This is container #12, a Celebrity tomato planted in a smaller container as an experiment. It was more or less healthy throughout the summer albeit a little smaller (most likely due to container size). It caught blight from container #11 which supported another variety that struggled all summer and should have been pulled and replaced after the first week. Celebrity tomatoes have been hardy as demonstrated with this plant. Even though the bottom half is devastated by blight, it has second growth and may produce a second crop of tomatoes. Celebrity tomatoes are a nice size too. It is important to figure out what types of tomatoes can grow in a rooftop environment. So far, Celebrity tomatoes top my list. More on Early Girls and Brandywine, the other two main types planted later.
Monthly Archives: August 2011
Alley vines
Here’s a quick pic of the morning glory vines in the alley that connect with the veranda level morning glories. In past years I seeded the alley planters with vines other than morning glories — like moonflowers. This year I just let them grow on their own so we’ll see if any moonflowers made it.
Note to future Mark: Alley container#4 needs to be rebuilt before 2012 growing season. Potting mix on all alley containers last changed spring 2009 (I think).
Home Depot
Tomatoes aren’t the only problem. Home Depot sold me pickle cucumbers as real cucumbers. Both Home Depot plants are dead in SE corner. Normally I don’t bother with Home Depot for seedlings but decided to take a risk this year. Note to future Mark, don’t buy any seedlings from Home Depot. That had been my policy but I made an exception this Spring.
Blight Update
The tomato blight is the reason I haven’t updated photo album logs in 2008, 2009, 2010 which is stupid because these photo logs are a great resource to see what worked and what didn’t and to improve upon the future.
Tomatoes are coming in. It’s better than last year. Nothing could be worse than 2010 for tomatoes.
Here‘s a panoramic taken a few days ago.
Maybe I’ll get into the mood to take pictures again. This logbook is for me, so that I can review what I’ve done in the past so I don’t repeat mistakes.
Blight Continues
Containers 2-6
I took these pictures after clearing blighted branches as best as possible. The blight hit each of the 12 tomato plants. This is a note to future Mark when he reads this next July, the moment you see what looks like blight pull the entire plant and get it off the roof.
Container 2 is the left most container. It’s a Celebrity brand tomato and it suffered 1/2 loss. Container 3 is some heirloom from Gesethemane and it was one of the first to develop symptoms. It is completely gone. I should have pulled this plant without mercy a week ago. Note to future Mark, no heirloom tomatoes. Container 4 is a Brandywine and doing OK — about 1/4 loss. Containers 5 and 6 are Early Girls. Tomatoes are small about 1/3 loss to blight so far. Leaves yellowing and little second growth. Note to future Mark, don’t plant Early Girls next year.
Containers 8-12
This picture shows containers 8 through 12. Container 8 is left most container. It supports an Early Girl that lost 1/2 its branches to blight. Container 9, a Brandywine, was a complete loss. Container 10 is a Celbrity, 1/3 loss but good second growth. Container 11, first container off the rails, is a Celbrity and almost (will be) a complete loss. This was a weak plant from the beginning. Note to future Mark, do not let weak plants grow. Pull them and replace them.
Theory: The risk of blight increases with weaker plants of any variety and the introduction of unknown heirloom varieties.
Container 12 is in a smaller container and I think it’s a Celebrity or Early Girl. Its prognosis is grim. Container 7 (not seen) is doing OK. Container 1 (not seen) is like Container 12 but in better condition. Both containers 1 and 12 used smaller pots as experiments.
Blight
This doesn’t look good.
Lost Island
Lost Island in morning light casts a shadow upon the western two year old debris clump. The tomatoes are to the right and you can start to see the blight from this angle. Even if the tomato crop fails again, at least I won’t have to work as hard doing all that canning. The debris clumps look nice.
Black Eyed Susans
Black eyed susans thrive amongst squash, chives, spearmint, and eggplant on the main roof. These flowers volunteer their services every year and share a 20 gallon container with chives.
Garden spider
Spiders start work early evening by spinning a web and waiting for an errant bug to stop by. The webs only last so long. Here’s a spider still doing business in the morning. This will be her last catch of the day. Sometimes I have to be careful at night in the garden because there can be quite a few spider webs. The spiders are harmless but I feel badly about ruining a web which took so much hard work to make. Maybe later this year I’ll get a night shot.
Purple Morning Glory
Purple and pink morning glories are usually the first to bloom. The Heavenly Blues bloom later but are more rare and have problems competing. Most years I seed Heavenly Blues to give them some help to even out the odds. This year I did nothing so we’ll see if any Heavenly Blues make it.