Eric - When you think about it, the concept is very similar to the old technique of the indigenous peoples placing a fish in the planting hole for their corn. I also do the compost/trench thing for onions and root vegetables, and I do believe I get better results. I throw a scoop into each hole when I plant my vegetable starts and seed potatoes as well. When one thinks about it, the compost is being applied exactly where it is needed, which is a very efficient way to use it. Why have compost tilled into what might become a walk path between rows or a garden access path for that season, especially if you have a limited amount of it available to use? Do not get me wrong, though. I still think the best method by far is a blanket application of compost over the entire garden area, worked into the soil. Easier said than done sometimes. I had the same trouble as you one year when I tried using compost as a mulch. A failed experiment, ended up with large dried out compressed "buffalo chips" everywhere. Had to chop and break them all up by hand before tilling that fall. Terrible mistake. It is much more beneficial when worked into the soil anyway. Chris - Nice blog, thanks for the link - I bookmarked it. I like the header photo of your garden - it is always amazing to look at the garden pics from last season. What a difference when I look out the window now and all I see is a white blanket of snow, a cloudy white sky, and not a speck of green to be seen anywhere. Sure makes a person appreciate summer. I have the soil professionally tested every two years. The soil ph is satisfactory and I apply fertilizer if needed, based on the test results. For me the main purposes of adding compost are to improve texture and tilth, improve water retention, and also to maintain a healthy, active soil - to feed the good bugs, so to speak. I see immediate benefits when I do compost applications. When I add a thick layer of compost in fall and work it into the soil there is such an incredible improvement that is noticed immediately, even to the point of changing the smell and color of the soil. It is wonderful to work with the next spring when planting the garden. But by midsummer the soil looks like I never amended it with anything, although when I flood a soil sample in a jar all kinds of organic particulates separate from the heavy soil, proof to me that it is still being beneficial. I always keep my ears and eyes open, and when neighbors have stuff available I pounce on it - lots of competition around here between gardeners for good compost materials. Over the years I have added composted horse manure, cow manure, turkey manure, leaves and lawn grass clippings, straw, wood chips, sawdust, shredded paper, wood ash. Problem is I have no consistent year-in, year-out source of supply, in quantity, of anything other than my leaves. Only other source consistently available is the compost from local municipal recycling centers, and that stuff is expensive and hard to trust due to potential urban contaminants. My point is that I agree with you completely, but I simply have not found a practical, affordable solution to acquiring and applying the proper amount of compost to all of my gardens, every year, which is what I believe is needed to achieve the kind of soil quality that you and I agree is best. I am always open to suggestions, though, because I really dislike being beaten by a gardening problem. Until a workable long-term solution is found, I am satisfied with my strategies of targeted and rotational applications. Work with what you got, right? In case anyone is wondering, I have tried the green manure concept. It works, but again the same problem - not enough biomass is produced to make any long term improvements to the soil. I believe the best is probably a combination strategy of compost and green manure, but this strategy is even worse regarding practicality and feasibility for me. My dump truck comment? Not an exaggeration. I have 17,500 sq. ft. of vegetable gardens which is in the process of being expanded to 23,000 for 2014. If my math is correct, assuming the use of a dump truck with a 10 cu. yd. load capacity, and a blanket compost application depth of 3 inches, I would need to acquire 213 cubic yards of compost which is 21 dump truck loads of compost every fall. As much as I would like, the simple fact is that I have not the time, the equipment, the dollars, the available supply, the physical ability, or the courage to engage in such a huge task every year. Perhaps my hobby has gotten a little bit out of control... Thanks for your posts! -Tom

I noticed the Summer bearing types are huge plants. More like black raspberries, or blackberries (OK not that big). As mentioned I have encore and prelude, but also cascade gold (only summer type I have seen that is yellow-plant is the largest I have seen, bigger than my black raspberries) And Taylor which is supposed to be the best tasting of all raspberries. I also have Rosanna, not sure I think that may be everbearing? Encore and Prelude produce a fall crop but are considered summer bearing, yes, I don't get that either? I planted them this spring, so have they will fruit next year. I know a couple organic sprays can be used, maybe you should use them? No stinkbugs in my area. I have to battle the Japanese beetles, but they do minimal damage. Soon though I will have to deal with SWD, that's when i pull them all. Nothing this year, nothing last year even though they have been found in my county (Macomb). I test weekly for SWD. This post was edited by Drew51 on Thu, Aug 29, 13 at 11:54

