Tomato Madness

[Greg]

We are starting our garden adventure as well. Mostly herbs at this point. And lavender. Lots of Lavender.

[Drunk Monk]

We planted a ton of lavender at Ranch Macbeth.  It's a lovely plant and a natural insecticide.  Tara excelled at weaving lavender wands in her youth.  My mom still has hers at her house - it's like a decade and a half old.  

My fav was the Spanish Lav, which produces a more bulbous blossom than the standard.  I planted only one of those but it was always a special plant. 

Nothing like fresh garden herbs.

I'm nowhere near the master wood butcher that you are, bro, but my biggest build was three raised garden beds.  A simple build using only a power drill - all the sawing was by hand.  We grew all sorts of stuff, but it wasn't fertile land, dry swamp clay, so the raised beds were filled with rich soil I wheelbarrowed in.  We planted an awesome bay tree, which was great for all the spaghetti we used to make when Stacy could eat gluten and I could eat carbs.  Alas, those were the days.  Recommend bay - it's a nice, easy to grow tree and fresh bay leaves go with pretty much anything.

[Greg]

Welcome to gardening corner.

We planted about 17 trees at this point. I got a note from the Arbor foundation when we moved in asking us to donate and in return they would send us 12 trees. I planted 10 of them in a circle in the hope that some day I would have a tree circle. The other two I planted at the edge of the property. I might have waited too long to plant after they arrive so they might not be viable. But we shall see.

We also went to the local industrial nursery and bought some fruit and nut trees. I have greater hope for them. I planted a walnut and a pecan tree, two different types of apples, a lemon, a lime and a grapefruit tree. These all seem to be doing well. At least at this point, I can see buds popping up on them. We also put in some roses and other decorative plants. Our one herb at this point is rosemary. Now if it would only rain a little bit, that would be a help.

When we bought the trees, it hadn't rained in a really long time. It was like digging into concrete, the ground was so hard. Then we had a nice period of rain storms and it was easy digging. Now, it's back to concrete again as I put in the concrete in the backyard.

My Aunt Ida swore by Bay leaves in her spaghetti sauce.

[Drunk Monk]

Cool!  

I've got the brownest thumb ever (I bet you thought I was going to say 'nose' - yeah, screw you).  

I do miss having that huge yard we had at Ranch Macbeth.  When we moved in, it was just lawn with an auto watering system.  We built a zen rock garden, planted several trees - redwoods, a mighty might oak, that bay tree, numerous fruit trees including a prolific flowering plum and kumquat, and spent a fortune on some Japanese maples that I killed.  We placed rocks, had indigenous plants and succulents, flowering stuff like roses, and those raised garden beds which were only marginally successful.  Plus we built a shed (prefab) and a fort for Tara (hired peeps for that but then worked to improve it over the years).  And bamboo.  Lots of bamboo.  Natural walls.  Those grow fast but are a pain in the butt because you gotta keep them corraled with a yard of super thick plastic because they are so invasive.

Our bungalow doesn't really have the space.  A neighbor gave us some heirloom tomato plants when we moved in which we killed immediately.  There's some plants on our veranda, and an amazing aloe plant (blossoming now) plus our super productive lemon bush in the front that the entire neighborhood likes to pilfer.  

Best of luck with the gardening.  We look forward to the fruits of your labor.

[King Bob]

I built an 5x5 raised bed for my wife last year. Beans didn't do much of anything but got a lot of good tomatoes (the "Michael Pollan" ones were particularly good). Getting ready to prep for this year, but no plants in the nursery yet. Fruit trees are doing well - more lemons than we can use, plenty of figs, and starting to get pomegranates and clementines (only two of each of those, but looking forward to this year).

[cranefly]

On Tuesday this week, LCF woke up with a sore throat.  She told me I ought to be aware of that.

So I acted quickly, and perhaps jumped the gun.  But hey, if it's what we feared, I figured I better.

So I transplanted the tomato starts into the garden.  Six of them.

Yesterday I put three more in the garden.

The sore throat appears to be nothing -- gone now.  So I needn't have.  Still, the lows are 49 or above the next 10 days, and I think they'll handle it.

Wow.  Tomatoes in the garden on April 7.  Never been this early.

[cranefly]

I think I may be giving up on backyard gardening, at least as I've been doing it.

All I really do anymore is feed the pests.  I only have a few squash plants growing this year, and no sooner did one of them put out a bloom than, bam, it's bit off, as well as every other forming bud, male or female.  Then there's the meyer lemon tree, picked clean.  Could be neighbors in these difficult times, but I'm thinking squirrels, mice, and rats.

