I got at the Pickle Patch about 30 minutes before sunrise. If you are wondering time sunrise was 6:05 am. At this time I start spraying, so the earlier the better chances your plants will not react and burn. I mixed one gallon of copper fungicide as I decided to only spray the few remaining April tomatoes and, of course, my June tomatoes. The July tomatoes are too little, and this could totally stress them into collapsing.
I forgot to mention that one June plant, for some reason, is not growing like the others, and it is one you would think would be handling the heat — a Park’s Whopper. I put shade cloth on the cage yesterday and noticed that the shade cloth was touching some of the leaves, and where it touched, the leaves went limp.
I took the cloth off and found two tall tomato poles, then clipped the fabric to the poles. I am hoping it will recover. I just don’t understand why it is not thriving like the others, and it has more tomatoes on it than the others so far. Go figure.
While spraying my mature tomatoes, I peeked behind my shade contraptions and was doing a gig inside — okay, just happy that all my July transplants were looking happy and saying hi! Maybe I am getting to be like Bob from Bob’s Burgers, where I have conversations with my plants, which btw, I heard you should on a YouTube video. If you have never seen Bob’s Burgers, here is the scene with the tomato plants and his happy place. If you are a gardener, you will relate.
I didn’t have enough copper to do the Learning Plot, but when I saw them yesterday, they were looking fine as I didn’t do any trimming. Once I was done, I started adding the chopped leaf mulch to cover the amendment I put down. I finished spraying at 6:15 am and the clouds were blocking the sun for a little while and there was a good breeze to dry the copper fungicide.
Before I started mulching all the tomato holes with chopped leaf mulch to help keep the roots cool this week, I saw Morino in his gardens and thanked him for the Mexican corn. I told him we tried the toppings he suggested and liked it a lot. As promised, here is a photo of my corn. To be honest, I needed to watch a video to see how much they were putting on of each ingredient—mayonnaise, ketchup, hot sauce, my Mexican crumbling cheese—and I knew to use a sprinkle of chili powder.
My husband decided to try it, and he and I agree the Mexican corn is tough and starchy, not like what we’re used to, such as when I grew the Peaches and Cream variety last year. The corn wasn’t as good, but we loved the toppings. My husband said he isn’t sure he’ll automatically switch to the Mexican toppings instead of traditional butter, salt, and pepper, but maybe paired with a Mexican dish like our salsa verde tacos, it would be delicious.
While I was applying chopped leaves I hit the India and Armenian cucumber beds and both have flowers on them and they aren’t even that far along up the trellis. That is a good sign they love this heat.
I decided the soil was still too wet to work on flowers in the Pickle Patch, so I went back to what I kept mentioning in some of my previous posts — downsizing the number of cages to 28 and reclaiming an area for my turnip and fall seeds. I cleared what I thought was going to hold the cages, but after thinking and looking at the area, I decided to flip my plan.
If I kept the original layout, I would be cutting into the prime growing soil at the top of the slope, instead of using the lower area where the greens were going to be, down in the water‑path end. All I need to do is recreate the entrance to Rudy’s garden, and I’ll have a perfect 25′ x 20′ bed for whatever I want to put there. I know it won’t be winter squash.
For my turnip bed, it might end up around 17′ x 6′ or thereabouts, since right now most of the 12′ x 22′ space is taken up with boxes and the winter squashes. Originally, I wanted more space for tomatoes in the Back 40 plots, but 13 per row is enough — especially since I’m planning to skip sauce tomatoes next year and devote the space to slicers.
Next year I am keeping up with rotating crops, and I already know which beds the tomatoes will be located. This area will be for tomatillos and okra so the soil gets a break from tomatoes.
One more caveat is that I am only keeping 28 cages, and after measuring the average diameter of the cages, I determined I can shorten the distance between the poles that hold them in place. Because of that, I can now increase the space next to the asparagus for my 3′ x 6′ bed for the companion plants of dill. Yay!
The last chore in the Pickle Patch was harvesting, and today it was a few more cucumbers and okra. I plan to give all the okra I picked yesterday and today, along with some peppers—bell and jalapeños—to our church drive‑thru pantry. Before I left for the day, I popped over to the Learning Plot, and the last mound is starting to germinate. It’s good to see more coming up, and next I’m hoping to have the tomato holes planted with yellow squash and zucchini.
Now to head home, shower, eat lunch, and do our grandparents’ duty taking our grandson to water polo lessons. I hope you have a great day, and if you enjoy my blog, please send a comment or join the alert list for when I have a new post.
Happy Gardening!