Alley Vines

Posted on July 29, 2013 by

Something is wrong with alley vines. They aren’t growing and some of them look dead. Not sure if it’s watering related or what. From my finger tests it seems the soaker hose gets to the entire planter. Nothing I can do but wait and see. This year I let them grow on their own. Maybe that’s a problem. The soil might need to be regurgitated next spring — I don’t know. Don’t really want to add another project to next Spring. There could also be some dust in the air from the water project on Palmer that has drifted into their soil stunting their growth. It’s a mystery now. We’ll see how they are in a month when they should be at their peak. The Veranda vines are doing very well and increasing the size of west wall boxes has helped.

The SE corner sunflowers had another drooping session on 7/28. It wasn’t even that warm out and they ran out of water after I watered them the night before. Watering is a big problem with these sunflowers in containers and I don’t think that 2’x4’x1.5′ = 12 cu.ft. is big enough to hold all those sunflowers (~12). May need to look into going 2′ high on containers in the future. The edge of the roof line can hold more weight since the weight the underlying beams can hold relates to its sheer strength which can be rather large. Don’t want to overdo it however but I thing 2 cu. ft. / square foot roof area = 200 lbs can be supported by the current joists. Harvested 4 Ichiban eggplants (the skinny ones). Those plants look smaller than last year — most likely due to sharing space with a sunflower. I didn’t expect these sunflowers to grow so big based upon what the seeds said on the package.

Tomatoes look OK. Some Celebrities look a bit stunted. First wave harvest still a couple weeks away. The Brandywines and Big Boys look healthy. Noticed a bunch of volunteer habeneros mixed into a couple of tomato plants. Never had this happen before. They are small because habenero seeds take a very long time to germinate. All this potting mix moves around from year to year so eventually a hab seedling was bound to emerge. Ironic since the purchased hab seedlngs have struggled this year, so much so that these little sprouts may actually produce more habs by the end of September.

Update 7/29: After checking the soaker hoses tonight I don’t think the far south planter is getting enough water. The soaker hoses seem to be distributing water unevenly.

Sunflower Companion Plant

Posted on July 26, 2013 by

A sunflower companion plant rises high above the rest of the tomatoes. Saw an almost red tomato on a Celebrity and it didn’t have BER and it is of decent size. I’m sure it will be ready to pick tomorrow and it will be the earliest that a decent tomato has been harvested on this roof. I did use quite a bit of lime in each container. Overall there are a lot of green tomatoes and so far little evidence of mites. I did not see any live crawling ones yet but might have seen one of their webs. Still doing hard water showers every day. That is something that can’t be done with drip irrigation.

Update 7/27: Picked first tomato tonight from a Big Boy. The tomato was around 8oz (decent size) and had a little Blossom End Rot (BER) at the bottom. Cutting into it revealed the BER went into more than half the tomato. Although it didn’t look bad from the outside it was bad on the inside. It didn’t taste that well either. This is the earliest decent tomato picked since I’ve been growing tomatoes on the main roof (2005). Usually first picked tomatoes are small and total throwaways. BER does go away as the plant gets its circulation going so BER should be expected on the first few. It becomes a problem when it hits every tomato in the first wave of harvest which has happened in past years due to stress on the plants and Mark not completely aware of what is going on. So far no mites seen. Some curled leaves but no mites. Not sure what is going on with them but it doesn’t look like a problem right now.

Update 7/22

Posted on July 22, 2013 by

No photos. It has been hot and we had a couple of rains. Went up at noon on 7/21 and everything was drooping. Not good. The sunflowers seem to suck a lot of water. I noticed that the habeneros with sunflowers as a companion plant are not doing well at all. Of the 8 on NE corner main roof maybe 5 are still alive but they are small. There are 8 in the caged positions and only half seem healthy. Caged position 1 has the two biggest and they share with a big eggplant — no sunflower. May need to rethink using companion plants for habeneros. They seem to do just fine on their own. This is the first year I’ve had problems with habeneros. The vines look good. The alley vines seem like a week behind schedule. Not sure if my soaker hose watering system is working. I watered for 45 minutes yet far right planter vines showed serious signs of distress at the end of the day. The veranda vines are doing much better than last year.

