Moringa plant update for April 2011

One thing I’ve discovered about Moringa trees is this. Don’t try and grow them in the winter time. They are very susceptible to mites and they need plenty of sun! I lost two early starts that way. However, I pleased that the two I have started in spring are looking pretty good. The picture here is of a plant that was started at the beginning of April. Right now there are about 54 leaves on the plant and it looks very healthy. I also have another plant that was started about mid month that is also doing well. I’m hopeful that I will see a lot of growth over the summer months.

Kale seed pods from last season's planting!

Last year, I had the good fortune to grow a  curly kale plant that not only survived the cold of winter, but which has gone on to flower. This hardy biennial member of the cabbage family goes to see on its second year. I’m hoping to gather some seed from it later this summer even though it is taking up much needed garden space. My understanding is that once the seed production is complete, the entire plant will die.

One interesting thing I noticed is that the seed pods (the slender rods visible in the picture at right) are very similar to the seed pods I saw my radish plants produce last year! Interesting, but I doubt that they are related. (Note: you can click on the picture to enlarge it). Below is a picture of a radish seed pod that is mature.

When I shot this picture, there was a small bee actively working the flowers. That's the first bee I've seen on a long time.

I'd heard somewhere that they might be in trouble as a species due to some kind of bacterial infection that was going around. I'm not sure if that information is correct.

Earlier in the year for 2011, I grew a few more kale plants from seed I had purchased at a store. Right now they are still tiny and all the rain we had recently (see article on floods) did not help much. With luck, perhaps I’ll be able to harvest some seed from this plant and sow it before the end of summer.

A salad cost equalizer!

After spending close to two dollars for a head of iceberg lettuce last week, it was nice to be able to harvest a head of romaine lettuce that had volunteered from last fall. I’ve found that by mixing this up with my store bought lettuce, I was able to more than double the amount of lettuce I had for salads.

There’s really no trick to getting cut-and-come-again lettuce. Just make sure to leave a little bit of leaves when you harvest the first time and often times the head will grow right back. That’s what happened this time to some romaine that was harvested last fall just before the onset of winter. Even with the really cold temperatures we experienced, the lettuce re-grew over the early spring months. Cool!

Coming to a garden near you! The Japanese Beetle!

On or around the first week of June ( see 'Dreaded Japanese beetle makes its appearance'), I would advise everyone to get set for a Japanese beetle invasion. That is if you live in the many parts of the United States. They may arrive earlier or later depending on your geographic location. Every year now, for the last few seasons here in southwest Missouri, this little eating machine has erupted from my garden soil, in increasing numbers, to cause grief as it eats everything in sight. I can still vividly remember, one year, when this pest ate my entire crop of green beans right down to the stems! And it only took them a couple of days to do it! As a side note, when the little bugger is not eating, it spends its time screwing so as to insure another bumper crop next season. As of this year, the beetle seems to be well established in areas east of the Mississippi river and is now making inroads in to the Midwest as well although coverage is spottier in nature.

The only method I’ve found that works rather well is to cover everything up with protective row covers and then wait for the critters to go away, which is usually late June for me. I think, by that time, they either die off from overeating and sexual exhaustion. (Actually, not a bad way to go now that I think of it).

My mystery tomatoes!

Well, I’ve certainly got me some mystery tomatoes anyway. Don’t know what they will turn out to be. Not even sure if they are hybrids or heirlooms. I got them…

One overcast, windy day this spring. I had been out and about when I decided to visit a local eatery to enjoy a cool beverage and maybe a little gossip. There was a lady that works there, which for the sake of privacy, I’ll call Sandy. A woman who knows pretty much everything that is going on in the town where I live.

As I entered and sat down at the bar, I noticed there was just a scattering of patrons sitting nearby. I idly speculated that the weather was a likely cause of the sparse attendance. My friend, Sandy, sauntered over and took my order for an O’Doul’s near beer and then sauntered away heading in the direction of the cooler. While I waited for my drink, I tried to get the attention of a local sitting a few stools away, but to no avail. (Some people, I observed are actually quite deaf. That sort of thing happens quite frequently to me as of late).

