Early Blight -- OH NO!

Over the weekend I found that some of my tomato plants have early blight. At first I was stressing out about it, then I did some reading and found that it's a common problem that can be fixed pretty easily.

Infected leaf on my Early Girl plant

First, I took a photo of one of the leaves affected on my Early Girl plant. Then, I posted it to Facebook to see what others had to say.

After doing some more research online and listening to what people were saying on Facebook, I came to the conclusion that I'm dealing with early blight. Early blight is a fungal infection that is easily spread by water or touching leaves. The spores use water to travel, so when you water they splash up and land on the bottom leaves of your tomato plants. The spores move up from there, infecting your plant one leaf at a time, including jumping to other plants if their leaves touch.

Unfortunately, I planted my tomato plants way too close together, so airflow is at a minimum and the leaves will stay wet longer, so I need to take extra care when watering in the future. Also, I hope to get some soaker hoses set up, that way splashing won't be an issue anymore. Then, next year, I won't plant my tomatoes in the same spot, as that will encourage blight to return, and I'll make sure to spread them out more than I did this time.

My plan of action includes pruning off infected leaves, mulching heavily with straw and adding soaker hoses so I can limit splashing. I think I'm going to prune all of my plants about a foot off the ground. Maybe closer, I'll judge that when I'm out there and let you know what I decide.

Some articles I read promoted the use of fungicides but I hope to fix the problem without them -- I'm going to try, anyway. Another way to prevent blight is to plant blight-resistant varieties of tomatoes, but I wasn't paying attention to that sort of thing when I was buying my plants. Maybe next year I will look for different varieties, or plant in a different area. Experts say to wait 3-4 years to plant tomatoes in the same spot if they suffer blight.

Resources:
Purdue:
https://www.ppdl.purdue.edu/PPDL/expert/tomato-blight.html
Mother Earth News:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/preventive-pruning-for-tomato-early-blight-control.aspx
Tomato Dirt, blog
http://www.tomatodirt.com/tomato-blight-early.html

Greens, Tomatoes and Herbs

Today, Ryan and I harvested our first collard greens and kale.

We only have one plant of each item, but I feel like we can still get a good amount off each plant. I read where you can harvest the outer leaves and they will grow back three leaves every five days. Ryan was skeptical, but I reminded him of how fresh garden produce is and not to compare to grocery store produce. The stuff in the store is already a few days, if not a few weeks, old by the time

Top layer is kale, bottom layer is collard greens

it makes it to the consumer's kitchen. We can store the greens up until we have enough to make something. It should only take two, maybe three harvests.

The garden is coming along nicely. I am seeing small, green tomatoes on most of the plants. I haven't seen any on the Lemon Boys, but those are a late harvest anyway. I've seen tons of blossoms on the Black From Tula, but haven't seen any tomatoes, yet. The Early Girls are getting bigger and any day now we will have multiple fruits off that plant.

Yesterday, I ate my first tomato sandwich of the season with some Early Girls I'd let ripen by the window. I've been picking the tomatoes when they are a light orangey-red color, then I set them by a sunny window and let them redden up. It frees up the plant to put energy into other fruit this way, plus, I've heard from gardeners that tomatoes don't get anything from the plant after the white to orange stage. Either way, it's worked for me so far. They don't seem to get any bigger so, why not?

I also picked a bunch of basil yesterday, and thyme. It helps the plants to bush out and produce more this blog and enjoyed reading the writer's experiences with failing at basil. I would rather read and learn from someone else's mistakes, so I figured you would, too, since you're reading this blog. In regards to the flowers, I've been picking mine off of my basil plants, so that I can keep harvesting. I didn't realize that's what I was supposed to do, and think maybe that's why it's dying off a bit. I'll try to get rid of all the flowers and see what happens. I need to harvest much more of it so maybe it will bush out.

stems with more herbs if you cut the plants regularly. I cut the basil from the top, down, about 1&1/2 inches.  I found

I noticed that with the pineapple sage it's bushed out a bunch. I did cut a substantial amount from it a few times now, so that proves cutting down herbs encourages growth.

