Tomato Diseases - Septoria Leaf Spot

When I was harvesting the crop yesterday, I saw that some of my tomatoes have a disease.  Based on a comparison of what I see online, it appears to be Septoria Leaf Spot.

The pictures below were taken yesterday of two of my tomato plants.

Based on my reading, it's a disease in the soil that affects tomato leaves and stems with the indicator being spots like these.  Typically, it starts low on the plant and increases in elevation.  As it further develops on the plant, the spots grow and the leaves will defoliate the plant causing you to have sunscald and fruit cracking.

Solution: Don't allow the tomato plants to remain after the season if you leave your vegetation for future years.  Use a copper fungicide to help inhibit the disease in the plant.

Harvest: rain = tomatoes and cucumbers

Yesterday afternoon, I managed a little time to go do some picking after all the rain from the previous few days.

There was a little bit of damage in the garden.  As I expected, the corn took the brunt of the damage with about 1/5 of the total leaning over to the side.  I need to start putting conduit strings around the rows of corn to help deter this in the future.

As for the harvest, there are a number of tomatoes that have splits thanks to all the rain.  That being said, it's not as bad as I expected.  We also have a number of large cucumbers that we harvested.

Not shown was a second-picking in the early evening of 6 cherry tomatoes and one of The Boy's cucumbers.  The picture only shows what I harvested in the early morning.

There's a lot of rain coming

As I've mentioned in a few earlier posts, we're predicted to get a lot of rain over the next few days.  We used up the remaining lengths of conduit to stake down tomatoes that are getting pretty top-heavy.  They're fine on their own, but with all the rain they're calling for -- especially over a few hour time period -- I'm a little apprehensive about damage to the crops. 

I guess I'm thinking like a farmer?  Kinda cool!

Corn is getting TALL

We went out tonight to prepare for the buckets and buckets of rain the weather people are predicting over the next 48 hours.  While out in the garden, I couldn't help but gawk at how tall the corn has gotten.  I'd be surprised if it was only 9' tall.

Harvest: Ladies and gents, we have tomatoes!

Since we're expecting a lot of rain, we overpicked somewhat.  Knowing that tomatoes swell and split when they get a lot of rainfall, I picked tomatoes that I would ordinarily leave to ripen for another day or two.

I'm pleased to see that we're finally starting to get an increasing flow of green beans. 

I also think it's great that The Boy's part of the garden is doing well.  The cucumber in the middle is from his part.  It's his second.  There are others that are developing, too.

Harvest - A lot more tomatoes, declining cucumbers

I'm not sure why, but the cucumber harvest seems to be declining for the main batch.  On the good side, though, The Boy harvested his first cucumber.  We're also getting more tomatoes.

Not shown are the growing number of tiny green beans and bean flowers on the vines as well as the large number of small corn cobs on their stalks.

Harvest - Tomatoes and cucumbers

No work was done in the garden, but there was more to harvest.  The flow of tomatoes appears to be increasing!  Beans are still slowly developing due to my late planting.

Garden work and a harvest

After church today, we put The Bear down for his nap then tackled some yard work.  Eventually, I worked my way to the garden to do some weeding.  I pulled a lot of crabgrass out of the carrot bed and the flower bed next to it then weeded around the beans and Roma tomatoes.  Once finished there, I decided that the smart way to do more weeding was to bust out the roto-tiller and go after some of the paths between the veggies.  I had to stop due to a downpour.

While doing the weeding, The Boy harvested a variety of crops for us.  The beans continue to be slow to grow.  Also we have our first "mutant" cucumber.  I guess it's really more conjoined.  We first noticed it after it had started doing its thing -- at that point it still had a gap between the two cucumbers.  It's finally gotten to the point where it's time to harvest it.

Wifey also has her work cut out for her with the cucumbers.  I believe she was going to make some dill spears to go with the sweet pickles she made a few days ago.  I'll see about uploading a few of her better pickle recipes.  It's been a while since I've added any recipes to the blog.

Harvest time - tomatoes, cucumbers, and a bean

Even after the deer got into the garden and some of the tomatoes succumbed to bugs and end rot, we still had a harvest.  Even with all that, I'm happy to report that we are slowly starting to get more tomatoes and beans in addition to the steady flow of cucumbers.

In addition to the harvest, The Boy's watermelon continues to grow steadily.

We also have more beans slowly growing.  I figure we'll be in the throes of our bean harvest within two weeks!

More wonderful news: Blossom end rot on tomatoes?

