So many communication options....my choices, and a request for feedback

It feels like a good time to share how I am currently communicating, as well as receiving and responding to questions and comments. 

As some of you know, I once used Weebly as a blogging platform, with the website name nctomatoman, from September 2009 until December 2015..that was my switch date to this new website, created by my daughter Sara and hosted by Squarespace. (I had a second site on Wix briefly, which ended because it seemed overkill, and confusing). When I think that there are 6 years worth of blog entries of my gardens from 2010 to 2015 sitting on my old Weebly site, my to do list does include mining them for good information to share with you - at some point!

I am trying to blog at least every two weeks. During the height of gardening season - meaning now - it could be more frequent, depending upon time, energy levels and excitement levels of discoveries that feel share-worthy.

I've done a newsletter a few times a year since Epic Tomatoes came out, but am considering ending that and finding ways to enhance this website to make news events easier to find....the newsletter mailing list is really important to me, and we will use that to ensure anyone not aware of this blog will be. Definitely some work in progress and things to ponder.

Email remains my communication method of choice for quick interactions and responses. As many of you know, if you ask a question, you will get an answer - hopefully within 24 hours. If you take the time to contact, me, you deserve a quick response...that's just how I like to do things. Feel free to drop an email to me at nctomatoman@gmail.com any time!

Aside from this website - which has my blog (which you are reading), book info, my upcoming events, info about the Dwarf tomato project and some instructional videos, I've gotten into the habit of using Facebook to post a garden picture of the day. I am actually using Facebook two ways, which often overlap - my personal page is increasingly populated by gardening info, and my author page is primarily where I post my blog. I realize some of you ask questions on my author page, and I try to check that out regularly...sending a question to my email address nctomatoman@gmail.com will always get quicker and more regular attention. Facebook Messenger is another way I am touching base with some of you. Finally, I hope to do more and more Facebook Live videos - they seem to stimulate your questions, which I can answer in a follow up blog.

I use Twitter far less, primarily to tweet out a link to my blog, for upcoming events, along with an occasional picture. Instagram is finding more use now that there is so much happening in the garden - I will often post multiple pictures per day and enjoy reading your comments. 

For convenience, my Facebook Personal Page and Facebook Author Page are hot linked. My handle on both Twitter and Instagram is @nctomatoman. 

My question to you who are reading this blog - is there anything you would like to see me do more - or less - of? I love to share my gardening experiences with you all, as well as learn from the information that you share with me.  How is it going?

Back deck geranium

A Midsummer report - Progress From the Driveway

The daily garden grind is in full swing. The list is pretty typical - on any given day the tasks involve watering, feeding, tying, pruning, spraying, troubleshooting, harvesting, seed saving....and of course, fretting! Each day brings something new; today it was the disappearance of quite a bit off of the top of one of my dwarf tomatoes, courtesy of a huge tomato horn worm. 

Back of the driveway

Front of the driveway garden

On balance, I am pretty pleased with how things are going, yet there are some trouble signs. Keeping up with removal of lower infected foliage is going better than last year. The plants seem to be appreciating larger containers (the indeterminate varieties) and more spacing (especially the dwarf tomatoes). Fruit set is uneven; the dwarfs are setting very well, but the indeterminate tomatoes are struggling...and blossom end rot is rearing its head. It is clear that even the driveway area receives less direct sun than is optimal; I believe this is impacting fruit set on the larger fruited varieties.

As far as trouble....I've lost a few varieties to disease, and this could be my most challenging experience with peppers due to my first widespread infection of bacterial spot. A few tomato plants in straw bales are showing a baffling mid day wilt. Tomato spotted wilt may be appearing on a few tomatoes that I really don't want to lose.

On to some specifics, by crop type.

