Posted on 08/17/2019 7:09:33 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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Thank you!
I grow a lot of herbs. They are the only thing that seems to grow for me.
Well, for basics, the ground needs to be above 60F for plants as tomatoes, and should regularly get at least 5 hours of sun, and the soil improved by working into into the soil some sphagnum, dried manure and some 10-10-10 fertilizer and likely the some fast acting lime. If the soil is very rocky then you should screen it. You can have the soil tested if you want to spend the money. Hope this helps.
Thanks. The incredible rockiness of the soil around here is so bad that there is more rock than soil. And some of them are BIG. Thanks for your help. I DO admire what you haver done with the small amount of space. :-)
Well, here in NE it is said that "rocks are our best crop," and the weather can go from 100'' of snow in one month to the 90's, and thus from barren ground (after being tilled) to a fruitful season (5 months), thanks be to God.
(garden area is to the right)
What you need to do is makeshift a screen out of about 1'' screen or less. Just a quick pic: 
Missouri https://www.rareseeds.com
Maine https://www.johnnyseeds.com
Vermont https://www.highmowingseeds.com
I’ve always thought it’s a good idea to buy seeds and plants from a nearby location so they’d be acclimated over the generations to the same type of climate.
I just discovered some in the middle of our Tiger Lillies and did a bunch of reading on them. After transplanting, they usually won’t bloom for a year or three.
“stratification”
I don’t think many veggie seeds require it. Lots of flowers and trees do.
I know I’ve kept peas and planted them the next year without doing anything special to them.
I think we might be neighbors!
So much of everything wrong was weather-related this season. I have plenty of mature tomatoes ON - but with a lack of sunshine and cooler night temps, they don’t want to ripen!
This may end up being ‘The Year of Fried Green Tomatoes!’
It varies a little by company, but most seed companies make their new stock available starting around December. Some hold off until January.
I’ve had good luck with rareseeds...
I brought a big pile of maters into the house to ripen before the critters can take a bite out of each one.
I’m having the same issue. They are finally starting to ripen very slowly but I brought some in to try an speed up the process. I have never ever had to bring tomatoes into the house to ripen unless we’re well into fall and they are the last of the season.
We had a horrible heat wave last week and suddenly cooled off. I can’t believe I’ve had to wear my fleece bathrobe in July and August. The weather has been so weird. It gets hot in the daytime and cold at night like we’re in high desert or something.
Re: Seeds. Yep. At Jung’s, in the last few years, I was stocking The Seed Wall (the BANE of my existence!) before Christmas and the catalogs had an earlier and earlier deadline each year it seemed.
I always order as soon as I can look through and make my selections for the year once the seed catalogs arrive. I usually order the same things from year to year - tried and true varieties for my Zone 4/5 garden. This year I selected some new, but all Determinate, tomatoes to try. I’m pretty happy with what I chose this season and a few will be repeats.
As Ellendra pointed out in an earlier thread, it would be wise to order as soon as the companies make things available as the wild weather this past growing season might make some seed varieties unavailable to us.
My aunt used to can salmon out of the lake they lived on in northern Michigan.
Beautiful flowers. No leaves??? Not familiar with them.
Those varmints!!
“...I’ve had to wear my fleece bathrobe in July and August.”
Beau was wearing his this morning! It was 63 degrees, and we’d just had rain come through - which was needed.
I run HOT so it felt perfect to me. Still in flop-flops, sleeveless top and yoga Capri pants - my standard summer wardrobe now that I’m retired. Yay! :)
My BIL is in San Diego and he can grow Hot Peppers just fine, but struggles with Tomatoes. It’s due to the cool nights and it never really gets above 72 very often. Sweet Peppers and Tomatoes like it much hotter with warm nights.
We’re in a Solar Minimum now, for the foreseeable future. Time to look at shorter-season crops, for sure. This article isn’t all doom and gloom. Looks like Global Warming is a GOOD THING, because if we’re running hot (I, personally do NOT believe that mankind is the cause of all of Earth’s perceived woes) then the Solar Minimum won’t be so awful. She may go off Her meds from time to time, but Mother Nature does a d@mn good job of giving us a wonderful planet to live on!
https://www.almanac.com/news/astronomy/astronomy/solar-minimum-approaching-mini-ice-age
I am looking forward to Fall, though. I like Spring and Fall best - Summer and Winter are work, work, work between the gardens and shoveling snow!
Spring and fall are also the prettiest.
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