After mending the fence from the deer damage, I started harvesting some of the tomatoes and cucumbers.  While picking tomatoes, I found that a number of the Roma tomatoes appear to have blossom end rot.  Interestingly enough, it's not all of them, just some.  There are also a few that have some sort of critter nibbling on the tomato near the stem (especially a few of the tomatoes with a blush).

Fun stuff.  Thankfully, it doesn't look like a majority of the Romas have this problem.

A deer got into the garden

I'd been so proud that I'd foiled the deer.  I should have known that I'd be punished for being smug.

So a deer (I'm pretty sure it was a lone one) got into the garden.

As near as I can tell, it stuck its head under the deer netting (irony!) and over the wire mesh then jumped through the gap.  There were a few foot (hoof?) prints below where it came in.

Once inside, it topped off one of The Boy's cucumbers.

It then meandered down the garden and went after some of the sweet potato leaves.  Thankfully, those things are proving to be darn near weed-like in their spread.  Despite a fair amount of damage, we still have a lot.

Once it was finished there, it went back down the garden and went out through another gap in the deer netting.

I have done some rudimentary mending of the fence.  I will also begin installing the 1x6's along the seam between the wire and netting.  I'd hoped to put it off until the fall, but I guess I can't put that off any longer.

Still more crops

We've started getting more "grown-up" tomatoes!  Huzzah.  There are also more of those and Roma tomatoes that are starting to get a blush.

Wifey!  Your non-canning days are numbered!

Ladies and gentlemen: we have baby corn

As the title says, I found that we have some baby corn growing on the stalks.  I guess it's only exciting to us because we've never grown it before.  Yay us.

More crops

Nothing supremely impressive, but we have more crops.  I guess the only notable thing is that we're getting more tomatoes on a more regular basis.

I KNEW I needed a fence around the garden!

Let me start off by saying that I feel completely vindicated.  Self-applied back-pats for all.

The veggie garden is about 10' away from our driveway so I see it every day as I leave for work and when I get home afterward.  After work yesterday, I went to check out the beans to see if we had more flowers.  Sure enough, we do and that's a wonderful development.

What I noticed next is what has me over the moon.

We have some deer-inflicted damage on the bean vines that are sticking outside the fencing right up to about 5' above-ground.

This means that my assertion that we really really really really really needed a deer-resistant/proof fence was valid. 

You see for the last year, I've been met with a lot of skepticism whenever I've explained what size of fencing I had in mind.  I've also received more than my fair share of good-natured flak from our neighbor, Wifey, my parents, her parents, and our friends when they've seen the fence.  To a man (and woman), I've seen them all have the expression of, "Yep.  I knew he'd crack one of these days....." the first time they see the fence.  Comments vary, but they all have a common theme:

"Are you sure you need something that big?"

Yup.  That I do.

I'm not going to gloat over it, but it sure is nice to see that my preparedness was warranted.

New apple growth

I'm happy to report that the deer netting around the apple trees is doing its job.  We have a good bit of new leaf growth on the apple trees after getting decimated by the deer living in and around our neighborhood.

Also, we have a fair amount of Japanese beetles inside the beetle bags I put out by the orchard last weekend.  It's hard to say that we definitively don't have new damage, but in doing a quick scan, I didn't see any beetles on any of the apple trees.  Sorry, no picture.

Tallying up the crops after a weekend away

As I hinted previously, we had a lot of cucumbers in need of picking.  It'll be really interesting to see how things look once we start getting the beans and tomatoes doing their thing.

Garden under attack: Nature on the Defense (part 2)

I did a previous post discussing Tomato Hornworms and the Braconid Wasps that attack them.

As we were checking out the garden progress after our weekend away, Wifey saw another Tomato Hornworm that had been attacked.  In this case, this Hornworm was very much dead.  At first glance, I thought it looked like something else.

Further proof that the Braconid Wasps are doing their jobs against the Hornworm population.

Return from vacation

Since we were away for a long weekend, we were all eager to see how things had progressed in the garden while we were gone.  The added factor of a fair amount of rainfall on Friday meant we had the potential for a lot of growth.

We weren't disappointed.

I'm happy to report that we have more tomatoes ripening on the vine.  While the majority are still green, there is more redness to be found.

We had a lot of cucumbers waiting to be picked.  Unfortunately, there are a few that are a little over-large.  I suspect they will really be loaded with seeds.

We were all very excited to see that we have our first bean flowers, too.

The Boy also has his first infant zucchini started.

Also, we have a few more asparagus starters that have awakened from slumber.  I took a picture, but the shoots are so wispy that everything looks blurred in the picture from my iPhone.  Someday we'll get a good SLR camera, but for now I use my phone.

