feeding the soil first - PART 2

Well I am happy to report that I finnaly got all my onions out of the raise bed I have in total about 22 lbs, not bad for a first timer.

I also got some green beans, provider and just a few dragon tongue finnaly comming out.

I am sad to report that my squash is doing horrible, I think either not enough bees or the squash beetle is hitting it pretty hard.
Also some of my maters are having the bottom end rot problem, lack of calcium I guess, hopefully it wont last too long.

Lookin good Carmen! Great onions!

Sometimes the early squash fruits abort until there are both male/female flowers present and the pollinators come, so don't give up just yet;o)

I find that blossom end rot in tomatoes is more of a problem created by erratic watering rather than lack of calcium... Most soils have adequate calcium to support tomato plants. It also appears more often in early fruits and most times the plant will "outgrow" it as it matures. Here in the desert we have little rain during tomato season, so I can be consistent with my watering. However, if you live somewhere with a lot of rainfall or erratic rainfall, that can really wreak havoc on your tomatoes. They go from dry to sopping wet to dry to sopping wet again... That is one of the root causes of BER. It is also what can cause your fruit to "crack" - the skin is tight from laxk of moisture then bam! it gets a bunch of water at once and expands too rapidly and it cracks...

Carminator1,

TOTALLY AWESOME ONIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

And, you have got to PROMISE to tell me exactly what you did so I can grow the same kind next season, ok? Really! As SOON as you make your first move toward your next onion crop, you've got to stop and say, "Oh, I need to let Linda know what I'm doing next!"

C,
If you spit in the onion patch, I need to know that.....

I want to grow onions more than anything!!!!!

Kelly,
I've been trying to understand that "erratic watering" concept in the patented EBs. But, I'm not getting it, 'cause the water wells are always full so the plants can drink at will.....

We have had on/off rain lately...I have one mater plant with BER...

Kelly, I really think you are right about the erratic watering of the tomatoes, we have been having very little rain, and then when the rain comes it just pours and soaks everything. I also have read that planting too early in the season can also help BER develop in the tomatoes. So far I have only seen a few maybe 3 or 4 maters that had the BER problem, I just picked some nice red ones this morning from some det maters that I have growing on EB and they are perfectly fine. I did place some mulch in my raise beds underneath the maters just to help with moisture controll, but I do not have or use a drip system, so will this help?

I have to agree with Linda as well, the mater plants that were showing some BER are the ones on my EB not the ones on the raise beds so far but only time will tell.



This message was edited May 19, 2010 1:45 PM

I wanna know how you got those big onions too - spill it girl!

Linda - with your EBs you should be pretty much free of BER except that caused naturally in the early fruit or if you get hammered with some weird rain...

C - all that rain you guys have had your way is definitely not helping. I hand water all my gardens. I love to be out there working, though not so much on the summer when the temps are over 100°... Mulching is a definite must in hot climates. It will help retain moisture and keep the plant's roots cooler, especially helpful in raised beds as the soil heats up much faster than the ground most times. So yes - mulch, mulch, mulch. Just be careful to not mulch right up against the plant's stem and check occasionally for critters that may be hiding in the mulch...

Linda the ones that I grew are Sweet georgia onions, I bought them from Lowes for less than $4 and I think I planted about 60 or so of them, and I also got some red candies I think from Twiggy but for some reason the red type just don't get as big. I am thinking of planting some candies next year, I just like sweet type onions not the spicy ones, plus I suffer from lots of acid reflux when I eat very spicy things.

I now I got some horse manure that I got for free on this raise bed but now I have tons of grass and weeds I need to pull out unfortunately.

I will be planting some corn and climbing cowpeas on this bed soon. I do have some shallots still in the raise bed that are not ready just yet though.

I also have a nice size cabbage in this bed it is called Early Jersey, my question is, when do I know is ready?

Carminator1,
I grew the same Early Jersey cabbage! Unfortunately, I didn't harvest all my cabbages like I should have and now the wormies are devastating them all! I don't mind since they are preoccupied with the cabbages and not bothering any of my other veggies, so I'm chalking it up as a "trap" crop...everything serves a purpose in the garden...

I've been "guess-timating" on when my cabbages are ready by the temps. Once it gets too hot, either the bugs move in, or the cabbages start to bolt. I have noticed there's a period when they don't seem to be growing anymore, but no bugs or bolting.

In the future, I'll be picking during this timeframe..also, refer to your DTM charts to see how long it's been growing.

The cabbage is starting to get some worm damage and since it is the only one I planted I really would hate to loose it. I will look and see when I planted it and make a decition from there. It is not a big cabbage but I think it is supposed to be a small size anyways. I will definetely plant lots more as soon as the summer is over.

