Sunday, August 28, 2011

Garden Disaster -- self inflicted!

Oh dearie me!!!    I got the bright idea of fertilizing through the water in my planters.....did a quick mental calculation of gallons to tablespoons of Miracle Gro and put it in the water.    Bad move!  I badly burnt the roots.  Must seriously rethink calculations...maybe with a pencil.
I quickly watered from the top very thoroughly and flushed out the reservoirs to dilute the fertilizer.  A week later I have lost all the beans, probably the cucumbers (will have to give them some time).
Bin #1 The yellow Zucchini are still struggling but have promising new growth.
Bin #2  Beans are toast.  Green Zucchini  looking iffy, always were, only one harvested to date.  Sweet 100 tomato severely damaged but tips are reviving.
Bin #3  Heritage tomatoes, Ukrainian Purple and Black from Tula are flourishing - good old fashioned varieties are very sturdy.
Bin #4  Cucumbers looking bad, Bush Beefsteak and Primo Red tomatoes seriously damaged.  I think I have helped cure the blossom end rot in these two with some crushed egg shells run through the blender.  This adds Calcium.

Mind you this is today's harvest:
 
- Left hand vertical row is Primo Red with an example of the blossom end rot.
- Top three rows are Ukrainian Purple, only two on the left show some small blossom end rot.  No calcium treatment in this bin.  Very tasty almost paste like variety.
- Four examples of Black from Tula tomatoes.  Ugly yes, and these are not the ugliest, but super sweet, juicy and delicious.
- Big bunch of Sweet 100 tomatoes from a plant that might not recover from its overdose. They are soooo good that they are like eating candy.
- Four Bush Beefsteak tomatoes.  They do not seem to thrive in planters, they are small.
- Last hand full of salvaged beans.

DH said there was one plum left on the tree so I went to look....wonder of wonders I picked another 18 plums.  They hide, and one of the most productive branches is almost on the ground.  I am going to try to train it up a bit.  We got a total of 29 plums in this its third year. Hum!  There were only 3 last year and if I calculate a bit I get a 866% increase, therefore next year we should get 25,133.43 plums!

I have visions of Plum Jam, Plum Pudding, Plum Dumplings, preserved Plums, pickled Plums, Plum juice, and maybe even a little something for Simple Simon.....

I was going to take a picture, they were large and very plump and purple with green hints, but DH and I had desert last night and this is all that is left:
I think we even swallowed some pits!

In case you were ever wondering, this is what is under the table that I use to take the pictures:
Must dust....most embarrassing.....


Posted by Picasa

No comments:

Pageviews last month