New England, June 2016

After planting some chives and putting in some milk jug and plastic cup barriers around my beans, I got to just sit and relax. It was a little to cool for me, but I had a light jacket on. There were more than just a few bugs, but I had my tennis racket zapper that did an exemplary job.

This is what I call my field office.


Hey, a guy can dream can't he?   Rock

Well the big story here for the past 2 days has been the winds. Wow, have had to take all the hanging plants down to keep them from being destroyed. Been watching the tomato plants blow back and forth inside their cages. Was wondering if they could get wind burned. The wind has been culling the fruit trees and I keep finding little apples and pears in the lawn.   

We've gotten a little bit of rain from a few passing thunderstorms and luckily the hail missed us. 

The cool weather has been nice for a change, after that stretch of hot and humid, so I opened all the windows and let the breezes blow through the house. I even pulled the flannel shirt back out of the drawer since the mornings have been downright cold. From shorts one day to flannel the next, that's New England weather for sure.

We get wind constantly here in southern ri. We get gusts over 25 mph at least weekly. I've learned lots and lots of support for everything. Lots of stakes and ties. I recently had my power and cable lines upgraded thanks to an accident during tree removal. The normal lines used were over come by the gust and the top snapped. No one was hurt but the guys doubled up the rest of the trees to be safe( these are 80+ foot pines)

I just found a gopher in the yard... And my beans are gone

Grrr on the gopher, Sarah.
Rock, what do you think is eating your plants?

Since I, too, live in a wind tunnel, I prepared for the latest threat and bungied the sugar snap peas to the trellis (they even have little peas now ):

Wound  each tomato plant to the trellis:
Can't believe they are flowering and I'm pinching off suckers already.

Kentucky Wonder pole beans haven't made it to the trellis yet but are finally able to grow now that the pill bug numbers have been knocked back:

Blushing strawberries are covered from critters...I hope.  I even covered the escapees since their berries are so beautiful! :

Yummy daikon pods:

I've been looking into this product, EcoSmart, and thinking about using it if needed.  http://ecosmart.com/products.htm  :
Is anyone familiar with it?  I also wrote to the company to see if it would work on my fruit trees since I see bites out of some of my baby fruits already.


I'm so surprised to find at least 8 apples are forming because I don't have 2 trees, which are supposedly needed for pollination:  
Only 2 apples with bites out of them like this one.

Pears:


Prince of Orange poppy:

Tuesdays sunrise was spectacular:

Up here in Ontario, we are getting those same high winds, cool temps and lots of rain as you folks in New England. I also had to dig out some warmer clothing. 

We've had the winds in Pennsylvania, too. My garlics are at a 15 degree angle, my bolting leeks are at a 30 degree angle. CC, wish I thought of bungee cord in advance! My peas are leaning pretty hard but not quite ripped off the trellis. I've tied them sort of back up with twine. And I had to switch back to binder clips for where my hoop cover clips to the wood of the bed. The dollar store ones weren't tolerating breezes much less what we've been getting.

Yup, it's New England. Hot and humid one day, the next day I am ready to make a fire (not really, but it adds to the drama). I had to break out the other light jacket, I left my main worn out and torn, with some burn spots from welding and summer evening campfires, missing 1/3 of the original button, but comfy and warm jacket at work.
I did go out and check on my green beans, the ones I put inside a barricade (or plastic fortress if you want to make it sound exciting) seem to be left alone. The NASTY CRITTERS did attack the variety they had been leaving alone, not bad, but they put a cannon ball across the bow, so to speak. It's war I tell ya!
OK, enough of that stuff. I am inside, enjoying watching the cat go through some of his ablutions, while I make sure that the easy to consume food stuffs don't reach their "use by date". The chickens seem to enjoy this weather, if I were a chicken I would be nervous, can't hear bad things coming for you when the wind is blowing like this. But they are out there in the tall grass eating away, it is bug munch city for them.
Not much rain here, just wind a cool temps, so I have been watering. That's it for now. Rock

Yep, that was us 2 days ago.  Gradual warming into the low 80s by Saturday here, so you guys will get a reprieve!  Almost felt Fall-like yesterday morning!

