Question Of The Day, Friday, June 30

[MoochNNoodles]

You could do what foxxycat does and dig a hole and replace the dig with the store bought soil.

I do that with anything that goes directly in the ground here. We are super sandy. My Grandpa and Aunt always suggest adding peat, composted manure and soil from the garden center. I haven't added any peat because the ground already drains too well. I'm trying (3 years in) to get some rhubarb going in the ground. It's struggling. I think we are a bit too hot here but the fast draining soil doesn't seem to help. Part of my landscaping work the other day was digging around the plants and adding soil and manure.

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

it sounds like it could be that your pineapple tomato blooms aren't getting pollinated. here's an article i found online that gives instructions for hand pollinating tomatoes -- Hand Pollinate Tomatoes: How To Pollinate Tomato Plants By Hand i've never needed to hand pollinate tomatoes, but i've done it with zucchini plants. for those, i just used a cotton swab, gently rubbed the swab to collect the pollen, then carefully rubbed the pollen onto the end of the flower/bloom stigma. that year, i had a 'bumper crop' of zucchini!

i got to thinking about this more, and i did do something to help my tomato plants pollinate better. i'd use my pointer and middle fingers, extend them with one finger on either side of the stem of the tomato blooms, then gently shake them to loosen the pollen/pollinate them.

 

[Boris Diamond]

I have four 4'x8' raised beds. I make the growing medium from compost and peat moss. This year, from south to north, they contain:

1. Peppers - 2 Jalapeño, 2 Del Diablo, two Bod'e, an ancho and a bell pepper.
2. Yellow straightneck squash.
3. Onions, spices and some sunflowers with blossoms that can grow up to a meter across!
4. Tomatoes - 2 Cherokee Purples, 1 Momotaro, 1 Legend, 1 Jetsetter and 1 Mountain Pride.

Last year, I had two tomato plants that were over five feet tall and loaded with blossoms, but failed to produce a single tomato, I'm thinking because of the record heat. The Jetsetter and the Legend tomatoes are supposed to produce in the heat. We'll see.

Each year I rotate which plants go into which beds. The bed with squash I rotate with green beans on alternate years.

I use Fertrell fertilizer, which I like better than any other fertilizer I have used, and by quite a bit. It's organic, I only have to apply it 2 -3 times a growing season and it's not expensive - $25 for ten lbs. I buy it from a place that ships it for free. Ten lbs. lasts me for over two years. But what I like about it the best is how great it works!

I also use drip irrigation and I use ground up leaves (oak, maple) for mulch.

I plant giant marigolds that stink and hopefully keep bugs away. I haven't had many bugs since I started growing these giants (5+ft.)

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Nope, but I got LOTS of good information from @mother dragon so there will be one next year!

 

[foxxycat]

Winchester you will need to add sand to your manure mixture-the claw soil and compost are too rich-grab some bags of play sand-you only need a touch of sand-I always add 1/2 cup sand to a bucket of store bought pot soil=otherwise it just clumps too much-the sand helps it breathe better-you will have to experiment with it-you can also use peat moss but that's acidic if I remember correctly. I found out the hard way because my soil is VERY CLAY!! it cracks when it dries out-which kills plants..now that I add potting mix to clay soil and a pinch of sand-it's the perfect mixture-and once it's in the ground-you don't usually have to keep re applying it. At least this is what I found helped with drainage.

My tomatoes I planted in those rock gardens-need some pictures to post on here-are doing very well...I wasn't sure if they would like being in those tiny gardens-but they are perking up and got blossoms on them...we usually have 70 degrees up into the middle of September if not sooner-so hopefully it will be long enough to produce fruit..if not?! oh well!!!

My false sunflowers are getting ready to bloom-yellow! the daisies are still going strong-normally I get about week or two where both of these flowers bloom at the same time-so it looks really good.