As I re-focused my attention to the front, Sandy came back holding my beverage in one hand and a rather cumbersome box in the other. The glass of near beer went on my left and the box right under my nose. Inside were four plastic pots, each with three to four tiny plants sticking up in brave fashion. I looked up and remarked, “Uh, are these tomato plants by chance?” This was a loaded question because it was obvious to me that the four pots inside the box could only be members of the Solanaceae family as the stems were covered with tiny hairs.

“Yeah,” she responded and the arched her eyebrow in my direction. “Ya want these or not?” A small crease began to form on the bridge of her nose as she waited for my response. I knew I had to tread very carefully when I answered.

“Why sure,” I gushed. “They look really cool too. Uh, what variety are they?” This last question just popped idiotically out of my mouth. I was trying to cover myself from the shock of getting a gift, any gift from anyone at all. As I asked the question, I casually fingered one of the little plants only to see it keel over dead.

“Hey, look out what you’re doing there!” Sandy shouted loudly enough that a few customers looked up and took notice. The force of her breath also caused another tiny plant to give up the ghost. Damn.

“Sorry about that,” I recanted as I quickly withdrew my finger. “I was just curious as to the nature of these plants. So are they, umm, determinate or indeterminate?” Opps, another foo-pah on my part.

“Indetermin-what,” she retorted. Now one hand went to her hip. (As a youth, my mom used to do the same thing right prior to whacking me across the top of my head). Sandy then leaned forward so that her head was centered over the top of the box and just inches from mine. She looked like a coiled snake ready to strike. I think I looked like a rabbit with the sweats.

“These here are termaters and that’s all I know buddy. My kids picked them out at the nursery, and then they mixed the seeds all up when we got home. Who knows what the hell they are! So, you want em or not!” This last statement punctuated with a fist soundly hitting the top of the table right next to the box. Inside, the little plants rocked up into the air and then plopped back down in disarray. I’m pretty sure there were more causalities as a result.

I thanked her profusely and in a manner that could only be described as subservient, then backed out of the establishment as fast as my dignity would allow. And that is how, my dear reader, I ended up with mystery tomatoes that will develop into God knows what. 

I promise to do a follow up this summer when they develop into whatever they will become!
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May 16 followup - After a month of growing, here is a picture of the mystery plants I got from a friend. Shortly after this picture was taken, the tomatoes were divided up into separate pots. Because they were so close together, when I separated them there was not much in the way of roots for each. I will assume they will go into shock as a result and plant to leave them inside for a few days to recover.

Spring has definately sprung!

I suppose one reason that early man called this time of year spring was the way in which everything sort of springs up at you seemingly overnight! That was certainly true of this row of spinach and radish seed that I planted just a couple of weeks ago. Right now conditions are just about perfect for many of the crops I have planned to get a fast start. The weather is mild with cool temperatures overnight. Veggie heaven!

The chaos that is springtime for people like me!

Someone once said that life is what happens while we’re making plans. That pretty much describes gardening for me. Every year, I’ve got all these great plans which somehow don’t ever seem to quite work out. Even my carefully contrived maps showing the exact locations of each vegetable has managed to disappear off the table where I placed it last January. (Rather than make a new one up, I’ve succumbed to the practice of planting ‘on the run’ as it were). I’ve fallen back to relying on ‘divine providence’ to see me through. (The problem is I never realized that in the world of providence, there’s both general providence and special providence. Turns out, the one I needed was special providence and what I got was general). Darn the luck!

So, what was planned to be a geometric display of romaine, peppers, beans and carrots has turned out to be more of a hodge-podge of green things sticking out of dirty brown soil. I’m beginning to doubt that my garden will ever grace the cover of any of the national gardening magazines. (I might make it in the next issue of National Dump Sites, however).

This brings me to my latest theory which I will call the ‘Chaotic Theory of Gardening’. It contains three principles which I will divulge herewith:

1)      All gardens tend to go from a state of disorder to a state of more disorder over time.

2)      The amount of energy and money you dump into a garden is inversely proportional to the amount of actual harvest realized.

3)      Once a garden begins to head in the direction of weediness, it will continue in that direction no matter what you do to stop it.

That pretty much sums up the theory which I dare anyone out there to contradict. Having said that, it’s time for me to get back out there and hoe hoe hoe.

Got me a red beefsteak tomato!

