How can you trust non-gardeners?

Can you trust someone who has never gardened or even grown a plant?  It takes a certain amount of mental and emotional maturity to appreciate something as subtle as a plant (which one colleague suggests explains some zoologists), and it takes a good deal of patience and care to nurture a seed into a plant that flowers and eventually produces fruit.  It is no surprise to many of us that there is nothing quite like a garden-ripened, sun-warmed, fresh-picked tomato.  Tomatoes from most groceries, and those served in your average restaurant, are merely similar in color and shape.  How many of our politicians, largely rich, urban folk, would know a good tomato if they ate one?  In addition, some of them, being mostly lawyerly, might even argue that good in this context doesn’t matter.  But it does because it says a great deal about their values and discernment of subtleties!  A really good tomato is something the little person can have, can grow, for themselves, something better than the 1% have, something the 1% don't even know about.  So why trust someone who can’t accept even such a simple truth as a ripe tomato?  Could our current president even recognize a tomato plant?  Does he even eat tomatoes that have not been turned into ketchup?  So why trust this guy with any of the many more important decisions that need to be made?  TPP hazards to say that gardeners are a largely ignored demographic, and gardeners should rise up and oppose putting such ignorant people into office.  Perhaps a gardening quiz can be administered to test for fitness to hold office and make wise decisions about things that really matter, like when things need pruning (sorry Chauncey, Being There). What’s the best tomato you’ve ever eaten?  How do you grow nice lettuce? It matters; now answer the question!

Flowers at the stage of seed dispersal

Of course TPP is talking about fruits, flowers at the stage of seed dispersal. These particularly handsome berries were among the best part of our kitchen garden this season, so far. Note the past tense. Now begins the whining of a gardener with a small garden.  One of the major problems with small gardens is that they cannot sustain much damage. The person who plants 50 tomatoes at her Father's place in the country doesn't have to worry about losing a plant or two, or a variety that doesn't like the weather this year, or an animal eating their fill. A rather violent thunderstorm toppled one of our tomato trees (5 feet tall) in a cage and the fall snapped off the stem about 8 inches above the soil.  It would grow back and probably even produce some fruit, but that was one sixth of our tomato orchard; it was replaced by a late season bargain from a garden shop closeout sale. So far this year the eggplant had been a stand out; vigorous, healthy plants, early prolific fruiting. Yea!  Then some miscreant who hadn't read or decided to ignore "wildlife friendly yard" agreement picked almost all the leaves off the eggplants at the base of the petioles, and dropped them.  They weren't to their taste, but in a classic slow learner response, they tried another, and another, and so on down the row. This was not one of the usual suspects, not neat enough for bun-buns or tree rats, and neither ever pays any attention to eggplant (nightshades generally are not their thing).  A couple of small eggplant were chewed on a bit, and TPP suspects perhaps an opossum.  The thing is that eggplant without many or any leaves don't produce much fruit until they recover. On the good news side of things the Japanese beetle season is about over; it was fairly brief and the beetles were not very numerous. Big cannas and a June berry bush were the only plants significantly damaged. 

Summertime, and the gardening isn't easy

It's been a hot June so far, and almost too dry.  Highs in upper 80s and low 90s dry out the soil and wilt plants quickly. Any plant that doesn't recover from the afternoon wilts needs watering.  The real problem is when you've planted quite a few new plants it keeps you busy, and uses a lot of water even if rains are adequate.  Last two rainy spells have been just in time, coming after a week or more of dry, and because our rain comes in thunderstorms you can get missed.  This time the area was fortunate. More violent weather passed to the south going east; you don't want to trade rain for hail or wind gusts. About dawn a front of thunderstorms arrived, not too violent, but enough to make a scared black cat clingy.  It dropped at least 1.5 inches so far, enough for a good soil soaking. It takes at least half an inch of water a week to keep a garden going, and if using containers, watch your plants closely because they require more frequent watering. The lawns were getting crunchy (they never get watered) and annoying chiggers have appeared, a few have gotten their blood meal at TPP's expense already.  
In other news the potting mix used for the tomatoes has too much nitrogen in it (didn't notice) and TPP has some magnificent vines, which is not the point. Vines may pay off later, but at the cost of early fruit set. The cherry tomato, an indeterminate type, may need pruning.  Grew a monster vine years ago and had to prune it back.  That 3-4 foot diameter column of vine produced over a quart of cherry tomatoes a day! Eggplant are doing well if flea beetles can be kept at bay. Next problem to watch for are squash vine borers.

Wilting Tomatoes - This could be bad

The kitchen garden was off to a slow, late start this year, but finally beginning to look like something.  But now the tomato plants (a resistant variety!) are showing signs of a wilt, probably verticillium, but need to check leaves for lesions.  First, the one on the end of the row, now the next one in the row.  They'll be pulled, but it may not help at all.  Verticillium is wide spread and the spores can last in the soil for years.  And members of the nightshade family are particularly susceptible, and the only possible action is to do some long-term crop rotation.  However since the primary crops in the summer kitchen garden are tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant plus curcurbits, there are too few options in too little space.  Just in case a couple of late tomatoes, also resistant, were planted in large pots.  This may be the beginning of some upward gardening avoiding the native soil for a few years.  There are times when the combination of animal and fungal pests make small scale gardening a rather disheartening enterprise.  Verticillium wilt could also explain the rapid decline of raspberries (also very susceptable) last year that was blamed on the drought. Two years ago several well established trees here and there around the yard just up and died after a sudden wilting.  Replacements have done well enough, but this renews my worries.  Drat. 

