End Of An Era! <<<SOB>>>

[JennsPeeps]

I pulled up my tomato plants in September and hung them in my attic. Today I used what's left to make spaghetti sauce. It's reducing on the stovetop right now.

 

[Wildsky]

Nothing like a FAT slice of tomato on a burger!

 

[tazcat70]

On your haybale garden, do you replace the bale every year or can you reuse them, since you have to add fertilizer and such?

 

[Mahonri]

Time to go slice up a tomato.

Don't do that to me.

 

[FractalFarmer]

I am right there with you. We still have a few tomatoes in our garden here in the SF bay area, but not nearly enough for us. The ones we get are tiny (golfball size and smaller), and look pretty bad, but they taste so good! I got really snappish with DH last weekend because he used the ones from the garden in his soup and left me with the tasteless store-bought ones for my salad. He said he thought he was doing me a favor by using the "ugly" ones for his soup and leaving me the "pretty" ones from the store. I sure set him straight!

I've got the winter garden in at least, so I can't complain too much. We've seeded cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, swiss chard, and we have tons of mustard and fava beans growing wild around the orchard. Hopefully the chickens will leave me some produce; they keep flying over the little 3' fence I have around the garden. Silly birds!

 

[Colored Egg Farmer]

They look good. To bad our plants were knocked over in a wind storm and then the chickens got all the tomatoes. O well at least we ate the eggs.

 

[ChickenToes]

I put my garden to bed weeks ago.

About 80% of my tomatoes this year had blossom end rot...luckily I was still able to can some of them.

 

[greyfields]

I probalby had fewer than 1/4 tomatoes ripen this year. We had a brutal spring and short summer. Where I live, we're lucky to see red tomatoes before October, so we need an Indian summer to get a large enough crop to can. This wasn't one of them. ><

 

[BettyR]

Quote:
As long as the bales hold together you can keep using the same ones over and over. The hay in the bales decomposes over time and eventually turns into compost but we usually get 2 growing seasons (at the very least) out of one set of bales. My daughter built frames around her bales and she has been using the same bales for 2-1/2 years now. I keep planning to do the same but just haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

[BettyR]

Quote:
Bloom end rot can be caused by several things but the main thing is an underdeveloped root system.

If the dirt is too cold, when you plant and the roots don't develop well that can cause it early on, but the plant will usually recover as the weather warms and the roots are able to develop later in the season as long as the plant is given plenty low nitrogen fertilizer.

If the dirt is too hard and compact making it impossible for the plants to develop a good root system that can also cause it; you can alleviate that problem by working a lot of organic material into the soil before you plant.

If you dig too close to the plants to weed or break the soil for better aeration and you damage the roots that can cause it as well.

If the plants are hit with a sudden drought and they can't get the nutrients they need this will also cause it.