I'm envious, Zabby, not even a hint of red here. But, like you, my tomatoes need staking....

Annie

Do it, Annie, who knows what you'll find under the jungle!

Zabby

Zabby,
Yeah, tomatoes! We have 4 or 5 almost ready to pick. It is like waiting for water to boil! The first in destined for a "mater sammich" - white bread, tomato, and Hellman's. Since the plants are in pots, they have been staked from the get go and most have been limited to one main stalk. They are all over 6 feet tall now. My friend who came to water them while we were gone said we have tomato trees. They are hubby's babies right now. The thornless blackberries (also in a pot) are starting to show just a little color. There are only a handful of berries on the bush since we just planted it last fall.

melly, I've got blueberries in pots that have been doing well for a couple of years now. I also have raspberries that I bought last year in June in a one-gallon pot and just didn't get around to puttin in the ground OR in a bigger pot (I'm having some angst planning my berry garden). Well, they ignored my dithering and went ahead and fruited anyway, in their one-gallon pot, being only about a foot high --- I still got about a cup of berries off of them! Imagine what they would do if they got some room....

What size pots for the blackberries? Did you put more than one cane in each pot?

Z

Guess I will have a few after all - after a seige of BER, but now things are looking healthy.

Am so pleased, because last year I started collecting my very own "heirlooms" and they are coming back just like the mother plant. Great! I saved the seeds from the best looking fruit, and now have some maters that are huge. I call them "paws" as that is what they look like, rather than round, but so delicious. Darned if I can remember where the originals came from, but now that they are here, they are "my" heirlooms, and hopefully, will be many more like them - really delicious.

I now have about 10 of them in my fridge drawer, and as soon as I get a few more, I'll crank up the Maslin and make some cooked down sauce (paste, sauce, ketchup - maybe)

Have a nice day, I'm going out to check on the "latest" stuff now (and feed the chickens).

Bejay

Bejay, maybe a super san marzano? I have some of these and they are long and pointed on the ends. Nothing like any others I have ever seen. I do save seeds too, and these are really big, compared to the original ones. Mine are very firm, and nearly dry inside with just a few seeds.

Well, I did stake up two more beds today, though I wimped out and didn't do the cherries, but some more manageable beefsteak and paste types. I decided I would do the bed with the other Stupice plant, and shore enough, it's got one almost red, too!

I also discovered some bad news --- that one of my plants is definitely mislabelled, as it has clusters of nice, green fruit in totally the wrong shape for what it's supposed to be. BUT the good news is that, whatever it is, a few of its fruits are starting to ripen, so I think I like it even better than what it was supposed to be (an African variety called Heidi). ;-)

Zabby, who is amazed at how filthy she gets staking and pruning tomatoes...

Another bed down! (Or, rather, up, as in staked!)

Three more to go, including the two containing the Monster Cherry Tomato Plants That Ate Ontario....

Zabby

Ksrogers -

The Marzanos are related to the Romas, a great paste tomato, and much larger.

The seeds I saved are from a slicer type, and I forgot the name, but they are shaped like big animal paws. Kind of flat on the bottom with many side pouches. They are quite meaty though, but not as much as the Roma or Marzano types.

I do have a few Romas, but they were hard hit by the BER, but set a lot of fruit initially. The latter settings appear to be OK, so hope to have more of the paste types to cook down for spaghetti sauce and pizza toppings.

So frustrating, I posted early this a.m. but computer still not behaving since installation of DSL, and may have to abort it afterall, it is so flaky.

Bejay

Yeah, we picked a tomato today! Can you say lunch? (We exercised control and didn't eat it on the spot.) We have been picking a few cherries but this was the first beefsteak.

Bejay, Same thing happened here. The romas had a bad case of BER where only a few of the others showed the symptoms. We appear to have the ph adjusted correctly now since our new ones appear ok as well. We have one monster roma. All but one of the other toms on its little bunch had to be removed. I think the plant compensated with this huge one. It is still setting fruit. I'm hoping for enough to make a batch of salsa. I'm thinking I just need to go buy a bunch of tomatoes to make sauce, etc. There is an organic farmer's market in Maastricht on Thursday afternoons that I have not checked out yet. Maybe that will be my project this week. But then again, with this heat, maybe not. It is supposed to be in the 90's today. It was only 87 yesterday but really didn't cool off as much overnight as I would have liked. Apparently I'm witnessing the hottest July in 300 years in the Netherlands. Thank goodness we have big metal blinds that roll down over the windows to block the sun. We do live in the dark quite a bit.

