Posted by Billy on September 8, 2010, 2:30 pm
In article
> General Schvantzkoph said:
> >
> >I'm in Massachusetts. Is everyone else having a good year also?
> >
> Weather started out pretty wet, then turned hot and very dry -- August
> was disasterous. I have a theory that the wet spring and early summer
> led to underdeveloped root systems, leaving the plants less able to cope
> with the dramatic shift in moisture. (I wasn't able to do enough watering
> to make up for the lack of rain.)
>
> The pole beans stopped setting and dropped a ton of leaves and I lost the
> last planting of sweet corn. (We had the first Labor Day without sweet corn
> and pole beans in many years.)
>
> The SunSugar and grapes tomatoes were OK; for the sauce tomatoes I
> had my smallest harvest in many years, and the slicers tapered off to
> almost nothing.
>
> Zuchinnis and cucumbers never recovered from the attack of cucumber
> beetles that happend in early June (while I was out of state).
>
> Cabbage is dwarfed (wilting every day must do that to them).
Cold summer here in northern California but everything has been
producing for the last month. Glacier tomatoes were a sight for sore
eyes, but they don't have much taste. Think I'll stick with Stupice next
year for my early tomatoes. Old German is producing some softball size
tomatoes, and the Green Zebras and Blondkopfchen (cherry) are tart and
good for salads. I'm still waiting on the Brandywines, and the Gold
Medals.
Best crop we've ever had for sweet peppers, Quadrato di Asti, Corno di
Toro, Giant Szgedi, and Yellow Wax. We are still waiting for the
Quadrato to turn red, before we start harvesting them. Nothing like
grilled, red bell pepper. The Corno di Toro, and Giant Szgedi are
sauteed as a side dish, and the Yellow wax go fresh into salads.
Rascally Raccoon scratched out half of the potatoes, but the potatoes
with tomato cages are doing fine, and going dormant now. Great year for
lettuce. The sugar pumpkin initially headed south, until it ran into the
shade from our fence, now has doubled back heading east, looking like
it's going to make a break for it;O) Bad year for the cukes, but that
was because I was having brain farts. The zuchs have settled down, and
we don't have to eat them every night (Gott sei dank).
Already laying out the 2011 garden plan. Crop rotation is really hard,
because I grow 3 Solanaceae, and there is only so much good light in the
yard. The temptation is to follow Solanum with Capsicum this year, and
then I'll have it mostly sorted out after that.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/middleeast/2010/07/201072816515308172.html
Posted by ntantiques on September 9, 2010, 1:12 am
wrote:
> This has been the best year that I've had for tomatoes since the 1980s,
> it's more than made up for last year's disaster. The most prolific plants
> have been the Sugar Snacks which have produced many hundreds of tomatoes.
> The Grape and Sun Gold Cherrys are also producing countless tomatoes, the
> Tellow Pears are also doing OK but not as well as the Sugar Snacks, Sun
> Golds and Grapes. My large varieties are just now starting to ripen but
> they are all heavy with tomatoes. The first to start ripening have been
> the Cherokee Purples, but now I'm getting Black Princes and Cosmonaut
> Volkov's. I started the Black Princes and Cosmonaut Volkov's from seed,
> this is the first time that I've been successful doing that.
> The hot dry weather gets most of the credit, but the other thing that's
> different this year is that I covered my garden with a horse manure mulch.
> My cucumbers and corn are also doing well, they both failed completely
> last year. The disappointment has been my blueberry bushes, last year in
> they produced so many berries that I still have a freezer full of them,
> this year I only got berries for a couple of weeks.
> I'm in Massachusetts. Is everyone else having a good year also?
Oh you lucky devil! Terrible, terrible year for tomatoes in the
Eugene, OR area. After dealing us a brutal, lingering winter,
virtually no spring and erratic summer weather, Mother Nature is not
my favorite lady. Now it's turned cold and rainy - down to the 40's at
night. Odds on anything maturing at this point slim to none. Of my 8
tomato plants, only the Sun Golds have produced anything edible - a
grand total of six little ripe cherry tomatoes.
Even the local farm stand is importing tomatoes from Washington. Very
tough for these nice people who make a good portion of their yearly
income from their tomato crop. I'd kill for a real home grown
beefsteak about now...and I sure won't be doing any canning this year.
Our apple, plum, and pear trees took bad hits from late frosts and
have produced poorly, if at all, and the birds got most of our
blueberries. At least my squashes and bush beans are producing
(sigh).
Nancy T
Posted by Suzanne D. on September 21, 2010, 1:54 am
> This has been the best year that I've had for tomatoes since the 1980s,
> it's more than made up for last year's disaster.
Lucky you! I had the complete opposite...wonderful production last year
(bringing in about 200 tomatoes each week), versus three or four small
tomatoes a week this year!
--S.
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> >
> >I'm in Massachusetts. Is everyone else having a good year also?
> >
> Weather started out pretty wet, then turned hot and very dry -- August
> was disasterous. I have a theory that the wet spring and early summer
> led to underdeveloped root systems, leaving the plants less able to cope
> with the dramatic shift in moisture. (I wasn't able to do enough watering
> to make up for the lack of rain.)
>
> The pole beans stopped setting and dropped a ton of leaves and I lost the
> last planting of sweet corn. (We had the first Labor Day without sweet corn
> and pole beans in many years.)
>
> The SunSugar and grapes tomatoes were OK; for the sauce tomatoes I
> had my smallest harvest in many years, and the slicers tapered off to
> almost nothing.
>
> Zuchinnis and cucumbers never recovered from the attack of cucumber
> beetles that happend in early June (while I was out of state).
>
> Cabbage is dwarfed (wilting every day must do that to them).