New England, August 2015

camprn wrote:Do not be alarmed if the site swells over the next 24 hours. Because it was a wasp, and they are carrion eaters,  keep an eye on the sting site for possible infection.

Didn't know that, thanks Camp. Wasp stings are so painful. At least they don't leave the stinger behind.

Oh, dear, QB.  Glad you're okay.

Mike's allergic, so we keep Epipens with us wherever we go...

Oh thanks goodness, QB...I thought you had bubbled up there from that sting. My mother swells the size of a football when she gets stung. How is it today?

Beautiful day today, but humid & hot in the sun. Just finished watering all the tomato plants with baby aspirin as I noticed on my walk this morning that blight is hitting the neighbors plants and destroying them. Then I wondered if the aspirin watering would help with the narcosis so I removed all the yellow leaves and will report if there are any changes.

Then I planted more mustard spinach seeds after spilling them all over the kitchen counter. Recovered most of them.

Heading back out to finish bucket watering the SFG. They seem so much happier with bucket water as opposed to icy cold chlorinated city water. Of course they love rain the best but I don't see that happening anytime in the next couple of weeks.

Whatch ya'll up to?

Thank you for your kind thoughts everyone.  My sting site it invisible today.  I can't find it.  And it was fine just a couple hours afterwards so might have been a wasp.

I picked some more tomatoes today.  My Lizzano cherry-type toms from seeds from Windmere, are going gangbusters, thank you very much.  And good, too.  Not as sweet as some, but tasty just the same.

CapeCoddess wrote: Just finished watering all the tomato plants with baby aspirin as I noticed on my walk this morning that blight is hitting the neighbors plants and destroying them.  Then I wondered if the aspirin watering would help with the narcosis so I removed all the yellow leaves and will report if there are any changes.

Stupid tablet. Thought I caught all the typos but nope - I mean NECROSIS, not narcosis.

QB, my monarda are all finished and seem to have PM. Do I have to leave them to go to seed so I'll have more next year? Or will they come back from down under?

Based upon my limited experience with monardae, they'll indeed come back next year.

Mine were planted a year ago this past spring, survived, but did not bloom at all last summer.

This year, they returned with a vengeance, growing into beautiful, symmetrical mounds covered with blossoms!  (I have one that's pale pink; the other is violet.)

CapeCoddess wrote: my monarda are all finished and seem to have PM.  Do I have to leave them to go to seed so I'll have more next year?  Or will they come back from down under?

I dead headed all mine today in hopes they MAY put out a few more blooms this season. The bee balm will come back from roots. It is perennial.

The Bee Balm/Monarda will come back....again and again and even if you thin it out, the roots will travel underground and pop up somewhere.  They seem invincible.

I agree, Monarda bee balm are very hardy plants, but many cultivars are susceptible to PM. Some of the newer varieties are better at resisting, but it doesn't seem to affect plant health year to year.

Got leeks?
I'll be slicing and freezing these today. I'm letting the rest grow as they aren't as large as these yet. Has anyone ever we planted the roots to see what happens? I do it with scallions and they just keep coming back, 3 or 4 times per season, year after year.

Also, we did it taste test on four varieties of cherry tomatoes - sungold, black cherry, sweetie and a volunteer plum - using different testers than in years past: 


As always, the black cherry and sun gold won out.

Another gorgeous day on the Cape! Got a lot done this outside this morning, and will be blanching and freezing greens during the midday heat.

Thanks for the bee balm info, folks.  I'll go deadhead them as soon as I finish my morning smoothie.

Wow, CC, nice harvest! I ended up with a Sungold (by accident, mislabelled at the nursery) and I will never go back, they are so delish! I need to get out and deadhead my shasta daisies and bee balms today....

Love those leeks, CC! I have a perennial leek on my wish list for spring ordering.

We had a huge downpour yesterday afternoon with even small hail, and I'm so glad it rained because it's a real hottie out there right now.

The perennial sea kale I planted looks really healthy. I just want it to establish roots this summer.

Had a chicken stir fry last night with garden onions, garlic, squash, green beans, peas, kale and tomato. I love this time of year, only wish it would last longer.

quiltbea wrote:The Bee Balm/Monarda will come back....again and again and even if you thin it out, the roots will travel underground and pop up somewhere.  They seem invincible.

They're classified as invasive here in Oregon.  They can definitely be a problem.

NHGardener wrote:The perennial sea kale I planted looks really healthy. I just want it to establish roots this summer.

That sounds like an interesting plant -- is it supposed to produce well every year?   Can you tell us anything about it?

