Green thumb is itching, anyone else?

[pigeonguy]

Al - if you haven't tried my "can" method for your tomatoes you need to. It makes watering easy and saves time. It also works for peppers, okra and anything tall.

I'm in 5b with the increase in temp zones but have never planted a fall garden. I am getting ready to plant more lettuce and swiss chard and perhaps carrots. Garlic will be planted in Oct or Nov.

I just paid .85 cent for 6 little shallots so i will try to find some seed for those too and get them started. I still have some more raised beds to put in but need to clear the area first. It's so dry it's hard to dig.

One good thing about the dry is the mosquitoes are less of a problem.

What is this can method for watering

 

[pigeonguy]

Can you see the middle picture. These are my tomatoes of a few years ago. I use #10 cans with the tops and bottoms cut out. I push it into the soil a couple of inches. Then as I go around the garden waterering I fill each can and it keeps the water on the plant and each gets at least a half gallon of water I think. I also do this with Peppers, but you can do it with any veggie plant that it will work with.

Never mind I get it (can method)

 

[3forfree]

I've been using a drip method to water this year and sometimes I get the drip into a stream and the water goes everywhere. I got a shovel and made a dam around the tomatoes and it helps somewhat but this can method looks like something I will use next year. Thanks. I have been putting a gallon milk carton on a wash tub (just to elevate it) next to my plants, I have a piece of rubber tubing from my aquarium pushed into the side of the milk carton to direct the water to the base of the plants. The cap on the milk carton is used to adjust the flow. It works good keeping the area right at the bottom of the plant soaked and not having water flow everywhere. I collect rain water for the garden and don't have nearly enough barrels so I need to conserve what water I can.

 

[galanie]

I planted both onion and garlic sets in the spring. It's worked in the past but not this year.
I knocked off work early today because of the heat. I do roofing and painting and it was over 100 today. When I got home everything was a little droopy, so I'll be watering again tonight, which I hate to do because of the price of our city water bill. I re-seeded about half of our one acre this spring and had to keep watering. We had a $270 water bill lol! My wife wanted to kill me! To add to the insult, it's been so hot and dry that the lawn is dead anyway after coming up beautifully!

That's what I learned during our historic Texas drought last year. We aren't God. If it's that dry, only full soaking, constantly, will do any good. So since our grass grows on runners, I just kept a few spots alive. And a couple of very old rose bushes. And still had water bills over $100. I shudder to think what it would have been had I kept the whole 1/2 acre alive. So this year we're starting over with most stuff. But now it's reversed, we're getting lots of rain while most of the rest of you guys are having a drought.

 

[Kassaundra]

That's what I learned during our historic Texas drought last year. We aren't God. If it's that dry, only full soaking, constantly, will do any good. So since our grass grows on runners, I just kept a few spots alive. And a couple of very old rose bushes. And still had water bills over $100. I shudder to think what it would have been had I kept the whole 1/2 acre alive. So this year we're starting over with most stuff. But now it's reversed, we're getting lots of rain while most of the rest of you guys are having a drought.

We are getting a double whammy record breaking drought last year and bad drought this year, guess I should be glad it's not record breaking (yet) this year!

 

[rancher hicks]

Help ! What is wrong with my peppers. They are nice and tall but no flowers. I've got one pepper out of 13 plants. These are two varieties in two different beds. Is there something I can do to save them or should I just pull them out and not waste my time?

 

[3forfree]

If you're talking green peppers mine are doing the same thing. Nice looking plants, no flowers. I had one pepper reach maturity early, and since then nothing.

 

[galanie]

If it's too hot, they won't make peppers. They will in the fall though when it cools down.

That's normal gardening here. But you guys don't normally have really bad heat in the summer and probably are used to getting peppers all summer.

 

[rancher hicks]

I water them every day and have the cans around them to hold the water near the base of the plant. It's very dry here. There are spots in the yard that are green though and a squash or some such plant growing behind the coop. I didn't plant it. I'll have to post pic. There is a frog that lives in the garden and Lord only knows how he survives. I take care not to harm the poor little thing.

 

[Kassaundra]

I water them every day and have the cans around them to hold the water near the base of the plant. It's very dry here. There are spots in the yard that are green though and a squash or some such plant growing behind the coop. I didn't plant it. I'll have to post pic. There is a frog that lives in the garden and Lord only knows how he survives. I take care not to harm the poor little thing.

It's not so much a matter of water as the heat itself, the flower pollen can not fertilize the flower (happens w/ tomatoes in the heat too) I think the threshold is around 90 in the day and 70 overnight it destroys the pollen.