The last crop change (and I didn't get a picture) is that our corn is both much taller (8' tall or more) and that we have more of the sprouts (flowers?) that area typical precursors to cob-formation.

More crops!

I'm happy to report that we have more crops in the garden.  Best of all, we have our first cherry tomatoes!

More roto-tilling in the side garden

The side garden has been short 1 cu yd of composted leaves in the lower segment.  Unfortunately, I think it's too late in the year for that -- the local Southern States store hasn't been able to get any in stock since the end of June.  I've been holding off on rototilling the area until I got compost, but it's obvious to me that it's just not going to happen this Spring/Summer.

In the meantime, weeds (especially crab grass) have taken over the area.

Yesterday afternoon, I roto-tilled the entire down-slope part of the garden as well as some of the area up-slope of the small Japanese maple to till up the grass and weeds that has taken root there.  I'm sure this isn't the end of the grass and weeds in that area, but at least it should reintroduce some nutrients to the soil and put a damper on the weed growth for now.

The area in the corner will likely become a permanent home for a strawberry patch.  We like strawberries and haven't grown them since our very first garden plot in 2009.  My parents have quite a lot of them in their garden (for their small-sized garden, anyway) and would like to remove a fair amount of the new plants. 

2017 Produce - Cucumbers

I'm happy to report that there were four very nice cucumbers worth picking yesterday afternoon.  They're pretty much the perfect size -- long enough to be useful and large enough diameter that the cucumbers are well-developed without being so large that the skin gets tough and flesh loaded with seeds.

I anticipate having another 1-2 to pick today, too.

Apple trees are under siege from yet another source

While working on the deer netting yesterday, I saw that the upper leaves had a lot of Japanese beetles on them.

Although it's not an organic solution, I bought and set up a couple of Japanese Beetle traps as a short-term fix.  I need to investigate a long-term, organic solution.  I'm hoping that I can lure predatory insects and birds to the property to address the problem for good.

Deer netting is up

Although I'm not sure it shows up in this picture, the deer netting is in place.  I'm sure I'll have to tweak it in the future, but at least it should last for a little bit.  I think?

Sleeping on the job is bad mogumbo

While distracted by other projects around the house and property, I slept on putting up the deer netting around the apple trees.  After all, the deer haven't paid any attention to the trees this year so they won't, right?

Wrong.

The majority of the under story for each productive apple tree has been decimated by the deer.  That includes both leaves and the half-dozen apples we had growing on them.

We inherited a lot of lengths of conduit from Wifey's grandmother (her grandparents are no longer gardening) with holes drilled in them around 6' down the length.  I've stuck them 4'-5' apart in a triangular formation around each tree.  I need to go get some wire from the hardware store to hold up the deer netting and see if I can protect the remaining fledgling leaf growth.

Baby corn and potatoes join the mix

A little bit of progress is being made in the garden.  Although I still don't have much going on with the tomatoes (only picked two so far, the rest are green) and beans (no flowers, yet), we have the beginnings of corn.  I've never grown it before so everything's new to me.

We also have some fledgling potato plants that have come up from where they were planted.

Added a new link to the sidebar

After stumbling across it, I've added a new page to the sidebar for a Texas Master Gardener website about beneficial insects.  A lot of info is found there about good and bad bugs, predatory insects, etc.  Granted, it's not for/about Maryland gardening, but a lot of the info still holds true.

The garden is under attack: Nature on the defense.

While meandering through the garden yesterday, I came across this interesting sight.  I'd never seen this before.

After doing some research, I've discovered that this is a Tomato Hornworm that had (has?) been victimized by a Braconid Wasp. The wasp is a predatory insect.  To quote from the Master Gardener site linked to before,

They like to feed on things we don't like in our gardens: hornworms, caterpillars, beetles, aphids, squash bugs and stink bugs are among the many pests that members of the Braconidae family consider gourmet delicacies.

These Braconid wasps lay their eggs on the host, the larvae eat their way to the surface of the worm and make their cocoons as seen in my picture above.  Once the adult wasps come from the cocoons -- and you can see that a few of the tops have been popped off -- the Hornworm dies.

So, apparently, we have Braconid Wasps at work in the garden to help protect our plants from predators.

We finally have produce!

Yesterday we got home from being out of town at a family reunion for close to a week.  Since the garden is close to the driveway, I quickly saw what looked like cucumbers underneath the vines.  Sure enough, we had three good-sized cucumbers on the vine and ready for harvest.

A bit more investigation into the area also found that we finally have two tomatoes that have the beginnings of a blush on them.

Lastly, while I can't call it "produce" it is "progress."  We have one asparagus plant growing in each of the two asparagus boxes.  It's a start!