I've got a three-year-old brussels sprout that never did anything and never does ... but it won't die.  No productivity though.

Marc - Here's some info on the sea kale:

http://www.foodforestfarm.com/all-products/sea-kale

Thanks, NHG.  Unusual plant!  Looks like both broccoli and kale, but they say their plants are over 10 years old!  Never heard of that with a kale or a broccoli before.

Marc, even more unusual, I guess it naturally grows on seashores.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crambe_maritima

Thanks for the link. Interesting that it says the plant was typically cultivated for its shoots. So it produces edible flower heads, like broccoli, leaves, like kale, and shoots, like asparagus. Plus it can apparently live for at least a decade. That's a pretty cool plant!

mollyhespra wrote:CC, are you sure that the plant has that necrosis you linked to?  The article said that the yellowing starts at the top newer growth but your yellow is in the bottom leaves.  Maybe you've got some other cootie?  Not that that's any consolation, mind, but there may yet be some hope...

I was seeing a problem with the lower leaves yellowing and dying on my tomato plants.  I'm now misting them with epsom salts http://www.yara.us/agriculture/crops/tomato/key-facts/role-of-manganese/ which seems to be helping.  It would makes sense since we put a lot of peat moss in the original Mel's Mix and while I add compost twice a year, it may still be lacking in manganese.

This might not have been the problem, but the upper leaves are very green and healthy and the problem isn't spreading up the plant.

DeborahC wrote:

mollyhespra wrote:CC, are you sure that the plant has that necrosis you linked to?  The article said that the yellowing starts at the top newer growth but your yellow is in the bottom leaves.  Maybe you've got some other cootie?  Not that that's any consolation, mind, but there may yet be some hope...

I was seeing a problem with the lower leaves yellowing and dying on my tomato plants.  I'm now misting them with epsom salts http://www.yara.us/agriculture/crops/tomato/key-facts/role-of-manganese/ which seems to be helping.  It would makes sense since we put a lot of peat moss in the original Mel's Mix and while I add compost twice a year, it may still be lacking in manganese.

This might not have been the problem, but the upper leaves are very green and healthy and the problem isn't spreading up the plant.

Manganese... interesting. The little periodic table on the right of the screen has cool links. Great link.

But Deborah, unfortunately Epsom salts will give your plants magnesium  (Mg) instead of manganese (Mn).

I prune all the foliage below the lowest fruiting body. Most of them have reached their peak of productivity for the plant and just arent going to give the plant much oomph. and they look gross after a while.

CC, pretty tomatoes.

Okay I mixed up Magnesium and Manganese, you can tell I'm still learning.  Here is a better site for tomato deficiencies.  http://tomatoheadquarters.com/tomatoes-farm/signs-and-solutions-of-nutritional-deficiencies-in-heirloom-tomato-seedlings/ 

And Mother Earth News says carrot tops, seaweed, and leaf mold are good sources of Manganese if you don't want to use manganese sulfate.

So obviously I don't have a Manganese problem, I have a Magnesium problem.  Probably because I use a lot of dead leaves in my compost. 

My compost -- weeds, grass clippings, leaves (chopped up by the mower), and kitchen scraps.

May be worthwhile to have them is tested in the soil lab.

I had a kettle full of chard and processed it this morning. This afternoon, a pail of kale.

Camp, 

What is your processing process?

donnainzone10 wrote:Camp, 

What is your processing process?

Oh, ok, todays process went like this:

Pick the kale and put it in a pail of water so it will keep, run errands for a few hours, come home and destem and chop kale for 45 minutes, run another errand for an hour, come home, destem more kale for 45 minutes, run another errand, come home and destem kale for 30 minutes.
Soak chopped kale in a kettle of water with 1/4 cup vinegar. Let set for 10 minutes. Drain, rinse.

In other kettle 2 inches of water to a boil, pour in a kettle full of chopped kale, cover the pot and set timer for 5 minutes. At 3 minutes stir. When timer goes off, drain and rinse kale with cold water. Put kale into cold water bath, 5 minutes. drain and leave for 30 minutes. One cup stuffed with blanched kale rolled up in a zip sandwich bag. Squeeze all air out of bag and seal. 5 rolls of kale into a quart freezer bag, labeled and put in the freezer.

All that kale in the kettle made 10 cups of wilted greens.

A similar process with the chard, but stems were included. Blanched, chilled, drained, and packaged, one cup to a sandwich bag. 3 bags to a quart bag and into the freezer. I got 15 cups of blanched chard from a kettle full of raw chopped chard.