Mystery Wilt

It was suggested that my tomatoes have Fusarium wilt, a fungus, and that's why they're looking bad. I did some reading and I don't think that's what I have. It could be, I'm not a plant pathologist and I don't have a lab but it doesn't look like the pictures and description on the net.

With fusarium wilt, the fungus moves into the plant through the roots and is does damage to the tissues in the stem that transport water and nutrients. There should be visible dark spots between the woody inner layer of the stem and the outer layer. Since they're in bad shape, I cut a couple down and looked inside. No dark spots.

no black spots

Although the whole plant just looks sickly, the tips of the new leaves look the worst and this doesn't seem like fusarium either.

mystery wilt

Just in case, I wanted to spray something. It seems like the right thing to do so I gave everything a good coat of Daconil fungicide. Hopefully I can stop whatever this is from spreading.

So I don't know what's really wrong but as long as it doesn't spread to other plants the point is now moot. I pulled the bad tomatoes out and bought a couple of nice big tomato plants yesterday at the garden center. These got planted at the other end of the garden so they don't get the same disease. So now I've got two plants instead of seven but I don't like tomatoes anyway so two is plenty.

new tomatoes, not dead yet

In other garden news: I couldn't' find any cucumber plants last weekend to replace my dead ones. I got lucky and found some yesterday while looking for tomatoes. I've finished the cucumber trellis and should have enough for pickles now.

cucumber trellis

The bush type peas in the garden didn't do very well. We got a few pods but they never really took off. I've had trouble with peas before. The vine type peas did well on their trellis and are just about done. If we want any more peas, we had better pick them in the next few days.

peas

I personally don't want any peas and I can't imagine anybody else going out to pick any so I guess we won't have to eat any peas. Peas are pretty bad, even for vegetables. My daughter ate a few pea pods when they were smaller with ranch dressing and like them that way. They don't have much flavor when they're small pods so the pods were really just a ranch dressing delivery system and I can appreciate that but now that they actually taste like peas, I'll pass.

peas

So far so good

It's summer, it's hot, and a lot has happened since my last post on the 8th. Two weeks ago I was loosing peaches and my pears had what looked like fire blight.

The permanent plantings

So far, so good. The peaches stopped dropping and I've still got a lot left on the tree. I'm assuming there was just too much fruit ont he tree and it was natural thinning.

Peaches, almost full size

I've had to cut out a couple of more branch tips on my pears as they curl and turn black to keep the fire blight from getting a real foot hold but there hasn't been any new damage in a week so I'm hoping I'm out of the woods. The few pears that were on my two small trees are still there and starting to look like pears.

pears looking like pears

The apples have been doing well. They've got some brown spots but nothing that's really going to hurt them. They're not pretty enough for the supermarket but I'll eat them.

apples

The only other permanent planting that's doing anything interesting is my grapes. I've got grapes, lots of them. Most are hidden under the leaves but you can see a couple of bunches on the left side of this picture.

grapes

Now onto the garden.

You might remember that I'm trying some giant walking stick cabbage this year. I think they're doing well. I have no idea what they're supposed to be doing but they're not dead. This is one of this year's odd ball plants I'm trying. I should have walking sticks in no time.


The corn and sugar sorghum is looking good. Actually, only about half the sorghum came up but that half is looking healthy. Corn always does well until just before it's ready to be picked. Then beetles eat the silk, worms move into the husk, or earwigs take over.

The broccoli came on unusually early this year. I cut the first heads a couple of weeks ago and it was already full of worms. I'm going to let the rest go to seed without cutting any more. I just want to see how that happens and I can buy broccoli at the supermarket without worms. If I was starving, I could eat the broccoli. Thankfully I'm not.

The onions are looking great. I don't have much luck with onions so I don't know what's different this year. Usually, they get rotten right at the ground line in the early spring.

corn and a sparse row of sorghum

Celery is starting to look like celery, The lettuce and other greens are past their peak and should be sending up flowering stalks to make seeds soon. I've never tried planting lettuce from my own seeds but I have had them go to seed and ended up with a yard full of lettuce in the fall. There are hundreds of little 1/4" diameter carrots.

everything else (almost)

I planted 5 tomatoes. Three regular full size tomato plants and two grape tomatoes. They're not doing well. I don't know what's wrong. They haven't grown much, they look a little wilty and the color isn't really as green as they should be. There are a couple of diseases that can do this but they've been like this for three weeks and if it was a disease, they'd be dead.