Nice pics, CC!

bigdogrock wrote:This is what I call my field office.


Hey, a guy can dream can't he?   Rock

I had no idea you had achieved such a large garden already!

CC, I will wait for your report of the Eco product. At least it should smell delightful. So, the Sluggo Plus finally helped with the pill bugs?

What a beautiful morning! The winds are gone and its 59 degrees, bright blue sky with some lovely puffy clouds. Perfect weeding weather.

Fussed about in the yard, checking the gardens and took a few pictures to share.

Picked another quart of strawberries this morning, grand total so far 11 quarts. The pears are looking good and have some nice little heads of broccoli forming.

Nice, nice and triple nice, Lyndeeloo.  I could look at your strawberries every day!  

So that's what broccoli is supposed to look like...not the bolted looking minuscule things growing in my SFG.  

Also bolting are last years chard (expected), this years Black Seeded Simpson and this years GA collards ( ).  The pak choi, radishes, Scarlet kale and ornamental cabbage are forming seeds now for collecting later.

Tonights salad: Little Ceasar & Black Seeded Simpson (w/ aphids for protein), chives and some never ending asparagus:

Collards and my first strawberry (shared with a pill bug):

Major frustration. What ever had hit my green beans, left them alone, but, took out ALL of my week old beets. In one night.

Lyndeeloss and CC, I'm so totally jealous!

Rock, Something is eating everything but the peppers and many of the tomatoes have BER. I feel your pain.

What does the acronym BER stand for? Rock

Blossom End Rot. The tomatoes get a bad spot opposite their stem, where the tomato blossom that yielded the fruit was.  It's a calcium deficiency, but stress from both drought and over-watering can interfere with the tomato getting the calcium it needs rather than necessarily meaning the soil itself is deficient. The best 'treatment' is trying to prevent by adding calcium amendments prior to planting. I had minor issues last year, so this year I used "Homemade Monster Fertilizer" when I transplanted -- it has both eggshells and bonemeal as calcium sources. And I should probably water the garden today because he wind has likely had a drying effect on my plants and MM. It also seems to have dried up my slug problems...

BeetlesPerSqFt wrote:Blossom End Rot. The tomatoes get a bad spot opposite their stem, where the tomato blossom that yielded the fruit was.  It's a calcium deficiency, but stress from both drought and over-watering can interfere with the tomato getting the calcium it needs rather than necessarily meaning the soil itself is deficient. The best 'treatment' is trying to prevent by adding calcium amendments prior to planting. I had minor issues last year, so this year I used "Homemade Monster Fertilizer" when I transplanted -- it has both eggshells and bonemeal as calcium sources. And I should probably water the garden today because he wind has likely had a drying effect on my plants and MM. It also seems to have dried up my slug problems...

Huh? We have the best eggs in the world from the best chickens. Could I be crushing my own egg shells and adding them directly to my garden instead of just composting them? Anything else need more calcium or just tomatoes?

It takes a while for the calcium in egg shells to become available. When I first started in 2013, I boiled or microwaved egg shells to kill bacteria, then smashed them to add to compost. I stopped doing it. All that saving from our kitchen and a neighbor and all I had was a handful.

I'm hoping the BER stops as summer progresses. I figured my past BER was from early cold Mix where uptake of calcium is slower. Later tomatoes were fine. I hope it holds true this year but there is something else going on with the leaves.

My only experience with BER was that the first one or two tomatoes got it and then the rest didn't. I have also sprinkled powdered milk around the plants if I am worried that they may get it and they didn't. Did I read somewhere that cold soil will sometimes prevent calcium uptake?