Wildlife friendly yard and tomatoes

Our gardens provide food, cover, and water to quite an array of wildlife, unfortunately this year their primary food seems to be tomatoes. Let's see, so far the opponents have fielded a team consisting of young possums, a couple of raccoons, and a woodchuck. Apparently it takes quite a few tomatoes to keep these critters well fed, and all one asks is a BLT on a regular basis, one without teeth marks in the T. Now not to be too unfriendly, but what with small mammal populations running about 10 times higher in urban areas than in rural areas, my aim is to relocate a few individuals to even out the population. As a result of this experimental approach, the kitchen is now for the first time in a long time awash with tomatoes. The cucumbers have been quite wonderful, but the zucchini have been relatively speaking a no-show maybe for the 1st time in my long gardening history. Hard to know why; while growing they are producing mostly staminate flowers, perhaps a stress response to the hot, dry conditions. With the return of some cooler nights the capsicums are beginning to set fruit again although the variety has been fruitful during midsummer in the past. Rain is still needed, and it was probably too little water during my absence in July and early August that set the stage for poor fruiting now.

Determinate vs. indeterminate tomatoes

An interested reader asks, "What's the difference between determinate vs. indeterminate tomatoes?" First of all, understand that in the temperate zone tomatoes are grown as an annual, but actually they are sort of a scandant (sprawling) viney plant, but they aren't hardy. Most plants are indeterminate, which in the most general sense means the grow throughout their lives because plants have meristems, perpetually juvenile tissues. Most "old fashioned" tomatoes were indeterminate, so they just kept growing and they could get pretty big. The stupid things sold as tomato cages in most garden stores are laughable. My local good old boys garden store makes their own out of heavy fence and they stand nearly 6 feet tall. Tomatoes easily out grow them. Once had a cherry tomato grow so large it got pruned with hedge shears and we were harvesting 2 quarts of tomatoes a day at peak harvest. So such tomatoes will produce until the season gets too cold. Determinate tomatoes were bred to be a better fit for small gardens, and more importantly to produce a peak crop, something very useful for mechanical harvesting for process tomatoes. So determinate plants grow to a certain size, then flower and fruit producing a lot of fruit over a short period of time. So each has their advantage, but even still most tomatoes get bigger than most people think.

End of Times Garden Planning - Pre and Post Rapture

2011 is presenting a challenge in garden planning according to some who say the Rapture (seems like it needs capitalization) will occur on May 21. Now this won't really matter for salad greens and peas, although getting those peas in early will be important, and you may decide to continue cutting asparagus right up to the end, but if you think you'll be saved then don't waste your time planting those tomatoes. Actually in our part of the world you'd only be 7-10 days after the frost-free date, so you could hold off on buying those tomato plants until the 21st of May to be sure. Now the cool thing about this is that if you find yourself in a garden shop on the 21st you can be sure that everyone else there was damned right along with yourself, so you might as well get busy planting tomatoes and the rest of your summer garden. Of course, this isn't the first end of times prediction, and one thing certain is that the batting average for such predictions so far is zero, naught, goose-egg, zip, unless it actually has happened already and no one you knew was saved so you didn't notice except for the torment of reality TV (explains a lot really). So one way or another tomatoes are going to be part of my garden.

Tomatoes or grass?

As a youth, one of the characters that lived nearby was always getting us to help with various projects, and invariably we'd ask, "What will we be paid?" And his answer was always something like, "Two bucks and all the grass you can eat." So given the choice, tomatoes or grass, most people don't have to think very long. Thus it is nothing, if not sensible, to use your little bit of Lincolnland to grow tomatoes and other garden produce rather than having a monoculture of grass. Oh, but if you live in the village of Northbrook they may ask you rip out your garden and plant lawn for no other reason than your tomatoes are in front of your house rather than behind it, and some stupid ass has such a stunted aesthetic sense that they think a boring monoculture of grass looks better than a tomato garden. Clearly, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is involved, and what brings more happiness than gardening and picking a vine ripe tomato? Song writer Guy Clark once observed that there are "only two things that money can't buy...and that's true love and home grown tomatoes." At what point does some bureaucratic git decide what is and is not prohibited? A garden need be neither weedy nor ill kept, which is what most lawn appearance ordinances prohibit. Attempts to define weeds as "aliens" will not work to eliminate tomatoes in favor of lawn grasses, since neither are natives, and there are probably more weeds in most lawns than in most kitchen gardens. Surely you can eliminate grass completely and plant annual and perennial ornamentals, and what is more ornamental than big, red fruits? But if the sight of a nice garden really offends, then my suggestion is that the garden be surrounded by a picket fence, lined with sunflowers, and the tomatoes and a machine gun nest camouflaged within, then when neighbors come calling for some tomatoes, or some petition passer comes prowling, both can get what they so richly deserve. Why next they'll be wanting gardeners to sit in the back of buses, step off sidewalks to make way for lawn mowers, and to eat plastic, store-bought tomatoes! Hmm, a couple of those tomatoes have a spot or two on them and are beginning to rot. We'll have to throw them away, tonight.