I've only cut some thyme, but it's grown a lot, too. The rosemary is growing tall and has a couple extra branches that weren't there before -- I started with one, single stalk.

The cilantro has begun to produce small, green seeds where the white flowers used to be. Only a few flowers have begun to turn, but I bet the rest are quick behind them. I read where you can harvest them green for one flavor, and dry them out for a completely different flavor. The plan is to try both ways and compare, then let you know the findings.

Tomatoes

Our sunpeach tomatoes are coming along.

Tomato Cages, Coriander Seeds, Rain Collection

Today, I fed my plants and gave them some support.

Some of the tomato plants already had cages, but today, Ryan and I bought some more and built a couple for our tomato and squash plants.

A friend gave me some cane reeds that we tied together and built into tomato cages. It was really easy. All I needed in addition was some green tape to tie the tips together and add some extra support. I tied some around the bottom of the canes to support the plants a little more. I'm hoping the tape will hold up, but will just have to wait and see.

I also decided to throw down some more food. The leaves on a couple of the plants are looking a little yellow again, so I figured some food wouldn't hurt. The last time that happened and I fed them, the yellow was gone the next day. It's crazy how fast you can see results in gardening.

I've noticed a few peppers on my jalepeno plant, small tomatoes on a couple of the plants and all kinds of blossoms. The basil plants are going crazy and some are producing flowers already. The pineapple sage is bushy and my thyme is thriving, too. The rosemary I planted to get rid of mosquitoes is branching out and I snipped a little the other day -- it was so fresh and aromatic. The lavender is bushing out a bit, and I haven't even watered it once. There's been a lot of rain, and lavender doesn't need as much water as other crops. I read that it needs well-drained soil, so I planted it on the outside of the beds, and so far, so good.

Something is eating the kale and the collard greens, but I read on Mother Earth News that during the warm summer months, those plants attract more pests than in the early spring or late fall when it's cooler out. Also, better tasting kale results from a couple of frosts, and that isn't happening any time
soon. I'm going to keep trying and see what happens. I can always try again in the fall.

The cilantro is flowering, which is one more step toward coriander. I'm waiting for the flowers to produce little green seeds -- coriander. I want to harvest some of the green seeds, but save some to dry out a bit for overwinter cooking. I read a blog that said the flavor is much different and the seeds can also be frozen so I could use them through some of the winter months.

We've continued to collect rain with our rain barrels, but, we've also found another way to collect waiter that would be otherwise wasted. We have a dehumidifier in the basement to help with moisture in the summer months. The machine collects water from the air and sends it into a reservoir. This particular dehumidifier also has a hose you can attach and therefore, aim it at whatever you want and collect the water. Originally, we had the hose aimed at the drain in the basement, but Ryan decided to put the hose in a bucket instead, and see how much water we could collect. We had no idea how much it would produce: up to four gallons a day!

So, we've hardly used our own water to water our garden or yard this year. I'm so glad Kansas isn't one of the states where it's illegal to collect rainwater. I just can't believe that's the case anywhere.

Everything is going well so far, and I'm so excited for some summer tomatoes.

Whoa, look at this worm, it's huge!

Ryan at work.

Tuesday, Ryan and I planted the crops we bought at the Topeka Farmers Market.

First, we had to uproot the spinach and mesclun mix to clear a spot for our new tomatoes and squash.  We used these hoes a friend of ours made for us, he likes to use metal to make things, including decorations. He goes by the name The Iron Florist. Here's an article I wrote about him, if you want to know more.  After pulling up the roots, we threw them into a pile a few feet away from the beds. Once they die we will add them to the compost bin.

Big worm

Ryan also bought a tool at the hardware store that can be used to shallowly till soil by hand. He used it to loosen up the soil and kind of mix it together, which helped rip up some of the weeds that were growing, too. Hopefully those won't come back. Weeds are hard to keep up on. At first I was getting all of them, then, slowly over time I slacked off. Then, there were a whole bunch of them and it took me a long time to get most of them, so I can see how it would be easy to let weeds take over your garden.

