Preventing tomato blossom end rot
16.7 years ago blossom end rot, tomato
If you are lucky you may have never seen this gross looking anomaly on the bottom but if you are like the rest of us you probably have seen this disorder especially on your first fruits of the season. Fortunately with some precautionary measures you should be able to minimize the effect of this on your harvest.
There are three primary causes for tomato blossom end rot; inconsistent watering, calcium deficiency, or abundance of nitrogen in your soil.
Calcium Deficiency: In most cases calcium deficiency is not the culprit but with minimal effort you can be proactive to eliminate it as a possibility. If you remembered to through in some egg shells and some Epsom salt when you planted your tomatoes you should be good, if you are like me and was too excited and forgot it is time to supplement. There are a few remedies out there including powdered milk, egg shells, Tums, or even some bone meal tea. I personally go the egg shell tea method, which simply requires taking some egg shells soaking them in water overnight and applying to my tomato plants. If you do this method you will want to prevent spread of salmonella make sure you bake them in the oven for 10 minutes at 200 degrees. One bonus is this also makes the egg shells break up much easier. The best time to apply this egg shell tea is when you baby tomatoes are just starting to form since this is the time your little fruits are sucking up as much calcium as it can find
Inconsistent watering: I have an entire post on watering your garden but the basic idea is to not to drown your roots but watering too often, but not wait until they become completely dry either. Without water your plants have no means to get needed nutrients including the calcium mentioned above. For me this is the most common cause of of my blossom end rot usually after going on a week vacation with no plan for watering my garden while I was gone.
Too much nitrogen: From my experience if I have too much nitrogen I normally get tall plants with no blossoms until the nutrients in the soil balance out. Where you can get into trouble is side dressing (supplemental fertilizing during the growing season) your plants if you do this make sure you provide a balanced fertilizer such as compost tea or commercial brand that is specifically for tomato plant and follow the directions on the box. Plants much like ourselves can only absorb so much nutrients from the soil so we need to make sure we are providing what the plants need at that time in their growth cycle and remember when it comes to fertilizer more is not better in most all cases it will be worse.
Tags: cheap, compost, outdoor plants, tomato plants, vegetables
Butterfly Garden Update (Nasturtiums and Marigolds)
16.7 years ago butterfly, butterfly garden
My black-eyed susans and purple cone flowers didn’t survive being transplanted after being moved from the PC Grow Box, but the Nasturtiums and Marigolds are doing just fine. Even have had some sightings of a few butterflies unfortunately none have stuck around long enough to get a photo, guess there is still lots of summer left this year.
Read Other Butterfly Garden Posts
Tags: butterfly garden, cheap, growbox, outdoor plants, vegetables
How to water your garden
16.7 years ago water
Many people may look at the topic of this post and think how basic a topic this is. The reality is proper watering is the most difficult part of growing a garden. The challenge ensures in the fact that roots need to stay moist, but not too moist since roots do not grow in the soil but in the space (air) between it so with too much water your can actually drown your plants. What makes this even more complicated is the visual signs of overwatering are the exact same as under watering with wilted leaves and yellowish color. Your immediate reaction is, “I am not watering enough” so you water more drowning the plants even more and eventually leading to their demise. Even if your plants look ok you still could be affecting your harvest. For example, if you overwater your tomatoes they will be green enjoying the perfect environment and never get around to creating some blossoms which will result delicious fruit. At the same time under watering your leafy plants can result in bitter tasting lettuce or even worse make them go right to seed and get very little or no harvest in plants like cilantro and spinach.
How do I know how much I need to water? Unfortunately the answer to this questions is “It depends” first you need to determine the structure of your soil (sandy, loam, or clay) If you do not know the structure of your soil you can to a simple glass jar soil test Sandy soils allow water to drain very quickly so you will need to water about three times as often as clay soil and about twice as much as loamy soil. If you live in a dry climate or just have a couple really hot weeks in your not so dry climate you will probably need to water at least every day to keep your plants healthy regardless of your soil structure.
The next factor is how deep do you want the water? It is important to make sure water actually gets to where the roots are, which has been the demise of my first years of tomato plants. Where I watered the surface but the soil was bone dry a several inches below the surface which I realized once I pulled out the dead plants. So first know your plants root system if you are growing deep root plants such as tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, peppers, beans, squash, eggplant, or melons you will need to water longer to ensure that the water makes it down to their deep root system but you can water less often since you will not lose as much to evaporation. If you are growing lettuce, spinach, carrots, radishes, peas, garlic, onions, cabbage, cilantro, or broccoli you need to water less but more frequent to ensure the soil stays most.
