Worthless Garden.

[karstopography]

That northwest wind was insane all day here. One good sized Pruden’s Purple tomato evidently was rubbed and smashed against the support bamboo with the wind thrashing the plant. Looks like it might be my first large tomato casualty of 2023.

[worth1]

I can't imagine how miserable it would have been fishing in such weather.

[worth1]

Went out and checked the plants no worse for wear.
Lots of set fruit and lots of new growth and side branches with set fruit.
Looks like they need fertilizer but they're doing fine without it.
Why mess with it when things are doing well.

[worth1]

Put more coils up and some dill is sprouting.
Added fertilizer too.

[karstopography]

I can't imagine how miserable it would have been fishing in such weather.

A few years ago a couple of kayakers launched off a nearby beach in calm conditions and zero surf to take in some bull redfish action that tends to happen at certain periods a few hundred yards offshore. Unfortunately, they neglected to heed the forecasts for an impending big NW blow like we had the other day or maybe they thought they’d just paddle in when it started to blow.

For every doubling of the wind speed, the force exerted on surfaces quadruples. So a 20mph wind exerts 16 times the pressure on surfaces as a 5mph wind. At some point not too far above 20mph, it becomes physically impossible for any human to paddle into the wind and make headway.

They found those kayakers alive miles offshore, I think one or both were clinging to an unmanned offshore natural gas production platform. I wonder if they ever kayaked again?

Me, I won’t kayak open water if the forecast is above 15 mph.

[worth1]

The tomato plants have greened up considerably after the fertilizer 2 days ago.
Trusses are getting bigger as the plants get bigger.

@karstopography
I remember one year back in the 90s the wind blew all the water out of the inland water ways..

[worth1]

Made some more coils and installed them to spread out the branches.
Also planted some of the cargamanto beans to see if they would sprout.
The first tomatoes are starting to turn.
Swiss chard is looking really well in the dedicated container.
Weeded done of the weaklings out of the other containers.
But like an idiot I planted some bean seeds there as well.
If memory serves me the last time I tried this the plants were really dark green and looked a little different but the snails ate them all.
Next try the rabbits or deer got them.
I love these beans and the only place I can find them is at fiesta market in Austin.
They are a flat pod bean I think.

[worth1]

A few Worthless garden photos.
Darn tomato trusses everywhere.
Swiss chard doing great.

IMG_20230508_080824603.jpg

IMG_20230508_080838880_HDR.jpg

IMG_20230508_081041237_MF_PORTRAIT.jpg

IMG_20230508_081215769_MF_PORTRAIT.jpg

IMG_20230508_081655832.jpg

[worth1]

Juliet let's go really easy.
The two I was waiting on just fell off before completely ripe by just a bump.
They were more or less orange.
They're in the house waiting to get completely red.
That'll be in about another day.

[worth1]

Swiss chard starting to produce a few leaves.
Went out and gathered some right after a rain.
Nothing to write home about but they are what they are.

IMG_20230509_200142919.jpg

[karstopography]

Looks one million times better than mine. Swiss chard gets instantly devoured by some UFO, unidentified freaking organism, out in my garden. Anything beet family is a no go. I might try beets or chards again, but have very low expectations.

[worth1]

I had to put in more coils today for yet more vines reaching out for help.
Naturally this involved more dangerous engine lathe work.
That means no mind altering drugs or alcohol.
Let me explain this the best way I can.
The engine lathe is a very dangerous piece of machinery in the shop.
It has many bewildering buttons levers and so on that do many things.
One mistake and it's toast for Ole Worth.
Game over fun over.
First picture shows mandrill I coil wire with.
This wire is long and straight.
So let's start from there.
Put wire in hole and hold the wire.
Select the proper speed.
You will see it's in between l and II, so much for Roman numerals right we're still using them.
Between the numbers is a neutral position chuck moves freely and isn't connected to the main drive.
B I is 70 rpm and B II is 360 rpm, a huge difference.
Now if the other lever is in the wrong position it can get even worse, A II is 1400 rpm.
So you have to pay attention, imagine holding they wire and it getting suck up at 1400 rpm.
So we're at 70 rpm and I bump the lathe up to a point and stop.
Turn power off put lever B in neutral and wind the rest of the way by hand.
Release tension by letting it uncoil slowly and remove wire.
These are important steps that have to be followed every time.
You simply can't leave one out because you won't stall this machine out.
All other levers are in neutral as well.

