Ok - first tomato, first blackberry and sticky pots

[Cheryl Isaak]

Ok - I had my first, maybe not quite ripe, cherry tomato - a Rosalita (pink), a bit tart, but just a few more days and I'll have ripe ones for sure. The rest of the cherry tomatoes are few weeks away I think.

While dumping the weeds in the compost, I found the first of the wild blackberries. YUM - a really treat in yesterday's heat.

I'm still dividing, marking to remove and otherwise, moving plants around. And my mulch - a trade of 4 yards for about 40 mature clumps of daylilies, is slowing making my paths a treat again.

As too sticky pots, well, I always have to scope out what in the discount racks at Lowes

doing wonderfully in a lightly shady spot and just lights it up.

I also got a white purple cone flower and will keep looking for more cheap plants.

One thing I want to do is clear room in the long bed for one or two blue leafed rose (ok - that is what I was told the name was when I was gifted it). I gave on to my neighbor and it is doing wonderfully on the side of her yard in the "hot bed" among the orange daylilies and red bee balm.

Cheryl Hoping for more rain in Southern NH

[Billy]

Speaking of tomatoes, my understanding was that determinant tomatoes all ripped at the same time, but I have a Glacier with ripe tomatoes and just set, green fruit!? Is this another urban legend biting the dust, or is this just something odd about Glacier?

Most of my tomatoes have at least green fruit, except for the 90 day ones.

Just setting out my second wave of lettuce, and need to start a third, along with cabbage, kale, and broccoli.

Lucky you, my tomatoes are closing together, and the path between the peppers and potatoes are tight enough that is is go slow or break branches, and I have to keep looking for the paving stones among the mustard, buckwheat, and clover.

I have some Monarda didyma sitting in a large pots, who have been up and doing nothing for a couple of months. I'll be moving it to a bed as soon as I get the potatoes out of it (the bed).

Hoping for some 90?F days to goose the garden along.

[Cheryl Isaak]

Next year, I want to add lettuce to my flower beds - edible foliage!

Well, I am moving lots of "good weeds" out of the paths and it to new homes.

I've found with my various Monarda that they will "sleep" for a year or two and then be wonderful.

I've had plenty!

[Bill who putters]

Ever grow nasturtiums ? Think flowers that are peppery. I like red for hummers .

[Billy]

Lettuce can look quite nice. If you go to you can see my lettuce patch with green, red, and freckled lettuce, among the odd buckwheat, alyssum, and impatiens. There is catnip showing in the upper right, and a jalapeno in the lower right.

[David Hare-Scott]

It doesn't sound right to me. The genetic determination limits the number of nodes but they still have to develop in sequence so the fruit must be of different ages and maturity. It sounds to me like this is an unwarranted extrapolation that gets passed around as a fact.

David

[Billy]

Well, I've eaten the first 2 facts, and the rest are waiting in the wings at different stages of development. The Glacier was only supposed to be 30" (0.762M) tall, and it is 5' (1.5M) easy. So as you were sayin' . . . ?

[David Hare-Scott]

No, I am agreeing. Your legend is my extrapolation. I am saying I doubt that determinancy implies synchronised ripening.

David

[Cheryl Isaak]

Those are tasty too, I put them in pots and window boxes.

Cheryl

[Cheryl Isaak]

Very nice Billy. Wish my tomatoes were that big.

BTW - I'm not 100% sure, but I think your unknown plant is a comfrey...

I have lots of garden pictures on Facebook, I shouldn't be hard to find.

Cheryl

[Billy]

Maybe I'm just lucky, or it could be that the tomatoes with fruit are Glaciers (60 days to maturity, determinate, for container gardening), germinated mid-March, and grown with clear plastic ground cover. The garden is a month ahead of where it was last year, whereas most gardens in the region are 3 weeks behind normal. Usually, we don't get tomatoes until September, and we've already had five of them (a small Marmande, 2 Stupice, and 2 Glacier + 2 more waiting to be picked ;O).

Thanks, that pretty much makes it unanimous. It was still in the unknown-folder because of one of my personality traits, sloth. Hopefully it is out now.

[Billy]

probably doesn't rank high as an authority, and they don't have a hard and fast description of determinate tomatoes, buuuuut, generally speaking, they are supposed to ripen at about the same time, so that gives some wiggle room for the early ripeners, and the small green stragglers.

Whereas my description of them is 30" (0.762M) container plants, my feral ones are about 2M tall (and growing). Because of their early production, I think they will be back next year.