You are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

0
1

[–] SerialChiller 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago  (edited ago)

Zone 9B. All organic, no pesticides. Occasional spray of H2O2 for mildew. Mostly growing in a 50 ft long x 2 ft wide raised bed, intensive/square-foot method, with a fence/trellis along one edge. Plus pumpkins grown under a small cluster of fruit trees that are heavily mulched in pine wood-chips.

  • Tomatoes: Not great. Summer was too hot. They're producing fruit now but the squirrels are jewing them just as they start to ripen. I have taken to harvesting them as soon as they start turning yellow now.
  • Bell peppers: Did alright. These are now two year old plants. Wish I had more.
  • Eggplants: Doing okay. Just started producing once the temps cooled down from summer.
  • Okra: Doing okay. I grew six plants each in two containers as an experiment. Not great big plants but a decent harvest.
  • Beans: Pole beans are great, bush beans not so much.
  • Armenian Cucumber: Produced huge cucumbers - over 18 inches long - but the plant caught a bad case of powdery mildew (in spite of no rain) so I had to take it out.
  • Sinqua: It's a delicious ridged asian squash - super performer. Huge yields, vine grows vigorously, and in spite of being tangled up with the Armenian cucumber vine, the mildew has no effect on it.
  • Delicata Squash: Caught mildew from the neighboring armenian vine. Produced a few squash, but not a success.
  • Green chili peppers: Doing well. Loads of peppers.
  • Berries: Did great. blackberries, raspberries, mulberries, strawberries, goji berries - all on two year old plants.
  • Figs: Producing well but the fucking birds, man.
  • Plums & Peaches: Good season but too short.
  • Grapes: Just planted a vine this year, so lots of growth but no fruit. Hoping to get some next season after pruning.
  • Hyacinth beans: Holy crap, I am now sick of eating them. I harvest about 150 of these pods every week.
  • Passion fruit: just producing fruit now, yet to ripen... waiting
  • Pumpkin: sprawled all summer and I harvested a giant pumpkin just this week - I haven't weighed it but it is bigger than my arse, not kidding. There are three more smaller ones that are still growing on the vine.
  • Potatoes: mediocre harvest, but I had just thrown a few old potatoes into a container, so I can't complain.
  • Taro: the plant is growing, I have to dig it up to see if there are any tubers underground.
  • Ginger: plant is healthy, no idea what the harvest will be when I dig it up.
  • Herbs: Always do well... basils, bergamot, rosemary, syrian oregano, marjoram, sage, parsley, cilantro, ...

All this sounds like a shit ton of stuff, but it's fucking amazing how little it takes to plant this stuff. Most of it is waiting and keeping them watered.

For fall, I started Kales (lacinato, scotch, portugeuse, russian), broccoli, kohlrabi, cauliflower, lettuces, spinach, amaranth, beets, radishes, and red cabbage. Everything started well but some faggot critter is eating my seedlings so I have lost a bunch of them already and have to start new seeds (or go buy some plant starts).

0
0

[–] 14158292? [S] ago 

Out of curiosity, what do you believe is too hot for tomatoes? Mine do much better with daytime temperatures in the 90s than they do with daytime temperatures in the 70s to low 80s.

0
0

[–] SerialChiller ago  (edited ago)

We had daytime temps in the 95-102 range in july and august, with no rain and hot nights. I am not an expert, but I have been told that tomato tend to not produce flowers when nighttime temps stay above 70. No flowers means no pollination and no fruit. And my observation seems to support that theory. When I lived for some time in the tropics, tomatoes used to do better in winters there, maybe for the same reason.

Temps started getting lower in late August and the flowers came back, and I now have a decent set of fruit happening - although it is a race to harvest them before squirrels/mice/birds take a bite out of them.