The San Antonio Sandbur Patch

[MarkAndre]

I’ll have to look through your grow log, Worth. Watering containers becomes a chore in the heat of summer.

[worth1]

I’ll have to look through your grow log, Worth. Watering containers becomes a chore in the heat of summer.

I don't actually talk about it this year.
I picked up the idea from the Aztecs with their so called floating gardens known to them as chinampas.
And other tribes like in Chaco canyon supposedly using the high water table to keep plants water.

[MarkAndre]

@worth1 That is some soggy dry farming.

[Wildcat82]

With my method of container growing I don't water but maybe twice a week in the heat of the summer.

With the crystals, I water about twice a week during summer as well.

Also, when I set out my transplants in July for my Fall garden, I add a teaspoon of crystals directly around the roots of each transplant. When its 100 degrees, I've found it's extremely hard to keep the tiny plants hydrated. Even watering 3 times per day I'd still lose a lot of plants. The crystals really make that a non-problem.

[Wildcat82]

I’ll have to look through your grow log, Worth. Watering containers becomes a chore in the heat of summer.

I don't actually talk about it this year.
I picked up the idea from the Aztecs with their so called floating gardens known to them as chinampas.
And other tribes like in Chaco canyon supposedly using the high water table to keep plants water.

Native Americans had some ingenious irrigation methods.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ancient+peru+ ... &ia=images

[Wildcat82]

While my raised bed tomatoes were a disaster, my container plants are doing much better. Supersweet 100 is putting out a lot of tiny (5 gram) cherries while Black Cherry is fully loaded now with at least 75 green ones (I actually counted). Blush is setting a few fruit while both Super Sioux have about 20-25 fruit. The Indian Stripes look rather sickly but have a few fruit hanging. Overall, I'm thrilled and look to be on pace for my best spring harvest in 10 years. I hope I didn't just jinx myself

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[karstopography]

@Wildcat82 I count tomatoes on the plants also. Maybe not every plant, but enough, lol.

Congratulations on getting a good spring on Tomatoes. My friend in Kemah uses grow bags or containers for at least some of his tomatoes and they do well in those.

[worth1]

I’ll have to look through your grow log, Worth. Watering containers becomes a chore in the heat of summer.

I don't actually talk about it this year.
I picked up the idea from the Aztecs with their so called floating gardens known to them as chinampas.
And other tribes like in Chaco canyon supposedly using the high water table to keep plants water.

What I did some time ago was to break the rules when it came to container gardening.
40 gallon water tubs with one half inch hole on the down hill end at the bottom.
No other holes.
A clear sight tube was put in and ran to the top of the tub.
This allowed me to see how much water was in the tub.
More or less the water table.
Since I've been doing this for so long I no longer use the sight tubes because I can just tell how much to water.

All the distractors said it wouldn't work.
Root rot breaks the rules and so in.
Well it did for me.
Soil mix was about 50/50 pearlite to MG organic raised bed soil NOT container soil.
Maybe a little less pearlite.
As it is now I need to replenish the soil but I always seem to have something growing in them.
If a rain storm hit I would just lower the tubes and let the water drain out.

[Wildcat82]

It seems like most of the rules just don't apply to south central Texas.

[worth1]

It seems like most of the rules just don't apply to south central Texas.

Certain rules just have to be followed but some are regional too.

[Wildcat82]

I pulled up the elephant garlic today. Looks like I got 15 to 20 tennis ball sized bulbs plus a few smaller ones.

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[Wildcat82]

Looks like I spoke too soon on my garden. Things have gone steadily downhill since 1 May. While Oberon and Minx seem to work fairly well for spider mites and russets mites, etc. I'm not happy that they didn't seem to affect broad mites at all.

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[Wildcat82]

Every single tomato, pepper, eggplant, beans, etc along with my Meyer lemon and Bearrs lime and been relentlessly attacked by mites this year (and every year). Right now all of my plants are stunted and sickly. This is surprising (and disappointing) since I have been spraying with commercial grade miticides (Oberon, Minx) per label instructions all spring.

Time to try something new since I’ve got nothing to lose.

Studies/expert recommendations I’ve seen indicate there are several good miticides for spider mites, russet mites, etc. But I have not seen any expert claim there are any good broad mite miticides. I think a large part of the problem is that broad mites are different from all other mites. Spider mites and russet mites attack the older leaves leaves, usually from the bottom up, while broad mites attack the youngest foliage and buds. Miticides like Abamectin, Oberon, Floramite, etc are translaminar and are supposed to last 21 days (and can only be sprayed 2-3 times per year). In a 3 week period there is typically a lot of new growth and bud formation on plants which is completely unprotected from broad mites. Broad mites attack the new growth and inject poison into the host with every bite. Plants typically can recover from spider mite or russet mite attacks but not broad mite infestation.

IMHO what’s needed is some type of spray regimen that kills broad mites and but can be used often enough to protect the new growth and buds. Since broad mites reproduce in a week, I figure I need to spray several times a week to keep up. Besides that, all miticides are marginal at controlling broad mites so I need to hit them with something just about every day. Below is my spray schedule til temperatures are consistently in the 90’s. After that, the broad mites will be gone.

