I say tomato, and you say tomato...
Seeing soft purply potato blossoms in the garden make me smile. They are so healthy, I've picked only a handful of potato beetles off the plants so far. When the kids were at home, I'd send them out to the potato patch with a little gasoline in a tin can. They were to pick off the bugs and toss them into the can of gas. It worked well, but why didn't I put alcohol or something else in the can instead of gasoline?
Potatoes, thickly mulched with straw. They're growing with great vigor. This is their second mulching. My hope is that as the potatoes push up, they'll stay covered by the straw and be easy to harvest.
Problems with the tomatoes: I think it's curly leaf virus, but I'm not sure. It's like the leaves are shriveled and won't unfurl as they should. I've pulled off several nasty looking leaves that are yellow and spotted and pulled off some of the curled up leaves and tossed them into the burning barrel. I mulched the plants and hope that keeping the water off the leaves will help. There are other tomato plants that look really healthy, but about four of the eight look ugly. I hope they'll come out of it. I've read that humid, wet conditions can cause this. Usually, this is not a problem in our neck of the woods where summers usually are hot and dry, but this year it's been wet and cool.
We're eating gobs of fresh lettuce and radishes so far. We're a long way off from homegrown tomatoes. Maybe the cherry tomato plant will set soon. We had a good, hot day today -- 98*. A good day for making hay!
"From Spring through Fall, Thomas Jefferson planted a teaspoon of lettuce seeds every Monday at Monticello so they'd have lettuce all summer long."
From
spring through fall, Thomas Jefferson planted a teaspoon of lettuce
seeds every Monday at Monticello, so they’d have lettuce all summer
long. - See more at:
http://www.grow-it-organically.com/growing-lettuce.html#sthash.HZi41TRO.dpuf
From
spring through fall, Thomas Jefferson planted a teaspoon of lettuce
seeds every Monday at Monticello, so they’d have lettuce all summer
long. - See more at:
http://www.grow-it-organically.com/growing-lettuce.html#sthash.HZi41TRO.dpuf
Wow! Your potato patch puts mine to shame. They look great. Hope your tomatoes recover. My sweet corn is finally making progress with this warm weather.
ReplyDeleteHooray for the hay makers! I bet you are brewing up lots of iced tea and making piles of sandwiches!
ReplyDeleteYou're a smart potato farmer!
Your potatoes look wonderful, I wish I had thought of doing that.
ReplyDeleteI wish I knew a cure for your poor tomatoes, I have never seen that blight before. I picked three cherry tomatoes last night. That is all I have. I do hope I don't get pitched a shut out on tomatoes again.
Beautiful, for sure, anything green and bloomy catches my eye. I hope your tomatoes turn out ok. All I'm growing is flowers and herbs. I am happy about my phlox and turks cap finally blooming.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying sweet potatoes for the first time this year--just one plant, to see how it does. We have heavy, clay soil, and though it's been modified over the years, I don't know how the potatoes will do. Might need to build them their own raised bed.
ReplyDeleteI hope your tomato leaves unfurl!
Does it always get so hot there in the summer? You've got us beat by a mile right now.
xofrances
We're eating new Island potatoes but ours aren't blooming yet. I have the same trouble with my tomatoes as you do :( . Our garden took a bit of a beating from Hurricane Arthur but I'm hoping everything comes back. Our spinach is ready for picking. And our sugar snap peas are climbing nicely up the chicken wire. But I think it will be Sept before we get much of a harvest.
ReplyDeleteIf I ever have the space again, potatoes are a crop that I'd like to raise. Yours look very promising! I hope your tomato problem doesn't proliferate...Isn't that the way it goes with farming - every year there is something that doesn't go so well, other things that have a great year. You just pray that the balance is toward the successful crops.
ReplyDeleteWe're eating tomatoes every day here now -- mid-July. The season is so much earlier here than I'm used to. Sorry about your plants! I've never seen that before, but we have other tomato ailments.
ReplyDelete