December 28, 2017

Good morning,   recently I became aware that all Solanaceae (tomato, pepper, eggplant,potato...) can be grafted to each other. This I find amazing because of the difference in vegetative  growth  between the members in this family.

I have heard and seen where potatoes are used as a root stock for tomatoes. Of all the plants mentioned above these two are the most similar. It could be that you do not hear about the others being cross grafted because the"woodiness" of the vegetation makes grafting more difficult. Of course the youngest material would be grafted. At this stage they all would be most similar.

One could ask, why would you do that? 

By grafting tomatoes to potatoes double cropping would be easy, where all season you are harvesting peppers, eggplants or tomatoes and then in the fall there would be the potato harvest.

There is another reason but this one would not work for potatoes. There have been hybrid tomatoes bred to be very resistant to many of the ailments that are common among solanaceae.

These hybrids have very robust root systems and have the potential of increasing the yields of the scion material that is grafted to them. This is why grafting potatoes to these hybrids would not work, after all it is the roots of potatoes that produce the spuds. 

There are two ailments to this group of veggies that the hybrid root stock would be helpful to me. The first is tomato mosaic virus (TMV) and the other is none other than root knot nematodes (RKN).

The root stock would protect against any TMV that is in the soil. My main source of TMV is from thrips populations in the native grass lands around my garden. I have found that they are not a problem except in extremely dry springs, such as last spring. Thrips like succulent plant growth to suck on and thus they move into the garden from the desiccated range land.. Most all of my beds are covered with fabric and this protects them for the most part. It is when I need to do bed work that they become exposed. If there is a time of day or night that thrips are most active, not working the beds at this time would be very helpful. For an example, carrot rust flies are active at specific times of the year form mid to late morning. I have found that when they hatch they are drawn to the white fabric that I use. When I see these swarms I only work the carrots of an evening when the flies are not active. This approach could work with the thrips too, depending on their active periods.

I do have TMV in the garden due to the thrips. Using the above mentioned precautions and the root stock, maybe the TMV could be eradicated in the garden or at least controlled.

There are two crops that I grow that seem to be most susceptible to RKN. These are tomatoes and okra. The other solanaceae do not seem to be as vulnerable to RKN but this root stock may improve their resistance. I have found no RKN resistant okra or root stock

Ah yes once my spring rush is over I hope to practice grafting. Maybe I should see how easy it is to graft eggplants and peppers to tomato root stock. 

For funzies I might try grafting tomatoes to potatoes. Most of my potatoes are short season varieties and the tops die back after 90 days. If the tomatoes kept the  roots alive awhile longer could this improve the spud harvest? 

Who knows this is all intriguing. Now for that "roundtuit". 

Yesss there are veggies his week.

December 25, 2017

Sure does feel like I am playing hookie since taking a mesquite thorn in my knee. I have found new respect for the mesquite tree. I knew they could have attitude, guess I didn't realize how much. 

I very much appreciate Dr. Luecke and Kathy Duncan for coming into the office on their day off to extract my pet from my knee. Thank you very much!!!! This was done last Friday morning. It has taken until Christmas morning for the swelling in my leg to go down. Those thorns do pack a punch.

With luck in the future I will be more aware of where I put my extremities.

Luckily it has not been the best gardening  weather, so it has been "easier" to cool my jets.

Last week is the week that I usually sow my second plantings of peas. Needless to say this did not happen. I set the peas to soak Saturday and yesterday I started germinating them. With luck they will be in the ground by Thursday. My first sowing does not appear to be as good of a take as I would like but it should yield a decent crop. Hopefully  this second sowing will do better. It was such a warm fall until the snow. Peas don't like hot.

With luck the first peas will be harvested  the end of February. Snow peas have got to be one of my favorite veggies.

Yes there will be a veggie harvest this week!!!

Merry Christmas to one and all!!!!

mark 

December 14, 2017

Good morning,  I finally got to pull back the fabric and take a look at the veggies.. Considering that it was very warm going into the snow storm and then having a 11. 5 degree morning the day after the storm, I am very impressed. The snow and the fabric saved the day.

I intentionally left some of my older chard bed  and my failed parsnip bed  uncovered. I wanted to see what I could expect with such a temperature swing. I was expecting a chill down into the low twenties not down to 11.5.

Most veggies are hardy to  about 20 uncovered. I have found chard to be very hardy (once it is hardened off). Parsnips are  the most cold tolerant of veggies that is when it has hardened off. Having the snow cover prevented both f these plants from being out right killed. Both of these plants have severe frost burn after all it was 60 plus temperature swing with in 48 hours.

Needless to say the garden was shocked into much slower growth. Last week I harvested just before the cold hit and nothing has really grown very much since. Since this cold front the highs and lows are much reduced. Most mornings there has been a freeze. It is because of this change that the snow has stayed around and took several days for the fabric  to release.

Looking ahead for weather forecasts, Weather underground is predicting more precipitation next week. Right now it is rain but this could  be once of the frozen kind.

