Here’s another shot of Zinnias in bloom on the front parkway. For some reason a butterfly hammed it up for the camera.
Tomato update: Harvested around 40 pounds of tomatoes on main roof. All plants almost dead. Habeneros need harvesting.
Front Parkway in Mid Afternoon Sun
I divided the front parkway into 4 foot sections. This is the nothernmost 6 foot section that was planted with Cleome, Zinnias, and general wildflowers. The parkway tomato featured below also grows into this section. A few tree seedlings are growing and I hope this will be the location of one of the two or more trees that will grow to full size in the next 10 – 20 years. Not sure yet whether to plant a sapling or let the seedlings grow to full size.
Tomato update: Lots of tomatoes on Main Roof but all the plants are dead or dying. Don’t think they’ll make it to September. I have downsized next year’s crop to 6 tomatoes and 5 non-tomatoes requiring only 3 9cuft containers. Eight tomato plants generate too many to harvest. Plan to put them out for the neighbors to take.
Zinnias Bloom
Zinnias bloom in front parkway.
First Tomato Harvest
First tomato harvest happened yesterday. Here’s a shot of first bucket of non-BER tomatoes pulled from the main roof. I estimate this haul to be around 20lbs and I pulled another 20lbs today; all good looking round tomatoes. Overall the crop looks to be a success but there doesn’t seem to be a second growth as all the plants seemed to have stopped growing.
The tomato in caged position 2 which shares a 9 cuft container with two skinny eggplants has almost completely died. Its stalks are still green and has lots of green tomatoes so I’m hoping they ripen. This plant tipped over in high winds because I was lax at installing wooden supports to secure metal hoops to something. Once these tomatoes get to a certain size the metal hoops can keep the plant together in one piece but they can’t keep the plant from tipping over. Although this tomato didn’t die immediately it is pretty much dead now. I suspect a main trunk got ruptured and it took awhile for the full effect of the damage to be seen. Since the stalks are green I’m hoping nutrients are still feeding the surviving tomato. Since this tomato shared one of the newer large containers it had gotten very large so it’s a shame to have lost this one.
An update on main roof tomato pics forthcoming.
Note: Preliminary plan for next season: NE corner will have 1 9cuft container and two 3cuft containers for a total of 4 caged positions. The current row of 15 caged positions will be reduced to 10, 3 9cuft containers (2 new need to be built) and 4 3cuft containers as buffer plants. The tomatoes will populate all four 9cuft containers, two in each. I have come to the conclusion placing plants of different kinds in the same container is not always such a good idea. The tomatoes that grow amongst their own kind have done the best so far this year. I will do a material calculation later.
Also, 24 cuft of potting mix on veranda will be dumped into front parkway this fall to support fall wildflower seeding. North wall planter will be eliminated as well as two 2x4x2 west wall sections. The north pergola will be eliminated this fall to be replaced with a table — no plants. I’ll try and get blueberries, grapes, or raspberry perennial bushes to grow in the remaining planters. This should be easier to maintain.
Front Parkway Tomato
This tomato in front parkway grew wild from a seed and didn’t achieve seedling status until late June and now it’s falling over its hoop cage.
Update Main Roof Tomatoes: No pics of main roof tomatoes but status needs to be updated. Here is the current caged layout since I haven’t documented that yet for this year:
OTTOTTOTOOTOTTO
O = Other, T=Tomato, numbered left to right one to fifteen, west to east.
The above chart is important since there are some problems but overall the crop looks like they will produce. BER tomatoes are still coming out. Some small Celebrity tomatoes without BER harvested 4 days ago.
Leaves on tomato in caged position 2 are yellowing badly but not affecting T in caged position 3 which is of a different type. Caged position 1 is western most. Ts in Caged positions 5 and 6, both Brandywines, doing the best and are the tallest ever. They both share a new 9 cu.ft. container built this spring. Ts on eastern end, caged positions 13 and 14 not doing well but they’re in the old 3 cu.ft. containers. Difference in growth between the two container types is striking.
Next season all tomatoes will share a 9 cu.ft. container placing same types together as they seem to grow better with their own kind. Caged positions 1-4 will be moved to NE corner.main roof which will have 1 9 cu.ft. and 2 3 cu.ft. containers. There might be some bacteria problem at the west end of the roof. The skinny eggplant in caged position 1, sharing a 9 cu.ft. with T in caged position 2 is doing very well. Eggplants never seem to have problems however.
All habeneros look big this year except the ones getting crowded out by their unruly container companion. More on this later ….
Edit: Forgot to mention that the plant behind the tomato is zoom out shot of the weed mentioned in the previous article. This plant never seemed to fully flower out even though it was always on the verge of blooming.
Some people call this a weed
Some people call this a weed. Not sure the name of this plant but it grows wild in untended areas and thus, could be considered a weed. This picture shows it about to bloom. I’ll post a panned out view when it fully blooms to show its leaves and give a better perspective because it grows around here everywhere. Since the plant seems to thrive in densely packed clay that was used as fill in the new front parkway area I let these grow out to see what they look like. There is nothing wrong with keeping weeds that flower out into something. Who knows: maybe this weed can be turned into a medicine? The front parkway has several variety of weeds growing out to their full potential. They provide contrast to the “wildflowers” I planted from seed packets. These weeds are the true wildflowers. There are certain classes of invasive weeds I pull like chickweed; weeds that creep along and choke other plants. Weeds that stay to themselves I let be unless they’re in the way of something else.
Tomato update: Picked first tomato on main roof August 1 with a little Blossom End Rot (BER). There have been lots of little BER throwaways but they are becoming less so hopefully a good crop will come soon. No sign of mites; perhaps because there has been so much heavy rain. Mites seem to thrive in dry environment. Some browning of leaves on sucker branches which I have been cropping. Nothing bad so far. Fingers crossed and updated pics are forthcoming.
Catnip Blooms
Catnip blooms in the parkway garden. There are four big bunches of catnip this year. After blooming and seeding out these plants will be done for the year. Raspberry bushes will fill in nicely. Hopefully next season the catnip will be able to grow amongst the raspberry bushes. It looks like a lot of seed will be spread from the current crop.
Wildflowers Catch Afternoon Sun
Wildflowers in front parkway catch afternoon sun light as it filters through trees.
Tomato Patch
All 15 of tomato caged positions as of 7/17/2014. All tomatoes look good. Tomatoes in the same type of container are bigger on western end of the row. Cleome is once again used as a buffer plant placed between sets of tomatoes to attract bees. The western end of the row gets the first shade of the day so I wonder if that has something to do with increased growth.
Catnip Blooms
Catnip blooms in the front parkway; finally! There are three bunches of catnip that somehow survived all the turmoil that happened with that corner at the end of last season. With the added garden space there is more catnip this year than last. It will be interesting to see where it migrates next year as the raspberry bushes begin to dominate.