, so the peas will be shitting down before I’m ready.

Shelling peas on the right, sugar snaps on the left. edit: I guess it's shelling peas on the top, and snap peas on the bottom. :-(

Ok, well I’m glad it’s not just me hahaha I am using an iPad but I’ll check on a computer later on.

thanks all- jack these are cocozelle di Napoli - I think I got them from Baker creek. We grew them the last couple of years and they have always done well. They are prolific - as you would expect from zucchini hahaha

I started them in 3” pots and transplanted them once they got their first leaves. They’ve been in their large containers for a little over a month now. Maybe 6 weeks

It's National Compost Day! (I didn't even know that there was/is a National Compost Day.)

Jamie I think the mix up started when you pushed the Best Answer button. Good news we get a new page in 3 days!

Also I have a sort button at the upper right corner of the page; not sure it was always there?

National Compost Day...guess I will take the temperature of each bin and report :) Our high today forecast to be 77, then rain and 63 tomorrow. What is a tomato to think?

It was 99 in my hoop house yesterday so may have to work on cooling strategy for July and August.

Argh - why do they continue fuss with this website.... Leave it be!

John - Your post reminds me that I actually need to spend some time looking over the 'nursery'. I took a couple quick peaks last week and saw a few new buds coming too - I dont think its a problem if they are popping from the scion - thats a good thing!

I need to go thru and clip any growth off of rootstock that has a successful graft, as that just takes away energy from the graft growth. Probably should have done that a few weeks back, but, life.

"Labradors, is it Heather?? It has been a while. The Sunrise Bumblebee did have a thick tough skin that one almost had to spit out but had a really good flavor. In cherry tomatoes I like them sweet, the sweeter the better and the Garnet are about the same sweetness as the the Sun Gold and have a little bit of a smoky flavor too. I also like the cherry varieties better than grape or currant varieties and I have 7-8 other varieties I am growing this year but I have to go review them again before they stop producing or getting soft in the middle. Honeycomb is definitely unbeatable despite the high price Burpees gets for them and I need to save a bunch of seeds from them this year. It is almost the exact same color, size and shape as a Sun Gold tomato but at least 1.5 x as sweet. "

=======

RD TX, thanks for explaining. I've never read anything negative about Sunrise BB and wondered if it was just a quirk of the weather that made mine chewy (and, yes, I did have to spit out the skin) but then Purple BB was even worse for chewiness.

If you like them really sweet, you might like Iva's Red Berry. I prefer some complexity with the sweetness so I wasn't that keen it. Another good one is Rosella cherry for all around good flavour.

I will check out Honeycomb. I do like Sun Gold, but find that it develops a funky taste late in the season that really puts me off, but at least my dog loves them.

It's always fun to do taste tests isn't it? I enjoyed reading yours :).

Linda

This website is all upside-down now - totally WEIRD!!!!!

I’ll be more careful next month, Len!!

happy compost day, all! I started celebrating earlier this week when I put some spent pea plants into our barrel composter haha!

thanks for the reminder. Cindy!

The posts seem to be in order now, they were not an hour or so ago,
I use a desktop computer. I have been like a kid digging up seeds to see if they sprouted, but in my case it was watching my broccoli! Finally I see heads starting to form, won't be long now. Most of my tomatoes are blooming and the snap peas are beginning to produce. Thank goodness, something to add to the mountain of lettuce I have. It was 91º here yesterday, maybe 89º today and showers and 65º tomorrow.....our yo-yo weather.

Sugar Snap peas

Oregon Star

Leah - everything looks so healthy!

Currently, I have 35 tomato plants in the ground. I planted 32 today and three plants two days ago. The ones planted two days ago have already put on a bit of new growth.

We might get some rain later but I'm not holding my breath.

How long can I let zucchini seeds soak before I plant them?

Richard - I should have recognized the blackberries, I do have both. I must not look beyond the canes,

Cindy - I never soak seeds so can't help!

I spent a good bit of time digging for cucumbers and a tripod of beans. The rain ended it. We got a glancing blow of some serious storms. I don't know how bad.

We didn't have a compost cake hahaha

Here are compost temps for national compost day (do you suppose this is a congressional holiday; compost, right?)

left bin is hovering just over 100 degrees and right bin is about 150. Stirring the left bin with drill did not move dial much so will turn into Center boon in about week.

