Salsa Patch

 Well, now that I have nothing to do, seems I will turning my attention to starting the garden. Every year I have started seeds and then I get too busy with work and end up killing all of them.  This year I have been (impatiently) waiting and have got the start on them. Have my makeshift heated mat made from rope lights and a thermostat and my 6500K LED lights going.  Have about 80 tomato plants, 20 peppers and mess of Watermelon. 

Let's go spring !!!

Garden Science Project

Seen that "upside down" tomato plant thing at the store and decided to do my own version. Used 2 five gallon buckets, one blue, one black. Know for a fact that tomato plant like the warmer soil so did a little experiment on my own. Used 4 of the same tomatoes from the same flat to make the results even.

Planted one in the bottom of each bucket and one in the top. Have watered and fertilized them at the same time and the same amount.

As you can see the results are somewhat skewed at the time.

Both of the plants in the bottom of the bucket are stunted on growth side of things. The one in the black bucket top has the most growth, but both the bottom one in each bucket both have a 2" green tomato on them.

Garden 2008

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ST LOUIS MO
1100 AM CDT TUE OCT 28 2008

...HARD FREEZE ENDS THE GROWING SEASON...

No Shit.

This had to be the worst growing season I have had since I moved into this house.

For starters this year, this happend Mothers Day 2008, day after I planted all 112 tomato plants. The tree just to the west of the garden dropped dead center in the middle of the garden. I was lucky enough to only loose one plant. Took most of the day to clean up and bend the conduit back into shape. For someone who uses Autocad to design and layout the garden followed by a day of using string line to make each row and stake perfectly straight, this was a killer.

Next picture is what my garden looked like at the end of July 2007. That's my fat ass standing in the middle of the patch. The conduit is in the ground about 18"-24" and 10' long.

During 2007 and pretty much every summer EXCEPT this one, this is what I got out of the garden about every 4 days. ( we make LOTS of salsa) Had soo much that I regularly took them to work. Not this year.Here's what it looked like at the end of Sept of this year. Not a damned ripe tomato hanging. Most of the ones I got this years rotted on the vine while they ripened. The fatality rate was about 25% in early July and went to better than 50% by August.

Not a good year for peppers either. Had 12 Jalapeno plants and got only 6 peppers.

Growing season was done long ago.