Logan's Urban Desert Garden

[MissS]

I do have a canner and a dehydrator too but I must say that my best investment was a freezer. I hate heating up my house and then having to pay to run the A/C to cool it down. The freezer is no work and no heat. I can just throw them in the freezer whole or run them through a blender, then bag them. I will wait until winter to cook them down and warm my house. I can make anything that I want with them once they are thawed out.

[JayneR13]

I do freeze most of my vegetables, this is true. After blanching of course, so for me at least there is work and heat involved. The Blue Book has many instructions for these techniques.

[leftylogan]

I think I've been convinced to go for a pressure canner first. Presto or spring for the All-American... probably Presto first and then I can upgrade or have a second one be better. I will definitely be picking up anything from Ball to make the most of it. I have some excess freezer space that I'm sure I'll take advantage of too. I've always wanted a chest freezer but there's no room for that in this place and I think my gf would kill me so that'll have to wait until I have a real house. My main thought on the dehydrator was for gifts since I know my family would use various powders or dehydrated stuff but the utility of the canner wins out initially.

One of the reasons I hadn't picked up any tools, even the 99 cent ones, was because my parents have more than they need and told me to take whatever next time I'm visiting. That just isn't going to be until the end of April so I had to cave on a few things. I know I'll still be needing a knife so I'll take a look at some hori hori's, thanks!

[leftylogan]

Weather got nice for the weekend after getting a decent chunk of rain on Friday and the high staying below 60!?! I got a decent amount done and worked on my tan . Another weird week of rain and cold weather is coming though and I'm looking at another projected high of 55 this coming Friday after the storm blows out.

Started with all of this



Was left with this



Which made my plant pile look like this



I've been pinching Tomato and pepper flowers but I let the squash/melons/cucumber throw their first sets of flowers to do an initial attraction of pollinators. It apparently worked because I have some cucumbers...



and a watermelon!?!



All the cucumber flowers are probably bad news since they are a bush variety. I'll start a second batch here when my pinetree order arrives (Wednesday). Excited for the watermelon even if it doesn't end up being much considering they are $9 at Walmart right now.

[TX-TomatoBug]

I used mushroom compost in 2023. This was my pot of radishes.

IMG_4061.jpeg

[JayneR13]

Why do you pinch the first tomato flowers? Is it to encourage plant growth in the beginning?

Free tools-I can see it! And 99 cent tools are good in a pinch but overall, they're worth what we paid for them. Buy the hori hori. I found a few on Amazon slightly cheaper than the Red Pig that appeared to be of good quality. This is the replacement I purchased and it feels good in my hand.

Screenshot 2025-03-11 at 9.14.52 AM.png

[worth1]

Why do you pinch the first tomato flowers? Is it to encourage plant growth in the beginning?

Free tools-I can see it! And 99 cent tools are good in a pinch but overall, they're worth what we paid for them. Buy the hori hori. I found a few on Amazon slightly cheaper than the Red Pig that appeared to be of good quality. This is the replacement I purchased and it feels good in my hand.


Screenshot 2025-03-11 at 9.14.52 AM.png

Through experiments and Carolyns vast knowledge I've found that if the plant is below around 12 14 inches or so it can stunt the plant.
I've had plants stop growing to put out energy for one tomato.
That the tomato off and the plant starts growing again.

[leftylogan]

Why do you pinch the first tomato flowers? Is it to encourage plant growth in the beginning?

Free tools-I can see it! And 99 cent tools are good in a pinch but overall, they're worth what we paid for them. Buy the hori hori. I found a few on Amazon slightly cheaper than the Red Pig that appeared to be of good quality. This is the replacement I purchased and it feels good in my hand.


Screenshot 2025-03-11 at 9.14.52 AM.png

In my cart for my next order, thank you!

Worth beat me to it but that's essentially my reasoning. A lot of my first sets of flowers felt like stress flowers instead of happy flowers so I had to remind them that they aren't stressed and to grow instead of reproduce. Add in this weird inconsistent weather and I just don't need them to be trying to fruit and grow at the same time through it.