Good morning, Linda-sorry about the name mix-up. I am growing Orange Berry this year and it is pretty sweet too. Most all of the cherry tomatoes that I grew this year were pretty sweet and ranked around a 4.0, other than the Honeycomb and Garnet. I have a couple of wild Sun Gold growing this year, so that might be dragging down the Sun Gold scores and I agree with you the older that the Sun Gold plant gets the worse the fruit and they are not even very sweet by the end of the season-kind of watery and bitter. Some of the other varieties that I grew this year were: Ildi, Sun Sugar, Supersweet 100, Sugar Rush, Angora Super Sweet, and Lucky Tiger. The only one that I grew that I will never grow again was Aunt Ginny's Yellow Cherry, which was horrible and bitter-the worst cherry tomato I have ever seen in my life. The Lucky Tiger was also pretty wimpy-I only got two off the plant all year and the blister bugs (most hated pests) got one of them already. I haven't actually tried the Yellow Pear tomatoes (free seed pack from Baker Creek), but they are starting to produce pretty well.

I agree with you that a complexity of flavor in a cherry tomato is pretty awesome, but there aren't too many of them-Honeycomb, Sweet Million and Garnet-maybe Sugar Rush and Centiflor Red are about the only ones that come to mind with the Garnet having the highest complexity of all. Most of the ones I have are sweet with a mild aftertaste similar to a orange tomato. In the Campari size range there are loads of tomatoes with a complexity of flavor-mostly sour/sweet, smoky/acidic. Love the Juane Flamme, Pink Ping Pong, and Fruit Punch. My favorite type of tomatoes-exactly for the reasons you stated with the complexity of flavors are the Bicolored tomatoes. They rarely fail to intrigue me with their enticing myriad of flavors. The Chocolate Stripes, Dwarf Beauty King, and Girl, Girl Weird Thing are in my top 10 tomatoes, with CS near the top. Every one of the varieties I grew this year (that I got to try before the evil blister bugs shattered my dreams) had tomatoes with wonderful, complex flavor and I will grow all of them again.

I was unable to use by phone today, so had to go to the computer and the "Like" button is not working again.

Jack, the Andew Rahart's tomatoes are great-they might have more of the old-fashioned (the ones grandma used to grow) taste than any of the tomatoes I have grown and they were super dark red like the Dester and Creole.

Crazy shaped Starfish peppers on the 3 year old plant (maybe because I snapped it in half and duct taped it back together).

The lone Lucky Tiger

The Pasilla Bajio peppers are awesome. Might be my new go to pepper-It is actually a little hotter than i though it was going to be, but makes wonderful stuffed peppers where you can just eat the whole thing. Great flavor and close to a Poblano for heat-not near as big as the poblano, but with all the flavor and more.

Halp! There was a big storm last night and a fairly heavy sapling came down on top of a big plastic tub I was using to grow potatoes. The tub is cracked and broken beyond repair (I'd basically have to duct tape the entire thing, like a whole roll of duct tape, and I don't know that duct tape would hold with rain/hose watering/heat/sun etc).

The potatoes are showing about two inches of green leaves atop the soil, so they're growing and on their way. And I'm supposed to keep hilling soil to keep the potatoes from peeking above-ground. There's no way I can add soil to this broken tub; it'd all just spill out the sides. Is it possible to replant at this stage?

krenster - You could try to re-plant them by carefully removing the plants intact. Or you could see if you have some small "new" potatoes, cook and eat them.

We got a little rain overnight. 0.15" We really need rain. I'm watering everything today, tomorrow, and Monday.

krenster...that sounds like a pit. How big a tub? Could you get a bigger one, cut the bottom out, and slide over?

It is raining hard this morning with lightning and thunder so it will be indoor activities for me today. I can pot up some tomato seedlings from plugs to 4" that will go into greenhouse late in summer. My goal is to have fresh tomatoes in January.

Cindy, I don't soak seeds but I do germinate them in paper towels. I want to be sure they are going to grow so I use that method, and I did that for all of the many squash seeds I started for my son. These are my Emerite beans that I need to fill in my row-the others I put in without germinating first!

4-1-3-7-8-6-5-10-2-9 (Rankings)

Really wanted to put this one on the no grow list, but the one tomato I got was pretty good and better than 1/2 of the ones pictured.

