Now Two Cucumbers Have Spots: Vegetable MD Online

First off here is a great link: Vegetable MD Online

The link will take you to the cucumbers. Several leaves, closest to the ground, have yellow spots. Probably a leaf spot for cucumbers. 2 plants out of 12 or so. So that means time to spray.

I can't remember but I think I have 33ish tomatoes in. I only had to remove 1 because of leaf spot. The others are all treated and doing well. We are now approaching July and that is time for Early Blight. I sprayed my cukes and tomatoes again this morning.

The garden is doing well. 

You can plant tomatoes still. I actually have seedling coming up in trays. They are free for the immediate neighbors. Just email me. It is green bean time, if they aren't in.

I ordered heirloom bean seeds and they just arrived. They will go in cups to get started and I'll put them in the garden in 2 weeks or so.

Good Luck!

TIP: Cucumber and Squash leaves are sometimes less hardy then Tomato leaves.They burn easier (sometimes) when sprayed. If you are using a sulfur spray, check it out on a few cuke, zuke, and squash leaves first. You need to spray and wait  24 - 48 hours to look for damage.

Shade Your Tomato Transplants for Two Days or So.

These are 'Sara's Galapagos Island' tomatoes. I dug them up from another part of the garden and when you do that, you often destroy a lot of the root system. I transplanted them to the areas I wanted. Because they are transplants and the root system have to re-establish in the new area, it is a good idea to shade them from direct sun for 2 days. I built these out of seed trays and pint containers. We had full 90 degree sun on those days.

Shading them helps reduce plant stress. Less plant stress means you won't delay their growth and development.

Pruning Tomatoes: Before and After Pictures

Keeping up with pruning is not easy. Tomatoes have a tendency to periodically burst with a growth spurt. This usually occurs on the four days we are busy and don't tend to the garden. What ends up happening, if you are like me, the tomato suckers get large and we just can't remove that lush growth. 

So... we end up with a tomato plant that has multiple main growth stems. That is perfectly fine as long as you make sure you thin the tomato out and let air circulate through the plant's center. I also recommend removing bottom growth to prevent soil splash and disease laddering. That is the process of disease starting on the bottom leaves and working its way up the plant. And finally you must stake the extra growth or the plant will fall over and snap.

Here are my container tomatoes thinned as of 6/11. 

Rutgers Variety

'Rutgers' Before Pruning

'Rutgers' After Pruning.

Notice the pile of removed leaves to the left and the suckers I removed to the right. The suckers will turn into large growth stems.

Black Krim Variety

'Black Krim' Before Pruning

'Black Krim' After Pruning.

More leaves and suckers.

Bradley Variety

'Bradley' Before Pruning.

'Bradley' After Pruning.

 A large amount of leaves removed. It is hard to believe you can remove so much growth. Notice the space on the bottom of the plant and the open spaces in the middle.

Virginia Sweets Variety

'Virginia Sweets'  Before Pruning

'Virginia Sweets' After Pruning

The 'Virginia Sweets' is an heirloom striped beefsteak. It gets 1 pound fruits and because of that it get a very large container to grow in. I also planted onions around it.

If you click on the pictures they will enlarge. You will notice that none of these tomatoes are pruned to only one growth stem for reasons I stated. I do however, have several single stems tomatoes I will blog about later. It is yet another experiement.

These are container tomatoes and the key is to keep them well watered. You also have to keep the fertilized. 

Pruning is not a science nor an art. It is just something you should do regularly with the best intentions. Tomatoes want to grow and as long as you don't over prune, they will keep growing upward.

How to Repair Damaged Tomato Stems: Split From A Storm

The first rule is to make sure you tend your tomatoes before the damage occurs. I was slow getting to my growing tomatoes and I let them get a bit to big. A thunderstorm came and the winds whipped through them. This is how you can repair a split stem. Tomatoes are resilient. They heal well.

The Split Stem

This is my 'Polish Linguisa' variety. It is an heirloom paste tomato that grows large fruits. It actually has about 20 fruit on it right now. You can see the split stem.

Straight Wettable Sulfur Dust on the Wound in Dry Form

I used the wettable sulfur I use for my spray as a dust and dusted the wound. If you don't have dust that is fine. It is a precaution for disease but it is not needed.

A Strong Support to Tie off the Wound at the End

The first stake goes right next to the wound. It will be tied off to the stake after I add another stake for the upper support.  It is best to fix the wound from top down. This way the weight of the upper growth doesn't snap the stem again. This stake went in now because it is easier to place it in the ground first.

Added a Six Foot Bamboo Stake for Support

The stake will be used only for the broken stem. It has to be tall enough to support the entire stem. 

The Damage Stem is Lifted and Tied High

The damage stem is lifted up to the bamboo stake and tied up high. Tie it up high first and work your way down with additional ties for support as needed. It should be tied in a way that the split stem closes. The stakes are supports to both brace the stem and close the split. If you enlarge the picture by clicking on it, you can see the split is closed.

Now that the Top is Tied, Tie the Bottom

After you secure the stem to the upper part of the bamboo support, you can tie off the bottom to the first stake that was put in the ground. That will finish the support of the entire stem and it will withstand wind and motion. The split doesn't typically grow back together but this method prevents it from splitting further. The stem will continue to grow perfectly fine.

The Finished Repair and Below is the Original Damage

Before the Repair

Peeling A Kohlrabi: From Picking to Plate

Just what it looks like from picking to plating. I recommend you grow some.

I peeled it as you see and ate that one like an apple. You can slice it for salads. You can stirfry it. Just add it late to the stirfry. You can really do a lot with it. It is a great root crop.