Hi lindalana! I haven't had much time today to think more about this than last night's post, but there's just a few things. My plants are recovering, but it is from copper sulfate damage, my fault for applying it too late in the morning. So, no mold to be seen but, complete loss of flowering and I've now removed about 20% of the leaves ... the fried ones. Now just adding little of vinegar to peroxide will help? This is the big question and someone else may know the answer from experience. Yes it will help, but how much it will help ... hmmm, not sure because we need to establish our goals first. * how exactly do we plan to use solution? * how much working solution will satisfy our need? * how many ppm of peracetic acid do we need to do that * how long does a mixture of H2O2 + Acetic acid take to produce the peracetic acid *what is the lowest pH our solution can be and not injure plants * what is the ppm of the 2.5 gallon preparation in a working solution, for comparison. I'm thinking 150 ppm to 300 ppm. Foliar like for my mold situation, or to treat seeds .... Where can we get these ppm application rates ... I had no luck with Google. Also, does distilled vinegar contain other chemicals besides acetic acid that are undesirable... My thinking right now is to pour equal volumes of Walmart stuff (WM) 3% peroxide and 5% vinegar and leave them in a dark place for a couple of weeks, then dilute them with de-chlorinated water so it ends up in one part WM vinegar, one part WM H2O2, and two parts water, and immediately apply as the peracetic acid will begin to revert. That might get us into the ball park application rate of 150 ppm peracetic acid, but we need to verify that. I think I saw peracetic acid test strips somewhere, but they were expensive. In order to experiment let's see if we can find a deal on them so we can get some results to interpret. Still, I want to add, it seems peroxide and vinegar from Walmart are less expensive, but actually the reverse is true. Per liter of working solution, we will pay more. If I am not mistaken the concentrated stuff is applied 1:100 (?) and if the shipped cost of 2.5 gallons is $225 for example, that's $90 per gallon. For 100 gallons final solution, that's $0.90 per gallon. If we do a quart of peroxide and a quart of vinegar, it will cost more than that and likely be enriched in vinegar and H2O2 at the expense of lower peracetic acid because of all the water in the Walmart concentrate we make. Now, if I wanted this stuff, observing flawless safety practice, I would find a local source of "food grade peroxide" which properly nabbed should be $25 a gallon to go and pick it up ... just where to find it...and, I would buy a liter of glacial acetic acid for about $20, much cheaper if I didn't order it online and had some locally. That would make my cost under $75 for the $225 approx commercial product. Alternately, we could concentrate the peroxide and acetic acid from WM to an intermediate strength and probably get much better results. But that is a very wasteful thing to do at home, a little dangerous, and unless we assay what we get, difficult to be sure of the home prepared WM stuff we concentrate. As it is, even if we can just mix the two WM as is, it is per gallon working solution much more expensive even than the commercial product, which itself is triple the concentrate cost made from food grade 35% peroxide and glacial. Lots of possibilities floating around here but we need to get back to the basics which could advance this. They are to determine the ppm peracetic acid we require and seeing if we can get cheap peracetic test strips somewhere. Also, can we get a better MSDS on the ready to use Oxidate and especially know the pH of that stuff as sold. The benefit of the commercial product is getting the correct application rate by mixing according to directions, and with a home brew, we need to know the ppm and reproducibly make it on demand. Until we get that we have no way of optimizing except by trial and error with the plants. If someone else has done that would save a lot of work! People who work in plant labs might know these ppms off the top of their heads. Thoughts? PC This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Thu, Sep 4, 14 at 12:30

I also have experimented with different spacing for tomatoes over the many years I've grown them in the greenhouse. I find that if I have the plants 3-4 ft. apart, I get massive growth with lots more tomatoes per plant than if I use closer spacing. They still form a solid wall of growth down the row. In this kind of planting, I do absolutely no pruning; the plant grows to a support about 10' above the ground, and down again as it grows. I use sisal twine with clips to support the plants. It is a bit of a pain to harvest the top tomatoes, but it can be done. I experimented as well with the closer spacing of plants, with strict controls on their growth. While I got less yield per plant, I got quite a bit more yield per square foot of growing area; the yield per square foot is what is driving commercial greenhouses in their spacing. I also found that I had very few defective tomatoes when planting with the close spacing and strict controls. In contrast, I do get some tomatoes with odd shapes or different sizes when growing the big sprawl. I am curious about what you perceived as the drawbacks of the big sprawl growth of tomatoes. For me, the biggest drawback was probably the increased difficulty finding all the tomatoes, and harvesting them. It was also a challenge to remove a single plant in a row if it had issues. Just for perspective, my new seedlings in the greenhouse are spaced about 2-3 feet apart, and I plan to let them mostly sprawl; maybe I'll prune a little. Renais