2016 SFG Adventures in Hampstead, NC

About cilantro coriander~  in time you will learn to identify many sprouts.  Cilantro has 2 narrow leaves so is distinct from anything in the mustard family but could possibly be mistaken for a yellow beet.  Trolleydriver has a good picture of the self seeded sprouts in his thread.  There is a slow bolt variety of coriander that is commonly grown for cilantro but I am not really sure that there is much difference.  The greens of bolted cilantro (coriander) are tasty in salads and salsa.  I do not use coriander seeds in cooking so I use lots of the greens instead.  The flowers are also good in salad and the beneficial insects love them so I let a good bit go to seed every year and then sprinkle over where I want them next.  They are a great companion plant for broccoli, filling in the square and maybe even helping deter cabbage moths but that might be me dreaming.

on tomatoes~  I let cherry tomatoes have multiple stems and i have a tall cage for them.  At least the varieties I grow are so rambunctious it is very hard to keep up with them and I figure I get lots of the little fruits.  I string other types of indeterminate tomatoes.  I do thin the stems a bit.
Lucky you with all those pretty flowers already.

ralitaco wrote:..
Should you / Do you sucker Cherry tomato plants. I am thinking that since the cherry toms don't get very big, you would want more stems producing more fruit. What say you?

Also, How do you root your tomato plant cuttings?
What say you?

I sucker my cherry tomatoes. They grow to be about 15 feet long and have bunches of tomatoes hanging off of them everywhere like grapes. I am never lacking for fruit. But I also plant them 5 per 4 square feet so suckering them down to one stem makes it very easy.

I'm not sure what type of tomato cuttings you're talking about but when I pull off a good healthy sucker I just stick it down into the MM wherever I have an empty spot. If I remember to water it it grows just fine.
CC

Hi CC,

"I sucker my cherry tomatoes. They grow to be about 15 feet long and have bunches of tomatoes hanging off of them everywhere like grapes. I am never lacking for fruit. But I also plant them 5 per 4 square feet so suckering them down to one stem makes it very easy."

Wow, 15 feet long, the most I get is 4-5 feet with my favorite cherry tomatoes, Sun Gold Hybrids. What variety are they? Thanks, Rock

P.S. I need to learn how to do the quote thing like you all do so well.

The first year I got 15 footers on Sungolds grown in unfinished compost. Last year I got 15 footers from both Black Cherries and a Sweetie. It's all about the compost. Seems the more compost I use the longer they get.

Rock, to quote just hit the little green quote button at the top-right of a post, then the reply box automatically shows up and you can type your response below the quote.
CC

Thanks (twice!) CC, I don't have your green thumb, I am just green with envy  . I have always wondered if you can use to much compost.
Yolos just gave me the info too, about the quotes, I am shocked  that I didn't see the button. I just got my glasses too. Go figure.

My lone Sunsugar cherry tomato plant last year was easily 8 feet tall, hung over and defeated the steel support it was tethered to. Produced tons of little orange sweet maters. I suckered it sort of...it kinda won that battle towards the end of the season!

I haven't planted my herbs yet.

ralitaco wrote:Also, How do you root your tomato plant cuttings? I had some plants that had 3 or 4 stems coming out of the soil so I cut off the extras. I read online (so it has to be true) that I could root them by putting the cuttings in water...end result - mush for a stem. I also read online that they can just be planted in soil in the garden and they will grow

Shortly after posting this, I went outside to do my honey-do's which included weed-whacking the yard. I moved the yard furniture and then started whacking around the TT's and what do I find...


Yes, that's right...Tomato plant Volunteers from the suckers I threw down
I pulled them up and they had nice little roots starting

I stuck all of them in an empty square until I could get some pots or decide if I wanted to use my empty squares for more tomato plants.

But wait, that's not all...This afternoon, I look at my stem that I had in a glass of water and yes, that's right...roots had starting to form.


So now I know that both methods apparently work. Now I can grow more tomatoes and not keep spending money on plants.

Turan wrote:in time you will learn to identify many sprouts. 

