First Proper Harvest

The largest tomato is Big Beef, the mid size reds are Bloody Butcher. 3 Black Cherries and Matt's Wild Cherries round out the picture.

I'm now getting a handful+ of tomatoes every day. My zucchini has made a comeback of sorts. There is still some powdery white mildew, but since I thinned the pot from 2 vines to one, the plant has been outgrowing it. Maybe the plants were choking each other somehow, but once I cut the second vine, things began to improve almost immediately.

My afterthought Cuke has also produced a couple fruit with more on the way. They are much better than I expected and won't be an afterthought next time.

I haven't picked any hornworms off my plants in a couple days. The one I found has eggs from the hornworm-parasitizing wasp on his back, so I left him there to spread more death and destruction through hornworm-dom.

Plants need water every 24 hours or so now. It's amazing how much they drink. I wouldn't use anything smaller than 10 gallon pots next year. Plants will grow in 5 gallon buckets, but that gives very little margin for error in watering. Matt's Wild Cherry sucks his 5 gallon bucket dry every day.

Bad Day to Be a Hornworm

I picked 3 more of these ugly beasts off my toms today. Holy cow, do they get freakin' huge. The little balls of poo give them away.

Ball and Chain

This is a picture of my Black Cherry tomatoes. The first two are about to ripen and there are probably 30 unblemished fruit on the vine. I'm quite excited about this since it is consistently mentioned as a favorite among the e-growing community, but is completely new to me.

I've been out of town a couple of times in the last two weeks. This, combined with a week of 90 degree weather has left my rooftop garden somewhat weary. There are still plenty of greenies on the vine, but not as many as if I had given them the constant care and attention they want at this point. The bigger pots really want 2+ gallons of water a day in this heat.

I'm still picking off a fruit or two a day with blossom end rot, but this seems to have subsided on the bloody butcher. I also picked off my first tomato horn worm yesterday. Basically, it's a 3 inch green caterpillar that I found because of all the former-tomato plant-now-caterpillar poop next to one of my plants. I'll post a picture of the next one; this one had to die fast.

In spite of the various things afflicting my garden, I'm still going to have toms soon. Here's Big Beef. The yellowing leaves you see are the result of one of my vacation-droughts the poor guy suffered.

Watering mishap

My pot of Bell Peppers is doing well. I once picked fresh peppers from a friend's garden and found them to be beautiful plants. I'm glad they're happy on my roof.

I am currently watering heavily about every 2 days. I was recently out of town for 2 full days and half of a third. I figured my plants would be ok. While they all survived, they were definitely too dry by the time I arrived home. Many, many blossoms dropped and these would have led to my first serious harvest. So now I'm interested to watch what the plants do now.

Bloody Butcher has already produced four tasty little toms, and has 20+ on the vine. Big Beef and the cherries are fairly loaded up as well. It won't be long now. I've still been picking a couple each day with blossom end rot, but there are many tomatoes on the vine which seem to have developed just fine.

Almost there 7-9-08

Things are well on their way. With the exception of my sad zucchini, the plants are all happy.

Big Beef:

Bloody Butcher: look at all the blossoms. It has a pink one hidden at the bottom.

Druzba: 2.5 feet of solid plant:
Bell Peppers have set fruit:

Long Chile Peppers:

Fire escape herb garden + bush beans:

Last but not least, my fire escape cuke:

The blossom end rot seems has disappeared on the bloody butcher. It has a ton of fruit set, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Blossom End Rot

I found blossom end rot on a 6 more bloody butchers. I've looked this one up, and the variety of conflicting opinions suggests that no one really knows what the cause(s) are. Insufficient calcium? Inconsistent watering? It is not a disease and for most people it goes away as the season progresses. BB still has 20+fruit set and at least that many more blossoms. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

My california wonder bell pepper has set its first fruit, improved espanola has a bunch of peppers going now, I believe peguin has set its first few fruit, and my cucumber plant as a couple set as well. I'm picking and immediately munching a half dozen beans every 3 or 4 days now as well.

Tomatoes setting

All my tomatoes, except a bloom-filled kellogg's breakfast that went in a week late, have set fruit. Bloody butcher as 20+, Big Beef 10+. The rest have just started.

I yanked a small greenie with blossom end rot from my bloody butcher. It has many more and bigger fruit set that look fine. Hopefully this is an isolated incident.

My zucchini, which had been looking stellar, got hit by some white powdery mildew. Affected leaves would yellow in a few days. It also aborted a few fruit. I looked this up and it said to cut the affected leaves and spray with a 50/50 milk and water solution. I cut the leaves this morning (well over 50% of the plant) and will try the spray tonight. Other than some fungus gnats and a random cocoon/worm i yanked off my bell pepper, the plants look good.

My peguin chile pepper has been looking a bit droopy. It's definitely not under-watered, but it's in a smallish black plastic pot. I'm thinking maybe it's been getting too hot during the day. I wrapped it in a sheet this morning like I did my tomatoes. We'll see if that helps.