One of the final seed plantings went in today (after this everything is really repeats): the bush beans. I planted out the largest of the vegetable beds with Borlotti, Erimo and Tongue of Fire beans. I picked these three varieties because they work well as dried beans, and because they are particularly beautiful – often striped and patched with vivid colours, even when dried.
Dried beans in a jar are like dollar coins in a jar – if everything goes FUBAR you know there will always be something to fall back on.
I netted off the entire bed from the bloody blackbirds. Please God come and take all blackbirds off to heaven …
Tomato update.
Man, I have had the weirdest year with the tomatoes. The first seed set all sprouted, but never grew beyond their first pair of baby leaves, no matter how well I treated them. Note to self, set seed later next year. They all died.
The second lot of seeds I planted about a month later are going great guns (touch wood). These I planted in the last week of August. I think next year leave it until early September to set seed for tomatoes. But … these were all bush tomatoes whereas the first lot were all climbing. I also never treated them as kindly – although they stayed on their heated trays they were otherwise open to the elements. Oh well, who knows. Whatever, I have set seed for more climbing tomatoes and they are up so I will see how they go.
No tomatoes for me before Christmas, though, unfortunately.
The tomatoes I bought from the nursery have all died, too! Honestly, if the lot that are currently going strong die on me then I am going to admit defeat and refuse to grow tomatoes again. LOL I have never ever had problems with tomatoes in previous years and just don’t know what is wrong with them this year.
A flash of genius ..there is a tomato disease called wilt..perhaps that’s the problem. The solution is to grow them in hanging baskets where the leaves cant touch the contaminated soil..so nice clean dirt ..no home made compost..
Those upsidedown hanging baskets might be fun to try..or hydroponically???
Bummer about the tomatoes ..I guess you don’t want to know I’m picking my romas already??? Snigger snigger
But I might put some beans in the other end of my potato birdy…( I am such a copycat) ..it’s probably a little late here really..sigh …I’ll check the markets for seedlings on Sunday.
Oh Bronnie, Bronnie, Bronnie, I am going to have to ban you from this site … *sigh*
The worst thing is, tomorrow is Show Day in Hobart, and traditionally Show Day is when all home gardeners carefully put their tomatoes in the ground.
Of course, none of mine are ready …
But my potatoes are HUGE!! LOL I will get a massive crop.
Sara, my Dad said it could be a virus killing them off if it’s both seeds and plants you’ve bought & he wouldn’t use the dead tomatoe plants in compost just in case.
Neither a virus nor wilt explains why the second lot are doing so well (same growing medium). I will just keep my fingers crossed that these continue to thrive.
Hanging baskets are of no use here – the tomatoes would die within a week. The vicious wind here dries them out in half an hour and I don’t want to spend my day standing over them with a hose. (The wind would also rip the plant itself to shreds.)
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for the new crop…grin
me too 😀 fingers crossed that is.
Hi there, I had the same problem a few years back. It was suggested to me that it might be nematodes. So I looked at my options, and I found that planting marigolds in the bed with the tomatoes killed off the little blighters, but I also applied a weak molassas solution to the root zone which also worked. A combination of these two things helped a lot with the tomatoes.