At least one of us is confident in my ability. I was just barely able to identify the tomato plants in my last post. I literally broke off a leaf and smelled it to make sure it was a tomato plant, then I dug them up and compared the leaves of the existing plant. Not so sure I will be able to do that with a Sprout.

Turan wrote:Trolleydriver has a good picture of the self seeded sprouts in his thread. 

I will have to look for that thread, that would be a good thing to see/know

Turan wrote:I let cherry tomatoes have multiple stems and i have a tall cage for them.  At least the varieties I grow are so rambunctious it is very hard to keep up with them and I figure I get lots of the little fruits. 

I figured since the fruit don't get large and ripen rather quickly compared to a slicing tomato, it would be ok for the plant to use its energy to grow more fruit, everywhere!

CapeCoddess wrote:I sucker my cherry tomatoes. They grow to be about 15 feet long and have bunches of tomatoes hanging off of them everywhere like grapes. I am never lacking for fruit.

That is good to know. I hope my plants grow 15' long...that would be AWESOME!!!

CapeCoddess wrote:But I also plant them 5 per 4 square feet so suckering them down to one stem makes it very easy.

Is that a separate 2x2 box or do you do that in a 4x4 or some other larger box?

How else is learning done? 

bigdogrock wrote:I don't have your green thumb, I am just green with envy

I don't have a green thumb either but that is why I love SFG - A Green Thumb is NOT required

Scorpio Rising wrote: My lone Sunsugar cherry tomato plant last year was easily 8 feet tall, hung over and defeated the steel support it was tethered to.

My tomato cages were overwhelmed last season too, that is why I am trying the "String Method"

ralitaco wrote:

CapeCoddess wrote:But I also plant them 5 per 4 square feet so suckering them down to one stem makes it very easy.

Is that a separate 2x2 box or do you do that in a 4x4 or some other larger box?

I plant my tomatoes at the sunny end of four by four boxes. When they grow that long they go up the trellis, then down the trellis,  then back up the trellis and then they just hang out over into wherever after that. By then it's usually time to lop their heads off to allow the green fruits to ripen before end of season.

CC

Man time flies when you are covering 2 territories at work and covering weekends too!!! Fortunately that has come to a close and I am back on my normal (as normal as it gets) routine.
It appears to have been about 3 weeks since I have posted any pictures of my plants and WOW, what a difference 3 weeks makes...some good and some bad.

ZUCCHINI: I have finally given up on the zucchini and pulled it up. It never recovered from having most of its leaves cut off or damaged from what I believe was Downey Mildew:
5/16/16:


5/22/16:
It looks like it was trying to stage a comeback -

5/27/16:

Even though there was some green growth, even the new leaves were turning brown again and the stem was looking rough so I pulled it out.


CUCUMBERS: I must be the ONLY person in the world that cannot grow cucumbers. Last year, I split a 4 pack of starts with my mother and she "was being attacked by cukes" as the vine made the stretch from her SFG bed to her deck at the front door growing lots of cucumbers for her to eat.
Me on the other hand, I had pretty decent growth with the vine but I got 1 and only 1 cucumber that made it past about 2" long and stayed green. Only to eat it and find it was horribly bitter.
I figured I would try my luck again this year but I seem to be having the same results. I am getting what I think is good vine growth and lots of cucumber babies, but once they get b/n 1-2" long, they turn yellow (any thoughts?). I do have my 1 cucumber that has made it past the 2" mark and is still green, but I know this may not be p.c., but it is ugly looking. The cukes also may have been affected by the DM, but they did not get as bad as the Zucchini

5/16/16: Downey Mildew?

5/22/16: Starting to turn yellow.

5/27/16:


5/31/16: Same as the last picture.

6/2/16: I don't know where this one came from...I swear it was not there a few days before. I may get my 1 cuke for the year...hopefully it's not bitter.


YELLOW SQUASH: Other than thinking that they were vines, I have been quite pleased with these. I harvested my first on last night and plan on finding out how it tastes tonight!

5/22/16: Squash babies:

5/27/16: Squash toddlers?


5/31/16: Squash teens?

6/2/16: Squash for dinner


I will post more soon, thanks for looking!

It's so nice to see squash without frass! Thanks for posting those.
CC

RT, I just sent you a PM, wondering if you were ok. Ignore it.