While tilling, we found a lot of worms. BIG worms! I was hoeing up some of the spinach when one flipped out of the soil and flew two feet, then scrambled to get back underground. It startled me and gave me a laugh at the same time! Then, Ryan found another one, pictured here. At least we know we have good soil thanks to these guys!

We added alfalfa mulch

We then planted our crops. We did three more tomato plants in the north bed -- where the other tomato plants and pepper plants are. Then, in the south bed we put the other three tomato plants, the squash along the southernmost side, and the greens on the northernmost side. We had a reason for our madness. The squash plants will yield 2-3 squash, so we figured this meant we will be picking those plants the least, so we placed those at the back where it's harder to reach. The tomato plants, however, will be picked frequently and better access will be appreciated. The greens are in the front since they are low to the ground and you need to be close to them to cut them. We tried to think ahead.

After planting, we added compost and mulch to each plant. Some of the plants we bought were already planted in compost, but we figured a little more wouldn't hurt. Here in a couple weeks, I'll add some plant food.

There is a blank space in our garden. The reason for the blank space is that we were scared to take on too much for our first garden. I've read all over the place that the biggest mistake new gardeners make is taking on too much. We decided to give it a week or two, then decide if we can take on more. I think we should just do what we have so far, and start planning a fall garden. It's been so fun so far, I wouldn't want to overwhelm myself, so I'll probably just carry on with what I have.

If you have any comments, tips or advice, please comment below. I'd love to hear your experiences!

More tomatoes and other things to plant

I went to the Topeka Farmers Market this weekend and bought six more tomato plants. Now that we've harvested the spinach and greens three times, and it's getting hotter, we decided to replace those crops with more tomatoes, squash and greens.

In addition to six more tomato plants, we got kale, collard greens, Lakota squash, zucchini,

New additions

muskmelon, acorn squash and butternut squash. One of our neighbors has a booth at the market and he gave us a great deal on the plants and threw in a couple for free so we picked the Lakota and the muskmelon. We weren't necessarily planning to plant these things but because of our recent success, we have become slightly addicted to growing our own food. We thought, if we could grow that other stuff, why not this stuff?

Back to the tomatoes. We got six different types, because we just couldn't get the same kinds we already have. We want to try many different varieties, and we were able to find some so that worked out for us well. I tried searching all the varieties on the Tomato Chooser app, but they weren't all on there. I'm not sure what that means, but I still bought varieties that weren't on the app because the lady selling them did a good job. Below is a list and a description of each variety of tomato we picked.

Cherokee Purple -- a medium-sized slicer that turns a dark purple but lighter-colored at the stem.

Sunrise Bumblebee -- a yellow to red cherry tomato. These vary in color on the inside and the outside and are sweet.

Lemon Boy -- a medium-sized yellow tomato. I believe we got some of these from some friends last year and they a late maturing, and will be ready after most other tomato plants are done for the season. We canned a lot of them and that seemed to be a great storage method for this type of tomato.

Pink Tiger -- an elongated cherry tomato, these look like their namesake, with tiger-like stripes on the little fruits. I really want to get a dehydrator and do sun-dried tomatoes, the Tomato Chooser app says this variety is best dried.

Sunpeach -- This kind is another cherry tomato. The descriptions say it's a sweeter, less acidic cherry tomato.

Brandywine Burgundy -- this tomato is a sister of the brandywine tomato. It's going to be a dark purple slicer that could grow as large as 1 lb.

Tumbling toms

We also bought a hanging basket of Tumbling Tom tomatoes. They looked pretty healthy and like the plant would yield a lot, and this plant already had a bunch of red fruit on it. We picked some for dinner tonight on our fresh garden greens. I ate a couple and they are sweet, juicy and a little meaty.

