Gardening issues

Anyone that grows what they eat...

Have you had a problem with tomatoes appearing on the vine and not going ripe? I've had some on the vine for about three weeks. I'm also getting few blooms and have tried the tomato spray that subs for bees. Cucumbers are blooming but only one cuce. We've had shitloads of rain. Oh, and I've also done the miracle gro and added lime to the soil.

So WTF?

 

I don't know where you live but ripe tomatoes in June???

How much sunlight does your garden get a day? Probably the most important thing.

What's the make-up of your soil (sand? clay? loam?)

And, have you nipped the suckers--here's what I mean:

 

We had tomatoes appear on the vine and not ripen, but that was due to a severe drought.
As for the cukes, you might have to ... ummm ... "artificially inseminate" them. Just a matter of using a Q-tip as the bee.

 

If your plants are in full sun, then it's probably just because the nights in your locale aren't warm enough yet to allow for ripening. As for the cukes, I second the Q-tip.

 

Wife said, "I didn't know you were growing cherry tomatoes."

I said, "They're beefsteak tomatoes. They just didn't grow very big."

It felt so ... emasculating. Why is it so small?

And so I gave up. Fortunately there are a lot of farmers to buy from. I just conceded that I have no skill in this area.

 

Tomatoes are kind of a no brainer (as are most veggies). Sun, water, a little feeding now and then and that's about it.

Mulch your garden and you won't have to weed the damn thing.

Oh, and it goes for backyard gardens--rotate your crops.

 

Well, collectively, they are between 12 inches and two feet tall...the 12-inchers having some green tomatoes....so being tall isn't a problem for these plants yet. Matter of fact, most of them haven't grown bigger over three weeks time.

Someone told me the tomato bloom spray does what Qtips do when sprayed directly on the plant blooms. Just don't know how long then it takes to turn the bloom into a mater or cuc.

 

I highly recommend Terracycle's worm poop liquid fertilizer. My tomato plants have rocketed up since I started using it. And I've got 17 tomatos on two bushes right now.

 

I just can't quit laughing.

It's like "worm" and "poop" don't belong beside together in a sentence.

 

That's exactly what it is...

http://www.terracycle.net/

 

Sounds like there's not a lot of overhead to it, except perhaps the sifting of said worm poop. And how do you differentiate it from plain ol' dirt? And what about the liquefying process?

FWIW, my dad used to get a lot of worms (for fishing) by spreading some rotting barley on a gunny sack. Put it out in the evening, check it in the morning, and the worms are stuck in the weave of the gunny sack.

 

Since your tomato plants are under three feet tall, I would consider pulling the fruit off now. It seems your plants are putting more energy into producing fruit than growing.