Did you try spraying the squash with a milk solution? It helped my squash leaves but didn't totally get rid of it. Congrats on the yellow squash! I couldn't grow summer squash well enough in the past to make it worth while this year. Some folks have to give it away they have so many! I'm just concentrating on the butternut (7 vines, 2 varieties) as I love it during the winter.

Regarding the cucumbers, it looks to me like lack of or incomplete pollination. I started gardening March 2013 and this is the first year I have real cucumbers and I don't even have to pollinate with a paint brush. I changed varieties for one thing. Planted 16 plants instead of 8. Maybe more chance of pollination. Of course, the juvenile grasshopper are make their appearance, and red spider mites are right around the corner, so I may have seen the last of them for this year.

Sorry about your cucumbers but boy do you have the summer squash.  How is your Tromboncino Squash coming along.

Bitter Cucumbers - I have read that the variety makes a difference and the moisture or lack of proper moisture will turn them bitter.

Cucumbers yellowing - looks like lack of pollination.  I thought you might not have enough pollinators but the squash were pollinated so maybe the pollinators all went to the big squash flowers and ignored the tiny cucumber flowers.  Have you tried to hand pollinate the cucumbers.

Looks like Sanderson just posted similar info, but I will just post this anyway.  Sanderson, I thought the milk solution was for Powdery Mildew and RT is looking at Downy Mildew.  The Downy Mildew is what I am struggling with also.  Must be a southern thing.

My bad. I thought he mentioned powdery mildew for one and downy mildew for the other. Reading again I see it is Downey mildew for both. So drink the milk instead of spraying it, RT.

Changing cucumber varieties has helped this year. So far, none are bitter, just mild and juicy.

CapeCoddess wrote:It's so nice to see squash without frass!  Thanks for posting those.  
CC

I had to google squash frass. I have been lucky so far. Last season, I think I got some vine borers towards the end.
Personally, I'm glad to see squash w/o a barcode or UPC.

sanderson wrote:Did you try spraying the squash with a milk solution?  It helped my squash leaves but didn't totally get rid of it.  

I ended up using a 3 in 1 fungicide from ortho that I had. I believe it did help but I think the plant was just in too much distress. I do believe it helped the cukes though.

sanderson wrote:I'm just concentrating on the butternut (7 vines, 2 varieties) as I love it during the winter.

I have never eaten any squash other than the yellow or zucchini let alone grow any. I am thinking I may like to try to grow some - maybe butternut and another variety. If I am reading things correctly, I believe I can plant them at the end of July or the beginning of August.

sanderson wrote:Regarding the cucumbers, it looks to me like lack of or incomplete pollination.  I started gardening March 2013 and this is the first year I have real cucumbers and I don't even have to pollinate with a paint brush.

I definitely have lots of flowers and have seen some bees but I may need to try the paint brush. Although, I went out after my last post and I have about 10 4" green cukes growing.
I also noticed where I pulled my zuke, which was adjacent to my cukes, the MM was very dry. I had just broke off the stem and was trying to pullout the root ball so that is how I noticed it was dry. I am thinking I need to invest in one of those moisture meters. I also think I may need to add some mulch. I remember talking about it on here last season...I'm a slow learner, but I do learn

yolos wrote: How is your Tromboncino Squash coming along.

Funny you should ask.
I was thinking the plant had stagnated because it has not grown very much. I am thinking that is in part to it being behind some tomato plants that really took off putting the tromboncino in the shade.
Here are some pictures:
5/22/16:

5/27/16:

6/3/16:

Is this normal for them to be so slow to grow?

Ok, this is just nuts!!! My cucumbers must have known I was talking bad about them! I went out to check on my plants and there are about 10 4"+ cukes out there all green and looking healthy.

Here is a picture with 3 of them:

Here are some pictures of my mother's SFG and her squash and beans

That was so sweet of you to build your mom a TT box. Is she lovin' it? I just noticed that you built the box just like mine are.

I built them last year for Mother's day.
https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t19459-a-mother-s-day-message-from-mel#222565

She loves them...my sister sort of hates them, but that's because she lives next door and mom keeps asking for help with them