Caged Position 3 and 4

Posted on July 17, 2013 by

Here’s a shot of caged position 3 and 4 taken on 7/14. Caged position 3 contains 1 eggplant, 1 habenero, and 1 sunflower as companion plant to attract bees. Last year I used Cleome but Gesethemane where I buy seedlings chose not to carry it this year so I was stuck with seeding sunflowers. Caged position 4 (right) is a Brandywine tomato that looks pretty healthy. Last year I skipped Brandywines. After discovering mites and getting a decent crop last year I decided to try them again this year. Like last year the caged position layout is as follows:

OTOTTOTTOTTOTO

where O is something other than tomatoes and T are tomatoes. The O positions provide a buffer in case disease hits one of the tomatoes. The buffer plants will hopefully keep disease from wiping out the entire crop like what has happened in so many past years. The eight tomato plants are 4 Celebrities, 2 Big Boys, and 2 Brandywines. Throughout the years I have found Celebrities to be the most resilient of tomatoes. The O caged positions vary. Some have two eggplants some have eggplant and habenero. Most have a sunflower to attract bees. I think Cleome is better at this because they flower much sooner than sunflowers and they’ll continue to flower throughout the season. These caged positions are the plants I focus on for study.

To the left are caged position 4, 5, and 6.

You may notice that the cages are starting to lean. I’ll need to rebuild these next season. I have a design to prefab these on the ground and then snap them together on the roof so they’re straight and square. This design was cobbled together back around 2007 using scrap wood. But it works well. As can be seen from this shot all plants get a metal hoop cage which also helps support the plant.

Debris Clumps

Posted on July 13, 2013 by

Here are a couple debris clumps taken in early morning light. To the right in heavy shade are the 14 caged positions as they were last year, albeit with somewhat different buffer and companion plants. We’ll get more into that later. Due to the rain the debris clumps, clumps of old planter matter and mix have maintained their green. Some have mint and chives growing. If I see a tree I’ll pull it before the roots try and penetrate the rubber roofing. For the most part the rest of the plants that grow in these are harmless. I typically don’t water them nor do I seed them. When dry they can be kicked around the roof like a hockey puck.

Black Eyed Susans

Posted on July 13, 2013 by

Black eyed susans grow wild. Usually these grow with chives but they haven’t come up en mass yet. Maybe more later in the season. Tomatoes are doing well. Sunflowers seem like a good companion plant. Need to get pics of those containers up. So far no mites seen on tomatoes but will go up tonight and do a more thorough inspection. Rain has stopped coming daily and I’ve had to water now three days in a row. Vines look healthy and good this year. My poor man’s drip irrigation using a soaker hose seems to work for alley planters. Need to water front raspberries for the first time this season and need to do it today! One volunteer hops plant from many years ago has reached the highest so far. Won’t get much hops from this plant but maybe next year it will grow bigger if it can survive the winter. We’ll see.

Sunflower Veranda North Wall

Posted on July 7, 2013 by

A sunflower grows on the veranda north wall box on 7/3. Haven’t taken current shots in awhile. Tomatoes look good. No sign of mites knock on wood. I’m doing the cold water shower technique with every watering. The sunflowers on main roof look very good. I might plant another set of seeds to see if I can get another wave of sunflowers after this current set blooms and peters out. Habeneros are recovering and have sprouted new leaves. Looks like I may get some habs this year.

Veranda west wall center box

Posted on July 1, 2013 by

The center box on west wall veranda level is new this year. It’s about 9 cu. ft. of root space. This spot used to hold 2 3 cu. ft. containers. Making one big container increased root space by 50%. The vines are doing extremely well this year in general and this box in particular. Much of this might have to do with the continuous wet and cool weather we have had this season so far.

NE corner veranda