[leftylogan]

I went to the Maricopa County Master Gardner plant sale and was pretty disappointed. I could have produced their entire vegetable tables and I was there only 30 minutes after opening. I felt obligated to get a couple of things so I picked up a prickly pear and another succulent that I will get the name of later.



Busy day today once it finally warmed up after a couple of unusually cold storms. Mixed all of this



Was left with just this



I reorganized all of my grow bags to make it easier to water and then it got dark before I could get an update picture. Will snap one in the morning after I water.

@TX-TomatoBug Looks like the rain made of one of your mushroom friends fruit in my sunflowers

[JayneR13]

I hear you! I went to the Brown County Seed Library launch and was there a total of 20 minutes. The most useful thing I got there was the seed. The programs were just so basic! I'm a bit past seed starting and how to make seed tape. Oh well.

[leftylogan]

Only a couple of the volunteers seemed excited to be there (I get it the weather sucked) and it made me not want to find a way to get involved. I know some fantastic people in the extension office through work but that apparently doesn't carry over to the master gardener stuff.

Already in the 60's by 8 this morning and humidity is low and dropping so I got some water on everything and got a decent picture of the new organization setup. I'll probably re-do it one more time and double up some of the rows. Also subject to change depending on the summer sun angle.

[karstopography]

Got to be zero foliar disease issues with no native soil nearby, with nothing but just those clean looking rocks in sight and the grow bags or am I wrong?

I’m 99% certain most any and about all the foliar diseases here in my area are coming from the native soil being aerosolized, taken up with and along the destructive fungal spores and bacteria, during rain or watering and landing on the tomato leaves. So it isn’t the rain or top watering that is the problem, it’s the splash and mist off the soil contaminanted with the bad organisms that gets airborne and finds its way to the tomato leaves.

[Mark_Thompson]

Maybe I missed it, but what’s your caging/support plan?

[leftylogan]

@karstopography So far so good on the disease front! The immediate area I'm in is very newly developed so there isn't any native soil left anywhere. Your aerosolization hypothesis is interesting. I would imagine a fungal disease would have an easier time establishing itself if the conditions were correct on the outside of a leaf. Rather than it being drawn up with water through the roots and attacking from the inside which lends itself to your hypothesis. Issues may crop up later this summer if we get any monsoon activity that kicks up the haboobs/dust storms. There's some nasty stuff in the native soil around here so hopefully it can be avoided. My dog actually has Valley Fever (fungal) from either the blowing dust or digging holes in my in-laws backyard.

@Mark_Thompson I'm figuring that out on the fly . I've been trying to come up with something that can be doubled up to add shade cloth too. Leader in the clubhouse is some sort of Florida Weave style setup so that I can lay the shade cloth over the top of the stakes. I'll probably have to drive some anchor stakes into the ground if I go that route to prevent anything from collapsing.

[karstopography]

@leftylogan I forgot about dust storms and such. We get dust blown in from the west and southwest and then some smoke particulates. We also get the saharan dust later in the year. Once upon a time, some smoke blew in from big agricultural fires deep in Mexico that was particularly harmful to plants. Can’t live in a bubble.

[TX-TomatoBug]

@TX-TomatoBug Looks like the rain made of one of your mushroom friends fruit in my sunflowers

haha. Tell that mush-friend that I don't miss him.

[leftylogan]

First sunflower!

[MissS]

That is such a happy plant!

[leftylogan]

More of the same the last couple of weeks. Pulled my watermelons, cantaloupe, and cucumbers for failure to thrive (first batches of potting soil I mixed and I didn't get it right). Re-did that potting soil to fill other stuff since it wasn't a disease problem.

Re-organized everything into double rows. May go back to singles as I figure out supporting everything. Biggest tomatoes are ~2 feet tall so I really need to decide what I want to do for the supports.



More to do...



Flower and cactus pictures here:

viewtopic.php?p=148391#p148391

[JayneR13]

I find that I can lean about two feet across a bed for weeding. I'm not sure if that translates into your bag method though. Containers on my deck don't get nearly the weeds that raised beds do! Of course my containers didn't get the unfinished compost three years ago either.