The latest victim is my cantaloupe hill.  No, I didn't plant them purposely.  They were volunteers, and I thought they were squash, so I nurtured them.  When I realized they were cantaloupe, I figured, what the heck, I'll grow some cantaloupes.  There were three of them starting, big as softballs, growing great guns.  Then this morning, gone.  All three.  No nibblings, no remnants, no trace whatsoever of them.  What the hell carries off three softball-sized cantaloupe?  And over a wooden fence?  I'm beginning to suspect a wolverine, because at least that would be kinda cool.

But I'm thinking I need a greenhouse.  A cheap one.  You know, Harbor Freight speed.  Not that I want to buy something big right now with LCF and me thinking about moving.  But still, I'd like to continue some gardening.

Anyway, here's three candidates:






They all meet my specs.  Reasonably cheap.  Big enough for some decent vegetable gardening.  Able to keep out rodents and wolverines.  Yet drawing women with flower pots for pollination purposes.  I think that's how that works.

I'll keep you all posted on what happens next.

[Drunk Monk]

Boy. Gardening with a greenhouse like that develops nice butts.

Sounds like you got thieves for neighbors. Passers by often pillage our lemon bush.
Pissing me off. Chased off a woman with a bucket a couple of times. And there’s a magnificent lemon across the street but it’s a free and deeper in their yard.

Bummer about the lopes. We just had our first lopes of the season and they were very satisfying.

[cranefly]

I could set up my camera to film the garden.  It's capable of Greg-vision.  You know what I mean.  Time-lapse.  I bought some timer doohickey years ago, played with it, got it to work.  But I'd need to refamiliarize myself with it.

I could tripod it out back, start it at 9 or 10 pm and let it run through the night.

The problem is, everything's picked right now.  There's nothing more to steal.

But eventually there will be.  I should start studying timelapse.

[Drunk Monk]

If they're stealing your lopes, they'll steal your camera and tripod too.

Maybe you could put out fake lopes. Fill them with cat poop. That would be tricky but hella funny.

[Greg]

The Gardens of DOOM thread.

We are slowly but surely building up our garden in the fenced in area around the pergola. We planted fruit and nut trees. tQ has berry bushes going. She also decided on a corn field. I don't know what to do when children start appearing out of it or maybe a baseball game starts. We've gone the tomato route for which I built trellises. The herbs are growing great guns.

Three problems. One it's about to get beastly hot for the next two to three months. The ground becomes concrete in the middle of summer. Dogs. Dogs are anathema to plants. They thinking nothing of digging up our grape plants or sleeping on top of the sunflowers. We've put up barricades but the dogs are crafty.

[cranefly]

Miraculously, the squirrels and rats haven't found the tomato patch yet.  You know what that means: bruschetta, and lots of it.



Of course, you need some garlic for that.  So ... LCF was kind enough to harvest them.  Then I did a piss-poor job of braiding them.




Then lo and behold, my sister in Indiana sent us a care package of cheeses:


Unfortunately, they took their time getting here, went some interesting places.
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They were packed in ice, and the packaging explains that it is normal for the cheese to arrive at room temperature with the ice bags all melted.  That was true for us.  The cheese is still good and the packages will keep unopened in the fridge for up to a year.

The problem is, this was a very tardy package.  My sister talked to the company and gave them the arrival date.  They said to throw the cheese out and they'll resend the cheese.

Do you know how hard it is for us to throw this stuff out??  We're both chomping at the bit, and the bruschetta is waiting.  And dammit, it looks fine!  Fine, I tell you!

[King Bob]

I just had a similar mail experience - I did a return to Land's End over a month ago, and they just received it.

[Drunk Monk]

Then lo and behold, my sister in Indiana sent us a care package of cheeses:

Nite Cheese party tonight!

One of my JNK is a cheese master (not sure of the formal term - I've heard maitre fromager but prefer Cheesemonger because monger is a great underused suffix). I keep him on my krew for the cheese (plus he really knows his old skool reggae). One year at RotR he came late and I had to leave early. He brought cheese and as I was parting, he gave me a huge wedge. I was worried about driving it home in the autumn heat and he said 'cheese predates refrigeration by centuries.' I got it home and it was delicious.

That cheese should still be okay. Maybe not some of the softer ones. Try some.

Congrats on the 'matoes. Those look awesome!

[cranefly]

Well, the black krim and cherokee purple are burgeoning, but still green.  Then the big fat one furthest along (but still green) got chewed up good.  I suspect mice, but could be squirrels or even a rat.

So I took evasive measures.

About a year ago I had bought all these clear, ventilated clamshells.  I think they're meant for berries.  I had also bought some rubber bands.  The result isn't totally closed up and protected, but we'll see how hard the rodents want to work.

It isn't easy slipping these on, especially deep inside the plants.  But at least I have 14 peripherals protected.