Linda I decided to go ahead and collect the cabbage, it was getting a lot of damage. By the way I know you posted this before but I forgot where, can you tell me how you prepare your cabbage. So far i've only made coleslaw with cabbage before but have not tried any other recipes.

Thanks

Finnally getting some matters. I have been gone for about a week and so the tomato worms have been feasting on my maters, I have had to throw a bunch of maters out because of it, but at least I am saving a few here and there. I have been spraying with BT so hopefuly this will help.

Here's the galina maters.

Also a question, how ripe does a tomato have to get before I can start collecting the seeds? I've been picking the bigger ones when they still have a little green shoulders just because I am affraid that the worms are going to get them before I get a chance to taste them. My idea is to at least collect a few like this and let them ripe completely in my kitchen counter.

Glad to have you back carmin. I've got what looks like worm holes in some of my maters too. They aren't the same critters as last year though because these are invisible. I'm wondering if it's slugs but I haven't seen any of those either.

Any tomato that colors up fully is ok for seed saving. Even a spoiled one usually has mature seeds. I've been fermenting mine and whatever is immature will float and go down the drain when I rinse them.

Twiggybuds,

my onions are making bulbs! Please tell me how big they should be to harvest. Do I just wait 4 de stalks 2 fall over n start turning yellow? They're like shallots now. I'm so excited 2 get BULBS!

Please let me know the history on these so I can grow more when you lmk it's time 2 start again.

Linda

Linda, the way I grew mine is, I let the tops get a little brown before I started pulling, I am sure they'll grow bigger than a shallot. When the tops were getting brown I just bent the stalk, this supposedly stops the growth on the green tops and forces all its energy in the bulbs. However if you do have plenty of onions planted and need an onion you can always pull them prior to the tops turning brown.

Thanks Twiggy, I've had to throw tons of maters on my compost, at first I thought it could be a rat because of how huge the holes were, but then I saw about 10 tomato hornworms the size of my fat finger so I am sure that they did the damage. I've been pulling them out and also spraying with BT for 2 days now, hopefully they wont hurt the tomatoes that are still on the vine.
Also my tomatoes are all over the place I am thinking that next time I really have to invest in those concrete reinforce wires cages.
Twiggy so for what you are saying is I have to let the tomato color up fully in the vine to be able to save seed right? If so I might have to invest in some netting to place around some of the tomatoes that I want to save seed from.

I try to pick all of my tomatoes as soon as I see them start blushing. Once they start turning, they will go on to ripen. If I don't get them first, maybe some insect will. I spread them out in the garage, kitchen, etc., and pick over them daily. Once they have their right color, the majority of the seeds will have matured no matter if they're picked or left on the vine.

I've started taking out my onions a couple weeks ago. I've got 4 different batches. The Short Day Sampler from Dixondale started looking ratty first. They are all small to very small. I'm hoping to replant the small, shallot sized ones in the fall like onion sets. The few that I got started from seed and planted last October just came out this past week and they're huge. The other sampler with Candy, Superstar and ? red are still growing but should come out soon. They've been shaded by the squash so I don't really know what effect that's had. They were the last planted in late Jan. I also have about a dozen from seed that went in in late January. The tops are the best looking of the lot and they're still green. I have trouble planting onions too deep so it's hard to know ahead of time what I've got.

I'll order up some new seeds of several different kinds and start them in late August and September. Everything I read says they can be planted here until the middle of January but the ones planted in October did far better, size wise. It's a big thrill to actually grow decent onions. I always thought it was kind of wasteful of my space because they were cheap in the store. Not this year. They've been expensive and often bad in the center.

Thanks Twiggy, it makes me feel better to know that I can just save seed from tomatoes that can fully ripe in my kitchen counter, I am having a few problems first with bugs and then with the fact that the tomatoes tend to fully rippen at the bottom but are still greenish at the shoulders, I am not sure if it is the type of tomatoes that I am growing or if it has to do with temps.

Please let me know how your candies are doing, I was thinking at first to go and plant some from dixondale this year but I think I'll do just like you are suggesting and try to do seeds and see. By the way when I planted my onions I also planted a little too deep as well, but what I did was to take some of the dirt out where the bulb was forming, this really helped a lot and I really think that I was able to get bigger bulbs because of it.

The things with onions at least for me is that the ones that are cheap in the stores are the yellow spicy ones but if you want the reds or the sweet tasting ones then you pay a pretty penny for those.

I am thinking of planting some elefant garlic in my onion bed as well this next year, I also love garlic and use it all the time. The elefant garlic is suppose to be a little milder in flavor.

twiggybuds - your red onions are probably "Candy Red" - I purchased the same sampler from Dixondale as yourself. Mine are bulbing beautifully, and should be ready to pull around the end of this month.

I have noticed that all the red onions that I have planted are much smaller in size that the yellow type, too bad really since i absolutely love the red types, expecially for salads or pico de gallo salsa.
Honeybee how do you like Dixondale?