Eggplants - I am growing only 9 plants (fewest in a long time), but they are all thriving. The three named varieties from the Orient Express dehybridization mini project are mostly true to type, and thus far, I have two plants that fit my objective for Skinny Twilight (my first eggplant, one from each plant with many more to come), one for Midnight Lightning (the second is just a bit off), with Twilight Lightning about to set fruit. Work to reselect Mardi Gras (a novel lavender streaked, green eggplant out of a Casper X unknown cross) looks promising as well with the desired target fruit showing up on one of the plants, and the second now in blossom. All plants are healthy. Overall grade for eggplants is an A. below are, left to right, Mardi Gras, Midnight Lightning and Skinny Twilight.

Peppers - These make me pretty sad to look at. Bacterial spot showed up early, and despite applications of copper spray, it is possible that most will be severely affected. One Fire Opal in a Gardeners Supply planter is doing very well. All of the super hot peppers are struggling.  I will likely not achieve much progress in the Islander dehybridization project varieties - Carolina Amethyst, Fire Opal, White Gold, and Royal Purple are those I am growing, with less than stunning results. Overall grade for peppers is a C. 

Indeterminate tomatoes - It's funny how things turn out. Last year I squeezed large fruited varieties like Cherokee Purple into 5 gallon grow bags, crowded them in and they did fine. This year I've provided 10 gallon pots, more room - and results are all over the place. Unexplained wilt (retaining green foliage) is hitting three plants in straw bales - Egg Yolk, Sun Gold and Little Lucky. A friend thinks it could be an early indication of verticillium or fusarium wilt...we shall see. One plant in a bale - Violet Jasper - went down quickly to what looked to be bacterial wilt. A number of plants in the 10 gallon pots - Mama's Huge Orange, Anna's Kentucky, Abraham Brown and Brandywine - have top growth on a few stems that look suspiciously like tomato spotted wilt. But there is good news as well - Mexico Midget, Amethyst Cream, Swokla Heart, Green Giant, the two Cherokee Chocolate and the two Cherokee Purple and Cherokee Green all look great, as does Uncle Joe, Lucky Cross and Lillian's Yellow, in terms of plant health. Issues with BER - and blossom drop - are hitting some of the healthy plants, however. Green Giant, Brandywine, Anna's Kentucky and Lillian's Yellow are struggling to set fruit, and when they do, BER soon follows. Again - a bit of a mystery, and I suspect tied to weather and amount of direct sun exposure. So - a mixed bag, and overall, a B grade.

Dwarf tomatoes - So far so good - excellent fruit set, very good to excellent health, and more than a few pleasant surprises coming along from some of my recent, newer crosses. Only one went down to disease, a Worry offspring that never did look particularly happy.  The various variegated dwarfs all look good, very attractive plants, setting fruit well. The odd yellow leaf goal in the Scotty cross are pretty strange; more about them in the future. Those varieties bred to show anthocyanin expression in the fruit are for the most part doing so. Overall, they grade out as A to A-, with the denser varieties showing the expected issues with early blight and/or septoria leaf spot.  Below are harvested fruit, whole and cut, from a Speckly selection, Reddy selection, Sandy selection and another Speckly selection. They were all very tasty!

It is hard to compress all that is happening into a single blog report, but I think you get the idea. This really is the most action packed part of the process - when the tending and culture and care intersect with harvest and seed saving and cooking, there simply aren't enough hours in the day. There will be much more to come!

General Update - and answers to some recently asked questions

The Burlington VT/Sunset Lake NH trip is over, but in no way forgotten. Speaking at Mother Earth News was fun - thanks to my audience members for coming to hear me talk tomatoes and straw bale and container gardening. It was wonderful to reconnect with friends - Carleen and the Storey gang, fellow authors Shawna, Melissa, Ira and Pam, to name but a few. Aside from the Fair, this trip will be about great pizza and beer and biking and a totally unexpected Diana Krall concert in Burlington, and a few days listening to loons and Kayaking at a cute tiny house location on Sunset Lake (also the biggest ice cream cone in history at Alton Bay).