I look forward to planting these new plants in our garden and even more to them growing. Gardening has proven to be exciting and fruitful -- literally!

The tomatoes we planted a couple weeks ago are coming along nicely. The Early Girls are producing new fruit daily, and there is one tomato starting to turn orange/red. The other plants are flowering, which means fruit is coming soon.

The basil I planted by seed is coming up and thriving. The pineapple sage has doubled in size and the

My herb container with a variety of basil, pineapple
sage and thyme.

Siam Queen basil is coming along nicely, too. I started pulling off the purple flowers to promote new, bushy growth at the base of the plant and it worked. I have a few new shoots coming off with new leaves that will probably end up in dinner one night.

A couple days ago, I added some plant food to my soil around the tomato plants. It's been a few weeks and I felt like they needed some food. The leaves were turning yellow on our pepper plants, but ever since I fed them, they've greened back up again. So, I must have done something right!

Heavy Rain = Flooding

This weekend, we had a lot of rain here in Topeka. It was hard, severe rain, too.

I had to work Saturday, so the storm began before I was able to get home. It poured! By the time I got home, my basil plants were swimming in a half-inch of rainwater, but the rest of the garden seemed fine. Some of it seemed a little beaten down because of the heavy rain, but everything perked up after soaking up the nitrogen-rich thunderstorm water. The basil ended up being OK, at least I hope. I've been checking on it and the pot it's in drained well, so the soil is still moist but drained. The seedling roots seem to be holding firm, so I don't think I lost any of them. I was really worried about it, so I'm glad to see they are still alive.

Our tomato plant, the 'Early Girl' plant, is already showing promise. There are about 10 small, green tomatoes, and I'm sure there will be more. The other plants haven't started producing, but they are getting bigger.

The mesclun greens and some of the spinach is coming back. The spinach doesn't look the best, but we plan to steam and freeze it anyway, so that shouldn't matter. It looks like we are having a few more slugs as it heats up, too, so the leaves have a few holes in them. The mesclun greens, on the other hand, are growing back perfectly. We harvested a few for dinner last night and they still taste great. I did notice that they weren't as tender as the first growth, but they are still more tender and sweet than the greens you can buy at the grocery story. I think we are going to harvest and grow them one more time and see what happens. We've been lucky and it's been in the 60s and 70s the past couple weeks, but I think it's probably going to start heating up soon.

Cilantro

The cilantro is going crazy! I decided to cut some of our extra growth and bring it to work for others to enjoy. There's no way we can use it all! We still plant to let it flower and try to harvest the
coriander seeds later on. It's so fragrant and fresh. My hands smelled like cilantro for the rest of the day.

Ryan and I decided that we haven't planted enough tomato plants. So, in two weeks we are going to return to the farmers market and get a few more tomato plants and plant them where the spinach was. We are going to let the mesclun mix regrow for a third harvest, but after that, we will probably wait until the fall to try those again.

My friend, Nicole, gave me a cute, yellow birdie to put in my garden. I put it beside the tomato plants in hopes it may scare away critters that may want to eat them -- like squirrels. Maybe I will get a few more ornaments like them and see if they work. If not, it will at least look pretty. I have been leaving my dog, Zoey, out for a few hours here and there and that seems to be helping. I have't sen recent signs of them -- I have seen lots of trees growing since the rains. I've been weeding like crazy!

Speaking of weeds, I definitely recommend picking them as soon as you see them. When they get bigger, they get harder to pick. Their roots get deeper and they get a better hold on the soil, therefore, it's harder to extract them completely to make sure they won't grow back. I've figured this out the hard way. For the most part I've been picking them when they are really small, but, a few have gotten away from me. Part of me thought maybe they'd be easier to grab and pull if they were a little bigger, but that is just not the case. They are easier to grab, but that doesn't mean you'll be able to get the entire root without using a spade or something else to help dig them out. So, even though you have to dig your fingers into the dirt a little, it's easier when the weed is young than a few days old. they don't take long to take hold.