This was the first year ordering from Dixondale. The onions got off to a slow start - (I think they mailed them to me too early), but they picked up once the weather got warmer.

So far the Candy Reds are larger than the Candy Whites, but the onion sets of the reds were larger, too. Superstar is bigger than both of them.

There are so many variables, it's hard to judge what makes one plant do better than another.

I have a row of tomatoes where the middle plants are much taller than the ones on either end - why, I have no idea, they were transplanted on the same day.

So, from all this onion conversation I'm determining that we can start onion seeds growing from the end of August through January, correct? And expect to harvest 8 months out from the seeding date?

I have the same question as Gymgirl, plus where's a good place to buy intermediate-day onion seeds? Dixondale doesn't seem to list onion seeds for sale.

http://www.gourmetseed.com/category/gourmet_seed.vegetable_seed.onion___globe/

I haven't ordered from these folks but they have a big list. They also seem a bit pricey. I like that they give the day length info and a nice photo which some listings don't. I'll make a list of good short day varieties and shop around. I wasn't impressed with my first intermediate day trial but lots of factors could have messed them up.

I'm loving my homegrowns but they surely won't last through the fall. I'm waiting for them to get cheap in the stores and will dehydrate a bunch to get by with until next year.

Linda I started onion seeds I believe was back in jan time frame but I planted them out too early in the spring and the tops just froze and died on me. I believe your timeframe is good but be careful transplanting them too early in the season or they wont last.

Twiggy thanks for the wonderful website, I will search as well and see, I might want to try again this year from seed and see whether or not I'll have success this time around. I froze most of my onions, I choped them with cuisinart and then I placed them in gallon freezer bags, the only problem is that the onions are clumped together and they are just hard to break appart, I think my machine just minced them too small plus there was a lot of liquid on the onions and it just got all stuck together. I am wondering if I should invest in one of those vidalia choppers or not like webcagun uses on his onions.

I really have to get a dehydrator but I just can't seem to find one in the stores.

I also have admired webcajun's chopper. There's a bunch of reviews for it on Amazon and you can order it for pick up at Walmart. They've got 3 different ones and I can't decide which one to get.

I put mine through my food processor using the slicer side of the disk. They can be frozen or dried from there. I had some onion juice in the bowl and just froze it separately to use in soup. I keep a jar of dried ones handy and they're such a convenience for anything cooked. They reconstitute or disappear just like the fresh ones would.

I've also frozen a lot of peppers and onions. It works best if you flatten out the ziplock to where it's only about 3/4 to an inch thick. They freeze faster, stack better and you can easily break off a chunk or two when you need them. The finer, juicier the product, the less thick the bag needs to be for easy breaking. I know, you're just like me and hate using up all those extra bags.

I had my best luck 2 years in a row by setting out seedlings in mid-October. They were only little thread like things that looked too fragile to work with but they grew steadily and by the time the real cold came they were well established and didn't seem to mind at all. They seem to just hold steady until it warms a bit and then they grow like crazy. They need feeding in the fall and again in Feb. Maybe a third time would be good. I'm not sure how this would work where it gets a lot colder.

Twiggy when will you start your seeds for transplant? Do you start them in August then? If so I better find some seeds soon. Last year I bough some red onion seeds from I believe was Lowes and the germination was really poor, maybe 50% of the seeds came out. I really want a good source this time around. Let me know if you find a good one out there.

By the way I just had the best gazpacho and pico de gallo salsa ever thanks to all the tomatoes that I am growing, this is addicting I am telling you, :)

Carmen I had onion seeds from 4 sources and none of them germinated worth a hoot. That's why I ended up ordering plants from Dixondale that I received on Jan. 14. I remember several people complaining about poor onion germination and even Dixondale mentioned some seed problems on their site. I don't remember any real answers given as to why. Remember the stores start pulling all the unsold seeds in late June or July so it's get them soon or order off the net.

I've picked up a pack of Ferry Morse Red Burgundy and 2 packs of Hybrid Yellow Granex. I still want to get some Red Creole because they keep a very long time and to try several others. If you can get them to germinate in the first place, they're actually a lot tougher than they look. I think I'll sow them very heavy just in case. They're slow to get to some size and I don't think they like the heat at all so I'll start them in late August or first week in September so I can have them to plant out in the last half of October.

I just had another good shower, the second one today. That makes 11 days in a row for rain. Before this started my tomato plants had flawless foliage and now they're browning and going down fast. I've been canning and now running low on jars. I'm about to start cooking the next batch. I'm doing plain unseasoned sauce because they've been coming in so fast I haven't had time to get creative.

Boy I know I am drowning here, LOL. Not a day goes through that I don't see rain. I was going to mow the grass today but it has been raining and my grass is just out of controll.