Here are a few pics from our trip

Our neighbors Kim and Tom took splendid care of the garden...it is so, so difficult to leave a vigorously growing, much loved garden in early June. All is well! At this point, it is about regular watering, regular feeding, removing lower diseased foliage, and pruning. I am also starting to do a very few crosses...more on that in a future blog. The main issue is bacterial spot on pepper plants, the origin (and widespread nature) of which is a complete mystery. I've had just a few seedling deaths to what appears to be bacterial wilt (again, origin of which is a mystery). Oddly, one Sun Gold plant in a bale is starting to wilt. Issues in a garden seem to random!

I put a brief video update on my Facebook author page yesterday, which raised some good questions - which are listed below, along with some answers.

Rose asks "Craig, do you like the plastic bags? We have that tomato disease again in the beds--wilt? If so, what size and where did you get them! Thanks"

Answer:  I love the plastic grow bags, which I get from Peaceful Valley mail order. They are inexpensive, last for years, have bottom holes - perfect for my needs.

Daryl asks "Do you find that you have more disease with the tomatoes staked closely together around the center pot? We've had rain nearly every afternoon and I've been picking off so much foliage that the plants are going to be sans leaves before too much longer."

Answer: Crowding plants always seems to cause issues. Last year I had four containers around a central large pot - too many. This year I am going with one (10 gallon pot indeterminate), two (released dwarfs I need seed from), or three (R&D dwarfs that I am less concerned re yield). Still, foliage on the back of the plants - away from the sun - is always first to get spotting from the fungal issues Early Blight and/or Septoria. The more room you give tomatoes, the more sun and air flow completely around the plants, the more lower foliage issues can be minimized.

David asks "Compare results on tomatoes of straw bales vs black plastic?"

Answer: From my experience, equivalent yields can be achieved whether in pots, bales or a traditional dirt garden.  It becomes more about how you care for them - the containers right-sized for the varieties and fed more frequently than ground-grown tomatoes. For bales, there is plenty of root room for two plants - so, again, keeping up with watering and feeding is critical. But a Cherokee Purple in the ground, 10 gallon minimum container, or straw bale can each yield 20 lbs of tomatoes per plant if happy.

Jim asks "Question, do u pinch off the suckers on all your tomato plants or just leave then on?"

Answer:  It depends!  I don't sucker cherry tomatoes because I want lots and the plants seem to be able to handle such productivity - I just let it all grow and use twine to loop the plant around the stake every 6-12 inches vertically up the stake. For indeterminate large fruited types, my plan is to top the growing leads when they get to the top of the stake. As far as how many suckers I let go, it depends upon fruit set on the clusters. If I can get 2 or 3 or 4 tomatoes to get per cluster, I would aim to let 3-4 suckers develop - giving me 4-5 fruiting stems. If I can get 2-3 clusters to fruit on each stem before topped, that would be a range of 16 to 30 tomatoes per plant - if the ave fruit size is 12 oz, that is 12-20 pounds of fruit or more per plant, which would make me happy in this challenging climate. The key is then to remove suckers regularly...they appear each night, it seems! 

Garden color

Tomato blossom reaching for the sun

Deep into "maintaining the garden" mode...the heart of the seasonal journey

We are having one of those days that I love. It rained over night, which meant no need to water. Throughout the day, clouds gather, a gentle rain falls, the sun comes out...rinse, repeat - over and over again. While the humidity is high, the temperatures are moderate, so lots can get done.

Today was pruning and tying day, and also offered a chance to take stock on progress. The news is largely very good, but as with all gardens and all seasons, there is a spark of sadness here and there. I wonder how many of you find gardening to be as emotional as I do?

As of early afternoon, all plants are appropriately tied to their supporting stakes. All damaged foliage has been removed. All plants have been assessed and graded, and the information now resides in my seasonal Excel spreadsheet that represents my garden log. The first ripe tomato awaits consumption on our kitchen counter; it is an early set fruit on one of our dwarf cherry tomato candidates in the Teensy line.

We are off later this week to Burlington, Vermont, for my speaking appearances at the Mother Earth News Fair, taking on a few days vacation on either end (it is so, so hard to leave the garden at this time of year, but it will be in the capable hands of neighbors for watering).

Mocha says "hello" - she spends most days with me while I work in my driveway garden...and will be celebrating her 13th birthday soon!