The little plastic tag stated that the tomato growing in the pot was a Red Beefsteak tomato. The tag also stated that this was a heirloom variety tomato. Standing there in the outdoor garden isle of my local Home Depot, I made the decision to take one home, even though doing so violated my normal procedure of starting most all my veggies from seed. Hey, but rules are made to be broken! I bought just one plant that day and then true to my word, the rest of my purchases were for seed.

As you can see in the picture, this was one healthy looking plant! The first thing I did when I go home was to transplant it into a larger plastic pot making sure to use Miracle Gro Potting Mix as filler. This stuff has a timed release fertilizer that’s good for up to six months. The growing season for this tomato is a long 85 days. So, with any luck, I’ll be enjoying some fruit off this plant by late July. I think that this particular variety is also indeterminate which means that once it starts producing, it should continue to do so right on until the first frost. I plan to keep this plant in a pot on my balcony so as to avoid the local deer which just love to eat them down to the ground. The only problem I’ve had in the past was in keeping the plant watered. (Tomato plants, as a rule, transpire like crazy and in so doing need lots and lots of water). I plan to solve this problem by making sure to relocate the plant into progressively larger pots (i.e. larger soil mass) as it grows. By the time it fruits, I expect to be using a ten gallon container at the very least.

It should be fun watching the little guy grow as the spring moves on into summer. I’ll try and post an update or two as needed.

The case for cherry tomatoes!

For more years than I care to remember, I’ve made it a point to start a few tomato varieties each spring. Most of the time, I would choose one heirloom like Brandywine and a couple of hybrids. Better Boy and Quick Pick come to mind as two that have actually produced edible fruit for me here in southwest Missouri.

The problem is, I’ve only had limited success and am ashamed to admit it. All my fellow gardeners never ever seem to have any problems growing them, and come each fall, they complain to me about all the excess tomatoes they’re forced to give away. I smile back at them, all the while thinking about the bare shriveled vines back home. (A case of tomato envy)? Seriously, I’ve tried every which way I can think of to grow them to little or no avail. (It’s not like my heart isn’t in the right place). I generally start out each April and May with plants I started myself in addition to a few pre-grown plants from the local garden center. Some of these will go into pots and some into raised beds. Like a general getting ready for battle, I like to spread my forces around. But, by mid summer, I can tell you that all of them will be in trouble of one sort or another.

Brandywine tomatoes have been especially problematic in this regard. I remember one year (2009?) that I actually raised five Brandywine plants that not only were healthy, but which were loaded with green fruit. Woo Woo! I went to bed that year dreaming about all the ‘sumptuous meals’ to come. Then, one morning I happened to glance out my window and did a double take. All, and I mean all, the plants had disappeared! It was like a bad dream. [Insert Twilight Zone music here]. It took me some time to discover that the culprits were deer of all things (check out the night I lost my clapper). Turned out they not only liked green tomatoes,  but they also craved the entire plant as well! That year, it also turned out they were not really picky about the variety I was growing either as all the garden tomatoes were eaten right down to the ground. This left me with just a couple of plants in pots that were located on a balcony and hence out of reach. You can just imagine how I felt when they developed root rot soon thereafter and so, yet again, I was forced to get my fruit from local stores.

That’s where cherry tomatoes have come to my rescue! Seems that back in 1973, two Israeli professors developed a tomato variant that would not only handle hot conditions but which also would take longer to mature. And so, the cherry tomato was born!

With these guys, of which there are numerous varieties now available, I found I could produce bumper crops. You plant them just about anywhere (think weeds) and a month or so later, you have oodles and oodles of tiny little tomatoes that not only store well in the fridge, but which also are just perfect for salads! (When I say I’ve never met a cherry tomato I didn’t like I would be telling you the truth)! Now, while they do not have the awesome taste of a true Brandywine (nothing does actually), they make up for it by sprawling all over the place like a common weed all the while producing little fruit like there’s no tomorrow. (One gardener confided to me that he actually got over a thousand little fruits from one plant)! Way cool…

Now, each season, while I still will try and grow a few regular season cultivars, I also make it a point to start a tray of the small guys. That way, I know that come rain or shine; I will at the very least have loads of ‘red poppers’ to grace my late summer salads.