I also use the same powdered milk in the powdery mildew spritzer.  I think the box is about 10 years old. Yuck!

sanderson wrote:

I'm hoping the BER stops as summer progresses.  I figured my past BER was from early cold Mix where uptake of calcium is slower.  Later tomatoes were fine.  I hope it holds true this year but there is something else going on with the leaves.  

Sorry Sanderson, I didn't even read this paragraph before I posted just about the exact same thing.

I was busy today, in spite of the rain. I have let an older garden go for a few years. It has some very good soil and gets sun from about 10 AM till about 7 PM. I wanted to plant more so I cleared it out. It only took me about 2 hours and I gained a compost bin in the deal. Here are the before and after pics.

Before I cleared it. The bush is a Forsythia, the part that I took out we can't see from the house. The trellis I made about 6 years ago. It will hold a great number of Cucs!



After I cleared it.



The rain came and dampened my outdoor experience, but it made it easy for me to sit down and listen to the Red Sox win while I watched it rain on my garden.

So now I can take a hot shower and enjoy the rest of my day off. I am going to read up on the things I need to keep my green beans from being eaten by an unknown assailant/assailants. I need to find some Sluggo Plus. I will also check out the Ace hardware store for DE and try that, thank you CC for the recommendation. If it is sow bugs then I am all set. If not Sluggo Plus should work for everything. Hey Sanderson, if I can get two I will, good suggestion.   Rock

countrynaturals wrote:

BeetlesPerSqFt wrote:Blossom End Rot. The tomatoes get a bad spot opposite their stem, where the tomato blossom that yielded the fruit was.  It's a calcium deficiency, but stress from both drought and over-watering can interfere with the tomato getting the calcium it needs rather than necessarily meaning the soil itself is deficient. The best 'treatment' is trying to prevent by adding calcium amendments prior to planting. I had minor issues last year, so this year I used "Homemade Monster Fertilizer" when I transplanted -- it has both eggshells and bonemeal as calcium sources. And I should probably water the garden today because he wind has likely had a drying effect on my plants and MM. It also seems to have dried up my slug problems...

Huh? We have the best eggs in the world from the best chickens. Could I be crushing my own egg shells and adding them directly to my garden instead of just composting them? Anything else need more calcium or just tomatoes?

Some people bake their eggshells first, out of concern of Salmonella, but I am too lazy / believe the risks are low considering how little MM I eat. For the fertilizer I pulverized my shells in a blender* (Note: Do NOT breathe egg shell dust!)

Smaller pieces = more surface area = better access to whatever process changes the eggshell bits into something the tomatoes use. I don't know whether the heat of the oven (or hot composting) or the microbial action of composting makes the calcium any more accessible. It's obviously not quickly accessible, since eggshells don't instantly dissolve in water.

Peppers and eggplants also like additional calcium, as do cabbages, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, celery, and carrots.

*I did wash the blender in hot soapy water - that seems like it would be a much more likely route of transmission for Salmonella!

And I'm now reading that what I read/wrote about BER previously, is no longer considered true! Sigh. So hard to keep up!
This page http://www.webgrower.com/information/carolyn_ber.html
says eggshells won't prevent BER. No harm done adding eggshells, but not necessarily helpful...
It's worth a read, but basically says don't fertilize too much, use mulch, and pick off the BER'd tomatoes until the problem goes away on it's own -- and then enjoy your BER-free tomatoes.

Did we just have another June 28, 2015-like moment???
Was nearly 20 F below normal today! If it didn't actually go 20 F below the norm!

It was a very cool if not almost chilly day yesterday. The rain didn't help the temps much, and the high humidity also made it feel cooler. I changed my shirts three times because the low temps gave me a chill after perspiring and getting them damp. The chickens seemed to like it till the rain started, then they went back into their covered run.

I found one of my favorite flowers had bloomed, Clematis, so I took a pic of it. I wish the sun had been out when I took the pic. If it comes out today I am going to get another pic.



It is starting off very breezy with cool temps, and the sun is in and out today.  The Swallow Tails are out in force today, maybe I can get lucky and get a pic of one. Rock