I've still got some room left so I think I'll try some new tomato plants on the other side this weekend.

underachiever

I had planted 8 cucumbers. only two have survived. The two look good but I'm also growing dill and was hoping to can some dill pickles. I went looking for cucumber plants last weekend to replace the dead ones but no body had any left. It looks like I need to finish stringing the trellis for the cucumbers this weekend. I am going to try growing them up on a trellis to keep the cucumbers off the ground.

lonely cucumber

Farmer's Tan Challenge

I've been challenged to a farmer's-tan-off. I have to admit, I don't get farmer's tans like I used to. I grew up on a farm and spent a lot more time in the sun than I do now. My job still has me outside for several hours a week but probably half my time is spent in an air conditioned office sitting at a desk. So I'm not in the competitive condition I was in when I was younger. Here's my entry in the Farmer's Tan Challenge:




That must be an older photo.

Here's a more current one.


Just not as distinct a tan line as in years past. People used to think I was wearing a t-shirt under my tank top even when I wasn't.

June Drop, Fire Blight, Squatters

Last year, all my peaches fell off the tree in early June. This year, the peaches on the tree look bigger and healthier than they looked last year and I hoped I was in the clear. Yesterday, it started. June Drop. When peach trees have too many fruit, they do drop some fruit this time of year, I'm hoping that's all this is but after last year, I'm expecting the worst. No body knows exactly what causes it but competition for nutrients and water seems to have something to do with it. We've had plenty of rain and I fertilized earlier this week.

June Drop

I've had to cut two branches out of one pear tree. It looks like fire blight to me. Fire blight is a bacterial infection that works its way down the branch to the tree. There is no cure. The only thing to do is cut out branches as they start to show symptoms. You cut several inches below the obvious infection and hopefully it hasn't moved down past where you cut the branch off. A few days ago I was hoping that the 5 or 6 pears on the tree survived until they were ripe. Now I'm hoping the tree survives.

I can spray some preventative chemicals next year in early spring but it's too late to do anything now and it can spread into the rest of the fruit trees.

fire blight

Something's moved into my grapes. I don't know what it is yet. My wife thinks it's a Mocking bird.

squatters

Random Summer Stuff

June's here, it's hot, and things are happening in the garden. The peaches are going through June Drop. That's when peaches fall off in June. Last year, I lost everything in June but this year, only the small peaches are falling off...so far. The peaches this year are also much bigger than they were last year. Most of the peaches are an inch across and last year they looked like almonds.

Everything got fertilizer this morning. Hopefully that will kick some of my slower stuff into gear like the peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes.

We've had a lot of rain in the past week. That's good it's less irrigation for me. We had a couple of rainy days, a few thunder storms and I've lost track but it was nearly 3 inches overall and may have been more.



The strawberries are just about done. We had so many that we didn't even pick them all. There are a few still ripening but the ripe ones are pretty small and not nearly as sweet as the first couple of rounds.

Strawberries no bigger than my thumbnail

I've got 3 decent sized heads of broccoli to cut today. Last year, the broccoli was at least twice as big as it is this year before it started producing heads. Maybe I've got a different variety, maybe the weather was different.




I'm waiting for the rhubarb. I've never grown rhubarb before but I've read that the stalks should turn red in late spring or early summer. I'm still waiting. A few stalks are slightly reddish but certainly not red. I've got a recipe I want to try. I had assumed that rhubarb and strawberries would be ready at just about the same time since the famous rhubarb recipe is strawberry rhubarb pie.

Big rhubarb, bigger asparagus, and strawberries

My hanging basket tomato experiment hasn't done much. I moved it to a location where it will get sun for half the day but there's no place on the porch where it can get full sun. It's trying very hard to grow up instead of down.




The apples are growing apples. I have been skeptical about these 5 in 1 apple tree grafts since I bought them 3 or 4 years ago. Gimmicks don't usually work out very well. It seems like I'll have at least 3 different varieties this year.




The white powder on the apple leaves is a fungicide. Fruit trees need a lot of spraying to make nice shiny fruit.

And finally, I'll sign off with a game called "find the pea pod".

Find the Pea Pod.