IMG_20230510_133525499_HDR.jpg

IMG_20230510_133539951_HDR.jpg

IMG_20230510_133552663_HDR.jpg

IMG_20230510_133600703_HDR.jpg

[worth1]

I have no idea what I'm going to do when the vines reach the upper horizontal support wire, one already has.
And more are on the way.
But I do have a couple of ideas.
We'll see what happens.
I have some Texas tomato cages set off to the side I have coils attached to.
One year I unraveled a bunch of black prince vines that were an astounding 16 feet long from one plant.

[worth1]

I have some volunteer pepperoncini plants peaking their heads out of the jungle.
I also yanked a swiss chard plant up by the roots and moved it.
That's the picture with the red line in it showing the plant.. we'll see how it does.
General clearing of lower leaves and anything that looks bad.
Opening up some sunlight to the chard.

IMG_20230510_143258926.jpg

IMG_20230510_144236003_HDR~2.jpg

IMG_20230510_143326500.jpg

[worth1]

I think the most enjoyment I'm getting is not being so serious about it.
And not being over ran by too much.
Did that before and it wasn't a good experience for me because I'm an extreme perfectionist.
Constantly worried about every little detail and thing.
I would get home from work and see myself over ran by more work in the hot sun.
Not good.
Now just a few minutes not even every day keeps things in order.

I mean you have to sit back and reconsider what's going on if you have 200 plants and you're depressed because something happens to one of them.
Then there's the whole lunacy about which ones to choose.

I have enough of these worries at work to bring it home with me.

[worth1]

The cargamanto beans I planted started to sprout.
Pretty happy about that.

[worth1]

Got enough for a hamburger.
Spent a few minutes attending to the plants and the coils too.
One thing I noticed is one of my fresh growth stems was broken by me but not all the way.
I just left it alone to heal.
Around the area of damage root primordia started growing.
This was way up on the vine.
Obviously the damage triggered this reaction saying we need roots.
An interesting observation.

IMG_20230513_214437645_HDR.jpg

[worth1]

No pictures but the tomato plants are just loaded up with tomatoes.
And I have some volunteer peanuts starting to do really well.
The flavor of the Juliet has a deep flavor but can't explain it.
Swiss chard starting to kick it up
Put a store bought carrot in with it to see what it does.
The last time I did this it got really fat.

[worth1]

Out of all the beans I planted only 3 came up.
I might have planted too deep and they ran out of energy since they were so old.
One was in limbo but has started to put out first real leaves.
Wasn't expecting anything great just wanted to see the plant grow.
Carrot is putting out new top and rest assured it's putting out root hairs under ground.
I'll probably just trim the carrot top a little at a time for a garnish.
It's too bad that the huge majority of carrot tops just go to waste because they add a lot of flavor to things.
Think chopped carrot top on a taco.

The chard plant I ripped out of the ground and moved is doing fine.

[worth1]

Here's a few pictures.
Decided to plant 3 more carrots.
The chard.
The peanut plants.
Having a horrible time with the dill the hard rain keeps beating it up.
Bean plant ready to climb.
Tomato vine in training.

IMG_20230519_104246028_HDR.jpg

IMG_20230519_104256139_HDR.jpg

IMG_20230519_104305213_HDR.jpg

IMG_20230519_104311506_HDR.jpg

IMG_20230519_104359600_HDR.jpg