RD TX

Orange Berry is on my list. Honeycomb looks intriguing too! Pity about your Lucky Tiger being wimpy as I am growing it this year, and would have been interested in your thoughts. I LOVE several of the Artisan Seeds varieties such as Maglia Rosa, Blush and Taste, and am trying Blush 2 this year. For a larger tomato, you might enjoy Little Lucky, a bi-colour fav. which has Brandywine as a parent. I also like Dwarf Wherokowhai, although it is rather prone to disease. One that I really enjoyed last year was Orange Strawberry, a delicious heart. Sorry that you have to battle blister bugs :(.

I enjoyed your latest review! Oh no! YP won overall???? How can that be? {LOL}. I found it productive and beautiful, yet lacking in flavor.

Linda

Linda, I think Richard's numbering is from 1 as the best to 10 as the least tasty. That's because I too found yellow pear to be tasteless!

Oh thanks Leahikesgardens :). That makes more sense. Duh!

Linda

Leah - Do you recall how long it took for your bean seeds to show the little sprout? Thanks.

Cindy, I put those beans in on the 28th and today, the 30th they're already sprouting! They are on my kitchen counter, just average warmth.

Thank you, Leah! I am hoping that the new seeds that I just planted tonight will germinate in two days! I soaked them for a few hours today.

I am having to water everything now since it's been a while since we've had any significant rain here. Not the norm at all for May.

Linda, Yeah, the only reason I included the Yellow Pear in the competition was because the blister bugs were on it and the Honeycomb plants almost every time I water so I thought maybe they were good-big mistake, at least they were free from Baker Creek. Lucky Tiger was good enough that even though I only got one tomato (would have been 2 without the blister bugs lol) I will grow it again (it is an ugly plant too). I actually found the Sun Sugar to be better than the Sun Gold-although the Sun Gold are bigger than all the others.

Is it Lea or Leah?

Thanks Richard, it is actually Lea. The screen name came from the fact that I hike and garden (well, I did hike before things were shut down).

Cindy, we have had an incredibly dry spring here, I have been watering too. We're way below our normal water year numbers, today we had a nice rain storm move through, but it won't make up the deficit.

This morning I found that the effing rabbit had bitten off one of my small pepper plants! Apparently it was just a taste test, left it untouched after that. I'd better go put the fencing up around the rest of them!

My cousin came over and raided my garden yesterday morning. He took home garlic scapes, lettuce, radishes, green onions, asparagus, broccoli, broccolini, cauliflower, and a box of various pickled stuff from last season. He probably took home some cabbage worms too. lol

I need to spray BT this morning!

Look what I found on my front porch yesterday morning. It must have fell out of the nest during the night. Not sure why it came up to the house. The nest tree is about 30 yards away from the porch. I put on some leather gloves and carried it back down to under the nest tree. It has some VERY SHARP talons! I don't think it was injured. I think the parents found it later and moved it into some cover. The other chick is still in the nest. They should be able to fly soon.

Coopers hawk chick

Wow Jack that is getting close to nature for sure!

I guess I need to look for a replacement for Yellow Pear tomatoes. We've been growing them for 25 or 30 years. I always thought they had a taste closer to a beefsteak tomato than the cherry tomatoes of the day. And they were OP and we always saved our seeds for the following year. My neighbors boy who was 5 last year likes those the best of all the tomatoes I grow. He likes to pick them and pop them in his mouth.

Yesterday I finished digging up the patch I'm working on, about 6'X7' or so. I planned to put in cucumbers and beans and never got to either. Was exhausted. Now I'm thinking I need to go back to the planning stage on the beans to give them more separation. I have pole snap, wax, haricot verts, and Sieva, and Christmas lima beans. And bush french filet beans to go in where the peas are now.

edit to add pole haricot verts. I decided to grow the bush french filet beans where the lettuce is now in the old garden.

Just quit for the day. Worked about six hours and am plain worn out.

I was able to get all but one tomato plant in the ground. Looks like the total will be 70 this year. Tomorrow I'll start on the pepper plants and hopefully plant my corn seeds.

Hope you all had a productive day, too.

First beans of our season haha

Lea, I thought that is what you told me before-at least my memory is still working somewhat lol-I know what you mean about the critters-I have an effing possum hovering around the area and they are almost impossible to control. I have 3 big cantaloupes (actually Madhu Ras melons) and it seems like every time I get one almost ripe a possum shows up for a meal. There was nothing left but seeds the last two years in a row.

June: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5928962/veggie-tales-june-2020