New Spray schedule
Sunday - horticultural oil
Monday – Every 2 weeks spray Bifenthrin
Tuesday - Grandevo
Wednesday – Venerate
Thursday - Grandevo
Friday – Horticultural oil
Saturday- Venerate
(Note I’ve already used Minx and Oberon the maximum number of times for the year so I’m switching to Bifenthrin)

All sprays are approved for tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, citrus, etc
Bonide Horticultural Oil’s label say you can spray twice per week
Grandevo and Venerate have no restrictions on how many times you can spray their product since mites can’t develop resistance because of their products multiple modes of action.
Bifenthrin can be sprayed four times per year

Hopefully I can get tomatoes out of these older plants and keep my 1 May transplants growing. Wish me luck

[worth1]

I'm constantly having to keep an eye out for white flys.
Never saw them until last year.
So far I've been winning with mechanical destruction with fingers and pinching and destroying leaves.
If I have to I'll sacrifice some stems with a mixture of kerosene and mineral oil.
Oddly enough it has never actually killed the plant but it does a number on insects.

[Wildcat82]

I'm constantly having to keep an eye out for white flys.
Never saw them until last year.
So far I've been winning with mechanical destruction with fingers and pinching and destroying leaves.
If I have to I'll sacrifice some stems with a mixture of kerosene and mineral oil.
Oddly enough it has never actually killed the plant but it does a number on insects.

Two years ago I had a veritable cloud of white flies in my backyard. Nothing worked to get rid of them til I doused my whole backyard with Malathion.
Last time I saw the cloud they were headed North -Northeast from here. I sent them your way. You're welcome

[worth1]

I'm constantly having to keep an eye out for white flys.
Never saw them until last year.
So far I've been winning with mechanical destruction with fingers and pinching and destroying leaves.
If I have to I'll sacrifice some stems with a mixture of kerosene and mineral oil.
Oddly enough it has never actually killed the plant but it does a number on insects.

Two years ago I had a veritable cloud of white flies in my backyard. Nothing worked to get rid of them til I doused my whole backyard with Malathion.
Last time I saw the cloud they were headed North -Northeast from here. I sent them your way. You're welcome

Grrrrrrr.

[bower]

I have some kind of mites in the greenhouse. They attack the plants when we get into hot and dry weather, especially the upper canopy leaves where it is hottest and dryest. Luckily they are usually at their worst when the plants are already large and well established, so they can take some damage. I often get small spiders in the greenhouse fairly early spring usually around the time tomatoes are planted out.
When I have a good load of those spiders in spring, I have less mite damage later on.
This year I have hundreds of them, just hatched out yesterday evening and by morning had dispersed all over the greenhouse. So I dare say they're doing the job.
I think that towards fruit ripening time it has just gotten too hot and too dry for them, and they disappear, and then the mites get worst.

[Wildcat82]

After enacting my radical new spraying regiment (spraying every day) for the past 11 days I can make a few preliminary observations. Younger transplants that had some mite damage haven't made any improvement at all. No growth and the leaves still look sickly. However, the young transplants not previously afflicted with mites seem to be growing just fine. The older afflicted plants suffered some leaf burn on the infested leaves and the leaves are falling off but the new growth looks fine and the plants are setting fruit again after 3 weeks of not setting. So tentatively it looks like my spraying plan works for all but the youngest afflicted plants plants. The mites seem to sap too much energy from the youngest plants; they don't seem to be strong enough to power out new growth. Therefore, It looks like it would be best to start spraying starting the day you set out new transplants.

Though it sounds like a lot of work, it only takes about 15 minutes per day to mix up a batch of miticide and spray everything.

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[Wildcat82]

I'm continuing to see good results with my new spraying program. The tomatoes and peppers I planted 3 weeks ago look healthy. The eggplant I planted about the same time look more uneven. I'm thinking this may be because I kept them on the back porch for a week before planting and they may have gotten some mites on them. The lesson here may be to start spraying the day you set out transplants.

I finally got the last 2 T-posts installed so I can hang my shade cloth. It took a solid two hours to do the job. I had to use a heavy 5 foot pointed iron bar pounder (I don't know what to call it) to chip out enough soil/rock/caliche to place the posts. I have 2 blisters on each hand now. Now I'm ready to conduct my own summertime experiment to see which, if any, tomato varieties can produce in our heat. As of today, I have 2 Coyotes, 3 Porter Improved, 2 Juliets, 1 Black Cherry, 2 SS100, and 2 Black Plum. I have some Black Cherry and Super Sioux clones I may also plant in some containers.

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[Wildcat82]

Six years ago I dug a 3 foot wide by 1.5 foot deep trench, filled it with compost, cow manure, and garden soil, then planted my UC-157 asparagus. Despite the best care (and a ton of fertilizer), my yields have been extremely meager. This year I got 1 decent bowl of thin-as-spaghetti asparagus so I decided to kill off my asparagus patch. Seven days ago, I used a pair of loppers to cut the asparagus to the ground and planned to use Round-up the next week. However, yesterday I noticed about 30 fronds shot back to 4 foot tall and actually looked like they have a decent diameter. Now I’m thinking about keeping the asparagus for another year and trying another experiment.

This Fall, I will fertilize like normal, then next spring I will prevent any fronds from growing taller than 6 inches from March til June. I’m thinking the asparagus is putting all its energy development of fern growth rather than putting out some decent sized spears. Obviously this goes against everything you’re supposed to do. Yeah, asparagus ferns are needed to help the plant store up energy for next years crop. But I figure 6 months (June -November) should be enough time to do that.

Why not.

I may also plant some wild asparagus seed from my brother (asparagus grows wild in Nebraska). The asparagus there puts out far fewer spears than UC-157 but the spears are fatter than the diameter of your thumb. Probably the best asparagus in the world.

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