The onion website you told us about have some that are very intriging, expecially the ones that are from Spain, they just look so good. I might go and buy some red onion seeds as well at Lowes soon, by the way how do you like the red burgundy's are they sweet?

I so far just placed a little bit of tomato sauce in my freezer, I got the recipe here on Daves, I think it is called roasted tomato sauce, mine was more like tomato paste when I was done with it though, I think because I mostly had cherry maters and not a lot of the big ones. My tomato vines are looking like they are at their last legs so I started more seeds a few days ago, hopefully I can get another batch of tomato plants in my raise beds before the cool weather begins.

Thanks for all the onion info, guys! Hopefully I can get some seed put into some milk jugs by the end of August, too. I think I'll try to find the same seeds as Twiggybuds is gonna grow. Where should I look for the Red Creoles, Twiggy?

Carmen,
When you chop your seasonings for freezing, spread them out on a cookie sheet. Place the sheet in your freezer until the veggies freeze. Then put them into your freezer bag. They won't clump or stick together, and you can easily pour out the amount you need...

Here's a pic of the 'mater harvest for Saturday... Thought I'd share.

There are Steak Sandwich, Bloody Butcher (thanks twiggy!!), a Phoenix (the barely blushing one, lower left), Dr. Carolyn Pink (big cherry), Sun Sugar (orange), Gartenperle and I think a Pink Brandywine. Oh, and a tiny funny looking Cold Set near the top right. This is the only plant that survived our two cold December days and is now loaded with 'maters...

Nice haul Kelly. Which was earliest to ripen? Bloody Butcher was my first.

I'm glad you said the Flat of Italy got big for you. I've been wondering if I had mis-labeled seed or lost my mind maybe. As I said, I had germination troubles so in the end I just mixed them up when I planted them out thinking it would be easy to tell them apart and it wasn't that many. I stuck down a few labels too but they faded out. Anyway I've got 3 different red onions and I think the Creoles are the round ones. The other two are both flat. I understood that the F of I was a small one but on this pack of new seeds I just bought, it looks like the Red Burgundy is flat too and they all got good size. I guess if I can't tell them apart, they're all good and I'm happy.

Bloody Butcher was first for me too, and I love the taste of them... Next were the Sun Sugar, a hybrid that is very good - better than Sungold in my opinion...

Last year I planted the F of I real late and they were small. I'll take pics when I finally harvest these and see how big they are. They are very flat.

How Kelly beautiful tomatoes, mine definetely don't look so perfect, one beacuse of the stinkbugs and second because of all the rain. I keep burning the stupid bugs but they keep comming, I really don't know how to eliminate them completely.

I am not sure which onion to go with this time, how did you like your candies Twiggy? I have heard good things about them but much rather get better info from you. My Local Lowes is not carrying seeds anymore and I have to check home depot, walmart here never carried any seeds at all. If not I'll just check online and see, I also want to plant some elephant garlic this time.

I have a question about my tomatoes. I have a Stinkbug infestation, and they were holding a convention on some'a the maters I harvested to ripen on the windowsill.

I understand they inject the maters with something that starts a breakdown in the fruit. A few have splotches. Are they safe to eat or do I need to toss those?

Thanks!

Linda

The stink bugs make them ugly but if they aren't too bad, they're edible. I pick mine as soon as I see any blushing or else I'd lose many more. I found a snail eating one today and that's a first.

My candies are ready to come out and I'm not impressed with the size. I think it's my fault though because they were shaded too much with the squash and I failed to fertilize them the second time. That's another reason I like to start my own. They came in the middle of the coldest week of the year and it's so much nicer to work in the garden in the fall. I remember thinking I'd freeze to death and didn't take as much care with planting them.

That's ok Twigs, we still love you.

Just LMK your upcoming planting schedule, 'cause I truly would like to mimic your activity. With all that's going on for me right now, I need to just follow for awhile. My brain is too filled with other life activity and I don't have enough cells to concentrate on the garden minutia.

My greatest dilemma right now is determining just how much "garden" I can realistically move with me, and what to do with my precious potting mix in terms of storage. It occurred to me that I can empty all the eBuckets and put them in dry dock without a problem. But what to do with all the potting mix?

I'm thinking I'm going to retrofit more of my large 24" planters as ePlanters because then I can place them in my new locale amongst any existing garden and they would blend in very nicely. I can just see the crisp cabbages welcoming visitors on the front porch!

Thanks again to Cricketsgarden??? (I think it was her pic) waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back when she posted a pic of her garden with veggies amongst the flowers. That was one GORGEOUS garden!

Any ideas on selvaging my gardening mix would be most welcomed. How about if I dried it out first and put it back in plastic bags just like I bought it?

LMK, guys!

Thanks!