Caged position 11 (left) Celebrity tomato, position 12 is a cucumber from that guy in the Menards parking lot. He usually has quality seedlings and this cucumber is doing well.
The tomatoes bounced back from yesterday. The curled leaves are reduced in all tomatoes. It just rained this afternoon. I suspect the curled leaves are due to under watering and not over watering after results from an experiment done the last two days. Will fertilize tomorrow.
Caged position 2 (left) and 3 (right). Celebrity tomato in position 2, two eggplants in position 3. These eggplants are the largest so far of the 8 planted this year.
Update: I usually plant 3 eggplants in these 20 gallon tubs but only put 2 in this year. From the looks of this container 3 would have been too crowded.
Caged position 14, the last caged position, contains 1 eggplant, 1 Cleome, and a bunch of volunteer snapdragons from last year. This is an end container in the tomato line. These three plants seem to be getting along OK so far however the Cleome looks a little stunted. Some of the Cleome seedlings from Gesethemane were duds and I got no volunteer Cleome from the plants grown last season. Eggplant grow like a weed on the rooftop and are heavy producers.
Update Note: Since this container contained volunteers from last year its soil was not turned thus mushroom compost was not added. This could be an influence on plant size.
Caged position 1 contains two Cleome. These were put at the two ends of the tomato line to help protect against whatever plagued end tomatoes in the past and to attract bees. The Cleome blooms are big and colorful and receive lots of bee business. These Cleome are about to have their first bloom. They bloom all summer long.
Caged positions 10 and 11. Position 10 (left) is a Better Boy. Position 11 (right) is a Celebrity. All other tomatoes of similar size at this time. Pic taken on 6/25. Celebrity and Better Boys are the only types of tomatoes planted this year.
This photo shows the tomatoes at around 7:30 am on 6/3. They’re still shaded nicely. Sunrise is around 5:16am so they get over 2 1/2 hours of morning shade. The south side of the roof gets no shade. The debris clump in the sunlight is suffering from drought. We’ll see how these fare this year under drought conditions. I have identified two leaks in the roof that need repair — exact location not completely known. I do not suspect the debris clumps however. The tomato patch and two corners are the only things growing up there this year giving me room to do some roof repairs. Much of the roof needs that silver paint. I might look into white instead.
The following is for log book purposes. The 14 caged positions have been planted with the following:
1 – two Cleome 2 – Celebrity 3 – two eggplants 4 – Big Boy 5 – I’ll fill this in later.
All tomatoes were planted last evening. This shot shows the 5 new caged slots. This year there are a total of 14 caged positions as opposed to only 9 last year. Each 3 cu ft. container got about 1/2 cu. ft. of mushroom compost. To help thwart another outbreak of blight from ruining the entire crop, tomatoes will be separated. Of the 14 positions, tomatoes take only 8 — the other six will be something else. At least two will be Cleome which gets huge and attracts bees. The tomato layout is as follows.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
O T O T T O T T O T T O T O
I put Os at the ends because in past years I have noticed the tomato at the end of the line on each side would suffer from something. We’ll see how well this works.
Also note that the construction of these cages was done ad hoc on site without a square using mostly recycled wood. Although things look crooked and not up to usual carpentry standards, the cages themselves are very sturdy. Nothing penetrates the roof BTW. In a few years when parts wear out I might replace them with cages prebuilt on the ground and at perfect right angles. For now they work. No one but me ever sees these up close anyway.
The white box in the corner is badly collapsed and needs replacing. Huge snapdragons are growing out of the sides however and I don’t want to disturb them this year. I don’t know how snapdragons can get so large since I thought they grew from seed every year.
The debris clump in the forefront is in its second year and starting to get green growth. The plant skeletons were put in this year. This debris clump sits at the top of the roof so it gets the least amount of water of all clumps during rains. I suspect that won’t matter since any rain will completely saturate it anyway. In other words, the water going under a debris clump will only matter if that’s part of the irrigation system.
This new planter was built last year out of wood from a futon frame no one wanted. There are no holes in the bottom; water must drain through cracks in wood connections. We’ll see how well that works.
Cleome blooms in debris clump mid October. Photo taken on 10/21/2011.