Now hopefully you have a better idea when and how much to water, here are some tips from Mel Bartholomew from “Square Foot Gardening” books/videos/PBS series. His first tip is “Don’t water from overhead” since first you waste water due to evaporation but you also get you leaves wet which can lead to disease and frying your plants. If you must water from above if you have a very large garden or if you are away from your garden and need to automate the process, he insists this is done first thing in the morning. If you are like me and enjoy sleeping at dawn you may want to look into his cup and bucket watering method where you fill up a couple of 5 gallon buckets and let them sit out in a sunny spot. You get the benefit of the sun warming the water to prevent shocking the plants with cold tap water especially on a streak of hot summer days. Another benefit is gives time for the tap water to purify itself a little before applying to plants. Once you have your bucket of water the concept is pretty simply just find a nice container (I normally raid my recycling bin) and scoop water out of the bucket and pour it directly under the leaves of the plant with little water waste and the delicate leaves remaining completely dry. This is also helps you measure exactly how much water you are giving to each plant which you can adjust as needed. You can also get some of the same benefits by using a trickler hose of a bubbler attachment if your back can not take the weight of packing around 5 gallon buckets full of water.
Now if after all of this explanation I haven’t scared you too much in fear of not watering too little or too much here are a couple more tips to make your watering more successful.
- Order on a consistent schedule: It is easy to forget the last time you water and watering a few days late or early can have significant effects on your harvest.
- Have a test hole: Normally there is somewhere in your garden where something is not currently growing after doing you normal watering dig into that hole and see how deep your watering is actually getting.
- Finger test: By sticking your finger into your soil if it comes back dry you probably need to water
- Get a water meter: If you want something a little more scientific you can always pick up a cheap water meter for less than $10 which can give you a measurement several inches underground
Tags: cheap, cilantro, garden seeds, garlic bulbs, led, outdoor plants, pepper plants, tomato plants
How to save onion seeds from the garden
16.8 years ago onions, seed saving, seed storing
In the past I have harvested seeds for cilantro which worked so well I have decided to try more this year. Now my gigantic onions are producing seed stalks and umbels are beginning to open seems like a good time to try harvesting my own onion seeds.
To save these seeds it is pretty simple, when the umbels have dried out and begin to open. At this time carefully cut them off (making sure that seeds do not fall) and place in a them in a cool dry location for 2-3 weeks. I prefer to put my harvest seeds in the refrigerator in a paper bag. It is a good idea for onions to cross pollinate so I will plan on buying some other onion seeds to mix with the ones I am harvesting to allow for cross pollination.
Onions take 100-120 days from seed to maturity, if you start from sets which you grow from the previous year can shave 3-4 weeks off that time. I could make my own onion sets by planting 30-40 seeds in a square foot area during late summer. After two months rake over the tops and let them turn brown and dry out then store them in a dry place until next spring.
My PC grow box will be empty 10 weeks before my last frost date so planning on starting my onion seeds in there moving them outside 4 weeks before the last frost.
If you want to learn more about saving seeds for onions or other vegetables be sure to check out International Seed Saving Institute which has great advice about saving seeds from dozens of different plants.
Tags: cheap, cilantro, garden seeds, growbox, outdoor plants, vegetables
Attack of the giant onions
16.8 years ago onions
Looks like I may have added a little too much nitrogen (alfalfa pellets) to my garden this year since they all are getting huge above ground but not much below ground. Currently they measure around 3 and a half feet and here in the Pacific Northwest summer doesn’t even start until July 5th. I am sure the extra sporatic weather we have been having the past month doesn’t help much either.
Tags: cheap, organic vegetables, vegetables
Strawberries in the garden
16.8 years ago indoor growbox, strawberries
Strawberries thrive here in the Pacific Northwest but this year the June bearers almost missed their month this year with some of the erratic weather we have had during the past couple months. Last year I planted about a half dozen June bearing plants in the holes of the cinder blocks that surround my raised bed. We got enough strawberries to keep our oldest daughter satisfied for an occasional snack but still had to supplement from the grocery store to satisfy her strawberry habit and with the rising produce prices I let the let some of the runners spread to their neighboring cinder block holes and some cases transplanting the start to a more appropriate location. A couple months ago I also planted some different varieties of Everbearing strawberries to provide fruit throughout more of the summer.
The normal life cycle of a strawberry plant is 3 years. The first year will consist of plant growth where you should see a decent number of strawberries but not as much as the second year. My second year plants are about a foot tall and have dozens of large strawberries growing on them. I have been cutting any runners that shoot out to allow the plant to spend its energy on those delicious berries. The third year the plant’s production will be less and will be spending more of its energy on its runners which is a good time to let those runners turn into new plants and let the cycle repeat. After the plants have finished producing this is the time to fertilize with a balanced fertilizer (10-10-10) otherwise this can lead to excessive leaf growth and less production. Fertilizing at this time will also give the plants the chance to store some much needed energy over the cold winter and have a good head start for the following spring.
Now this morning my oldest daughter was tired of picking strawberries sure it had nothing to do with her picking two and a half pounds of strawberries at Harvold Berry Farm the day before.
Tags: cheap, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, vegetables
