Friday, July 29, 2011

Watermelon update and other news

The blight to my tomatoes is gone. The bottoms were getting leathery patches and was the end result of a calcium deficiency. If you have this problem, you can add romato fertilizer and hope for the best, buy tomato flower end rot stop for 6-8 dollars, or go to the medicine cabinet, grab three Tums(R), grind them up and add to a gallon jug of water. Honest, it really works. You might not do anything at all too. The experts say that the blight will go away on it's own and only the first fruit are affected. I'm impatient and got 'Rot Stop." After I bought it, I found the Tums(R) fix. Today I ate my first BLT from the garden. I had no idea just how bland store bought tomatoes are until now.

Watermelon, WATERMELON(S) I now have a new baby melon. It's the size of a large marble at present. The original has grown HUGE! It's up to 2-1/8" diameter.... At least I got one when the experts say impossible for our climate. When mom and I share them I think one bite each.

No idea on what the carrots are doing. The greens show they are still alive, but no idea how big they have grown. My sweet red bell peppers finally have flower buds. The Basils are kicking butt and growing well. Some sort of bug has eaten four of the African Basil flower stalks. No more damage seen, I think the birds got em. The oregano is growing, but not at the gangbusters speed everything else is.

Interestingly, I've seen bumblebees for weeks now, but yesterday I saw three HONEY BEES. Seeing the Honey Bees made me almost as happy as seeing the watermelon.

13 comments:

Toad said...

Huck, Have you ever had a foot long Subway BLT, toasted, with extra Mayo, and Avacado? "OOOOOH It's soooo good"

a reader said...

Sounds more like you had/have blossom end rot and if you paid anything to get rid of it you were ripped off. It usually only damages the first flush of fruit and 'goes away'. This has been the worst year of BER in my garden for as long as I have been planting my humble plot.

Blight doesn't go away...your plant does.

But I'm not there so I could be wrong.

Huck Finn said...

Blight is fungus caused and an anti-fungal will cure it. I had a blight called Septaria and it made bulls eyes on the leaves it was on and spread quickly. I caught it just in time. You are right, blossom end rot is a calcium deficiency, not a blight. I tend to think anything that gets in the way of my desires is a blight.

My beef steak plant is doing well, but the blossoms are dropping. Reading up, it's a sign they aren't pollinating themselves. Reading further, I also see it's heat related to hot weather. The next blossoms should work out and I'll keep an eye out and Q-tip pollinate them if I have to.

MinnesotaChick said...

I had BER on about 10 of my Roma tomatoes.. little ones too. I pulled them off and haven't seen any more affected. (phew!)
That is good to know about the Tums! I've never heard of that.

My green peppers are very slow to bloom and are very spindly. Just not have a couple very tiny peppers. I hope they start to grow soon!
I'm just so excited to have a small garden this year in our new home after not having one for a few years. NOTHING like a tomato that you grew yourself!

OrbsCorbs said...

Yes, it's amazing how a home grown tomato tastes compared to store bought ones. I've been told the same thing about Georgia peaches, but I don't think I've had one.

lizardmom said...

I was going to wait until Monday's open blog to ask but this seems like the perfect place.

I picked my very 1st ever homegrown (by me) tomato yesterday, funky shaped but pretty. The 2nd will be picked today then a picture taken right before we eat them :)

This is a cucumber question actually.
I have many little cucumbers (inch long)that start to grow, then turn yellow, then dry up brown and are dead, never growing. I have it in a pot, new soil upon planting. (miracle grow brand) Originally had the pot on the ground, til kk said the chipmunks were the ones raiding my cucumbers that were growing - boogers!
I do have 2 that are growing nicely but can't figure out what is going on with all the little teasers that are dying, any clues??

Huck Finn said...

Lizard Mom I did some research. Some plants flowers are male, some are female, and some are both! Tomatoes, and peppers are two that are hermaphrodite flowers with both the male and female parts in a single flower, and cucumbers are not. A few posters have said that cucumber plants are also differentiated and that you can't pollinate from one flower to another with a cucumber. You need a male cucumber plant and pollinate from it's flowers.

There was also talk about plants in full sun light all day being bad and sitting in the shade of other plants like tomatoes is good. Over/under watering, too much fertilizer is also bad. The few posts on your problem though point to under pollination and say you need to attract more bees, and or have a male plant close by. Were there seeds tinted a different color in the pack? One poster claimed there are and you need to plant seeds of both colors to assure you have male (one color) and female (the other) for fertilization. I'll do some more research in a bit. I'm late for breakfast.

Huck Finn said...

Three good sites.

http://gardeningwithwilson.com/2008/02/23/pollinating-cucumber-flowers/

http://pollinator.com/hand_pollination2.htm

http://urbanext.illinois.edu/veggies/cucumber.cfm

Huck Finn said...

Oh, I was also wrong, male and female flowers develop on the same plant. You're going to have to practice plant husbandry and sex your flowers yourself. a Q-Tip or small artist's paint brush works, or as then pictures show, just grab a male flower and do the deed. :-)

lizardmom said...

well, it started out under the hanging tomato planter until my cucumbers disappeared, now they're up on the table, guess I'll put the umbrella up for them :)
You make gardening sound kinda dirty, can't stop laughing LOL! Oh Huck, you crack me up.
I got them as plants from Steins, I put 2 plants together in the pot, I didn't know I should lift the leaves and check for parts... hehehe

the only fertilizer it has had was what was already in the miracle grow soil I bought, I didn't add anything. My thumb is FAR from green and the fact that the plant itself has grown makes me kinda happy, but now I want the cucumbers to grow, had the 1st 2 tomatos today, oh my gosh, fantastic! I"ll check out the sites and see what I come up with, thanks so much for your help Huck!!!!

lizardmom said...

ok Huck, I played matchmaker with the cucumber plant, let them be fruitful and multiply :)

Huck Finn said...

Laughing hard. Did they ask for a cigarette when you were done? I honesty read of one tomato plant owner that "Vibrated the plant with a toothbrush to get it to pollinate... "

OrbsCorbs said...

Kinda makes me wanna do some pollinating of my own. Plants, I mean.