This could be problematic for getting my second pea planting in..It is my hope that I can germinate the peas and plant them next week. Once the peas are set to soak there is no turning back. A very interesting game of poker. We will have t  see how lucky I feel. Then again I may wait for Christmas week.

The weather sure does make everything very interesting.

Due to the cool down, bag sales may have duplicates. At this time I fee I can fill any order that comes in, but in the off chance I can't, I will only bill for that portion I do fill.

December 11, 2017

Last weeks snow was really quite a surprise. The precipitation percents were sky high too. In the back of my mind I was thinking "yea right". So many of the times when they have been so sure, these events go to the north or south of us.

It was the last time that such an event was predicted ( during art walk a few years back), I did not make any accommodations in the garden for that event. It was because of that mistake that my bulb onion seed bed was destroyed with dampening off disease. The ice had chilled down the soil and conditions were perfect for this to happen.

This year  I covered  my onion bed with greenhouse film. I did this as a way to prevent the ice melt from chilling the soil. I had made one mistake already this fall by not taking extra precautions  for the harvester ants and had to re-sow because of that.It is my hope that the film saves the day and prevents a "do over"  of that icy Art Walk Weekend. For added insurance I watered the onion beds with a natural fungicide. With luck this will all work and there will be no need to order onion plants in February. 

Once again time will tell whether my precautions have worked.

Folks were asking how well the garden fared with this event. Everything was covered in preparation. It was even more of a surprise  on Friday to discover the mercury at ground level had dropped to 11.5. At this writing there was still enough ice on the covers so that I could not pull back most of them to look inside. The 2 beds I could, everything looked great. the boc choy which is tender at those temps looked great and the broccoli heads that were forming do not appear to be effected either. Ah yes another wait and see thingy.

December 7, 2017

Good morning,  fall a year ago I seeded some New Zealand clover for bio mas and nitrogen. On a few hot days I burnt it back (using greenhouse film) to plant broccoli and cauliflower. I thought I had nuked it but it made a come back and became a living mulch under the broc /  caul.

It filled in nicely and did not hamper the broccoli or the cauliflower. I meant to turn under this clover at the end of the broccoli harvest. Welllll Life happens and it did not happen.

Even though this bed had dried out the clover was still thriving, I first weed whipped the clover down so that I could raise the drip tape, then saturated the soil and  turned under the clover. 

It had developed an extensive root system with all kinds of nitrogen nodgels on the roots. I suspect that I will need to turn the clove again  to completely kill and incorporate it into the soil.

Tomatoes are slated to go into this bed this coming February or March. It will be interesting to see how well the toms do with this bio mass.

If by chance I do not kill out the clover it could once again become a living mulch. I could then turn it under the following fall / winter only to reap more rewards from this clover. I also suspect that there is a lot of clover seed in the soil since the clover has been blooming for sometime.

There is a possibility I have created a monster or a sustaining means of fertilizing some of my beds. 

This does intrigue my curiosity..  Push comes to shove I can solarize the next time the bed is empty.

Ever since the gentleman retired that would bring me bedding material to compost I have not been able to get as much fertility into the soil as I would like. This could be the key.

time will tell.

December 4, 2017

It is rapidly approaching the date that I start my summer Solanacae (tomatoes ,chilies eggplants...)

For a number of years I used soil blocks to start my seedlings with. These are made by compressing potting soil into which the seeds are sown. Seeds are started on small blocks and then these seedlings are potted on by placing the cube into an ever increasing sized block. I have 3/4, 2 inch and 4 inch blockers. These make wonderful plants for transplanting. The premise of the blocks is that the seedling never experience transplant shock.

This is wonderful technology that I feel is much more suited for more humid climes. The seedlings that made it to be transplant-able  was much less than the number of seedlings I would start with.This puzzled me and I set out to experiment with different seed starting methods.

For the last couple of years I have started seedlings in small 4 oz cups.I sow seeds pretty thick in these cups. The reason for doing "dog hair thicket" sowing is I can more easily control the humidity. Most of my mortality with seedlings is from germination to the development of the first true leaves. Once the seedling get to this stage they can be transplanted into their individual containers. 

Here again they are transplanted into 4 oz cups and as their roots fill out the cups they are potted on to 8 oz and then to 16 oz cups. Even when I split up the young seedlings growing in the ''dog hair thickets" there has not been any sever transplant shock.

These seedling are grown on a heating mat that keeps their roots at a nice toasty temp of 65 to 75 degrees. This temp promotes fast growth. Temps in the 55 to 65 range is the dampening off zone and the seedling grow very slowly. This is a problem I had until the use of a heating mat.

The first seedlings are started mid to late December and the second sowing around late January / early February. Depending on the winter the plant room can be on the cool side and can be hovering near the dampening off zone. The heating mat prevents this.

So with these changes the seedlings for their specified sow dates are all equal sized when they are ready to be out planted.

This has worked well for several years and expect it to continue.