Zabby, I would guess that the blackberry is in maybe a two gallon pot. It is decorative pot that was empty so the blackberry was just a lark. I suppose it is just one cane. It was one of those plants sold with some sticks poking out of a plastic bag in a little cardboard box with a picture on it. I'm sure you've seen those. I only bought one. I'll have to find someone to give it to when we leave. I might be able to get enough berries to break even on the cost of the potting soil and plant before then.

I picked my first one yesterday and ate it after breakfast all by myself (it was small and misshapen and BF doesn't like them raw and plain nearly as much as I do, were my rationalizations...).

I think two more Stupice will be ready today, maybe tomorrow if I can make myself wait. I will share them with BF. I promise. ;-)

Zabby

I was weeding yesterday and found a fully ripe Aunt Gertie's Gold, hiding under the foliage at the base. Down it went on whole wheat toast, smoked bacon, and beet greens. Something to be said for starting a few plants very early so that when you set them out, there is already some fruit set on.

Zabby, I just dug up my blueberries from the garden, where they weren't doing so well, into large pots, where they seem to like it. What do you do in the winter? Leave them outside, or try to keep the roots from freezing?

Green chili season starts up in a week or so, and they'll be roasting them in the parking lots. I'll be thinking of ya.

David,

In winter I bury the pots for my blueberries and perennial herbs (all my herbs are in pots too; I started that way when I had only a balcony to put them on and now I've come to prefer the control). I have raised beds for my veggies so it's easy to just scoop aside some soil and pop in the pots.

I put a layer of straw or dried leaves on top, too, but the blueberries would be fine without it. In fact, one year I didn't bury them and two out of three were fine anyway. They are very cold-hardy shrubs; many varieties are hardy to zone 2 or 3, which means they are ok in containers to zone 4 or 5. (Sometimes I lose one or two perennial herbs, mind you, and then I just buy a new seedling. But most usually do fine.)

The advantage to having blueberries in pots is that you can control the soil acidity --- they like it quite acid.

I do wonder if my bushes might be bigger and bushier if they were in the ground --- the ones at the PYO place seem to be --- but maybe it's just the varieties. I don't have any in the ground for a control....

Zabby, who also finds her peppers do better in pots

My blueberries will never grow in pots, just too many shallow roots. The bushes I have gotten to over 12 feet tall. For these to be in pots would require a bulldozer to move them. Blues need at least 6-8 hours of full sun, VERY acidic soil, and plenty of mulch to keep the soil from drying out. If they are in pots, they may not survive for very long. Pick varieties that are low bush types if you want to keep them in pots.

I live in an area thats the exact opposite of prime blueberry habitat, an alkaline desert. I had an area between the garage and a side walk that I dug out the local soil, and replaced with peat moss. This also got all the rain drippings from the roof. I put in 8 blueberry plants about 5 years ago.

They have never done well, with the exception of the year it snowed a lot so they stayed moist all winter. This past winter was very dry, and they all died back by 2/3. So I potted them up, it was surprisingly easy as the root structure hadn't developed, in 5 years, much at all.

I've got them in an acidic soil mix, and fertilize with "acid loving" stuff. They seem to be doing pretty well, all of 2 feet high.

This is one of those things that gets a bit silly, expending so much effort on a project that has cost, what with all the peat moss and initial plants, about $100 and 20,000 mg of Ibuprofen for my back after digging out the bed, that has yielded, in 5 years, about a pint of blueberries.

I like a challenge.

Peat moss can acidify, but breaks down very quickly so its only a sort term acid. Elemental sulfur can be added twice a year and even soaker hoses can be used to help keep the roots from drying and the plants from dying. Adding a little peat every year can also help a little, but wood chips as a thick mulch will help hold a lot more water in the soil, and last a whole year or more. If you have oak trees, the leaves from these make a great mulch too. My bushes get a nice thick layer of oak leaves every fall and they remain there throughout the year. The nearby oak trees just help to keep a good supply of the leaves. The more acidic you can make the soil, the better the yields of blueberries