winner of the too-tall-tomato vine contest!!!

I was really impressed with The Tiniest Tomato of the Year at May Dreams Gardens and at The Gardeners Anonymous Blog. Wow! I've always wanted to win a contest, so I'm entering myself in the Tallest Tomatoes Vines contest and am officially declaring myself the winner! It seems there has never been a contest before for tall tomato vines, but nevertheless, there is one now.

What clued me in to my unusually tall vines was when my neighbor stopped by. He looked over the garden fence and said "What's with the tomato plants?" I hadn't noticed how tall they were getting.

So on September 3 (Labor Day) I got out the ladder and measured my tomatoes. I recorded a full 9 feet! 112 inches! If you have tall tomato vines too, please send in your heights. Of course to win this contest, you will need to have measurements recorded on September 3rd. Yes, it's a rigged contest. But I would still love to hear that others have outrageously tall vines too.

My winning vine is a New Girl tomato plant. I think the trick to growing tall plants is to plant them too close together. I have squeezed 20 plants into a space of about 7 x 5 feet. That's 1.75 sq ft per plant. I faithfully remove all suckers until the plants are about 5 feet tall. They have very good soil with lots of compost and fertilizer and are watered regularly. The location has sun from about 10:30 am on.

My tomatoes usually continue to grow into October, so this plant may grow another foot or two taller.

(As a footnote, I notice that Wikipedia cites the following tomato information: The heaviest tomato ever was one of 3.51 kg (7 lb 12 oz), of the cultivar 'Delicious', grown by Gordon Graham of Edmond, Oklahoma in 1986. The largest tomato plant grown was of the cultivar 'Sungold' and reached 19.8 m (65 ft) length, grown by Nutriculture Ltd (UK) of Mawdesley, Lancashire, UK, in 2000. These don't count for my contest, so I still win.)

I think I'll make a little button for my sidebar to say I have won this esteemed honor.

Solanum lycopersicum
photos of Kathy

update of planting calendar apps

I'm so excited about our new updates of our planting calendar apps! I think they are great. We put a lot of work into both our Vegetable and our Flower & Herb app.

 - We added many, many more plants. Now more than 100 vegetables and 100 flowers & herbs.
 - We added an "info page" for all of the plants that describes how to plant and grow it.
 - We added many photos of plants we have grown.
 - And ... we added several photos of Skippy, helping out in the garden.

The updated Flower & Herb Planting App is now for sale at the Apple Store for $3.99

We haven't released the new Vegetable app yet, but we'll do that very soon. The old Vegetable Planting App is still for sale at the Apple Store for $1.99. The new version will have a price increase, but all users with the old version will automatically get the update at no extra cost. (Hint: Buy the old one now and save a couple bucks!)

We love it when people leave comments about the apps. Here are a couple we've gotten:

- Simple, clean, easy. All the vegetables, all the dates co-related and synced automatically to my region. Weekly task list and reminders for indoor start dates, transplant dates, direct sow, and consecutive plantings for spring, fall, winter. Also contacted Kathy about some ideas and amendments... Heard back immediately. Cottage industry app. Love it!   - by AreYouReady?

- Simplicity of this app is perfect. Less time with my phone, more time in the garden. It includes marigolds, sunflowers, nasturtiums. I'd like to see borage and sweet peas added. Thank you!  - by Garden12312

 And, yes, we now have borage and sweet peas added  - in the Flower & Herb app.

late blight

I just got back from spraying my tomato plants. We had a little rain yesterday and I've been spraying with a copper fungicide after every rain to protect against late blight. My plants look really good this year, so I'm hoping for a good harvest before the blight comes in.

The latest info on tomato blight is at this site: http://extension.umass.edu/vegetable/alerts/late-blight-alert-update

Late blight was spotted early this year, July 3, in some commercial tomato fields near my garden and in other parts of the New England. But it seems that it isn't spreading very rapidly.

A couple weeks ago, I sent out this notice to gardeners in our Community Garden.

Gardeners,

Bad news – On July 3, Late Blight was confirmed on tomato plants near us (Middlesex County MA). This is a very aggressive pathogen that can kill an entire field of tomatoes or potatoes within a few days.

As you may remember, we had a terrible year at the Belmont Victory Gardens with Late Blight in 2009. It affected the whole garden and the entire NE region with devastating effects for commercial growers.

We would like to ask you to do the following:
-    Please read some of the links and information on the bulletin board (we will post photos and info soon) to learn about Late Blight and how to identify it.
-    Check your tomato and potato plants carefully for Late Blight and report it immediately to me if you find any (UMASS extension service like to follow locations of outbreaks and fellow gardeners will also like to know). If you find damage that looks like late blight it must be removed from the Gardens and disposed of at home in your trash. Do not compost it! Late Blight spreads very quickly and it is important to do what we can to contain spread of the pathogen.
-    To protect your plants from infection (especially important in shadier and low lying areas):
o    Remove leaves at the bottom of tomato plants to increase airflow
o    Increase airflow around potatoes and tomatoes by trimming nearby plants, removing weeds, removing vines from fences, and keeping the paths mowed
o    Spray tomatoes and potatoes before every rain with a fixed Copper fungicide spray that is organic approved.

I walked through the Belmont gardens today and checked tomatoes and potatoes in many plots. I did not see any Late Blight, but did not have time to check all gardens. Actually, I think the tomatoes and potatoes look really good this year. There is a bit of Septoria leaf spot around as usual, which is a less aggressive fungus that causes small brown spots and yellowing from the edges of the leaves on both tomatoes and potatoes, but not much.

In my garden, I removed the Septoria damaged tomato leaves and disposed of them in my trash at home. I will be spraying with a copper fungicide soon. This is available at Hillside Garden Center as a powder or spray. Geno recommends a spray combination of Rotenone (also organic) and copper that is available at Agway in Waltham.

Some helpful links:
http://extension.umass.edu/vegetable/alerts/late-blight-alert-update
http://seacoasteatlocal.org/2012/07/alert-late-blight-found-in-massachusetts/
http://extension.unh.edu/Agric/lateblight.htm
http://nysipm.cornell.edu/publications/blight/
http://www.longislandhort.cornell.edu/vegpath/photos/lateblight_tomato.htm (lots of good photos here to learn how to identify Late Blight)

Our Yahoo and Facebook sites and are good places for conversations and advice. Also feel free to email me.

Kathy
Coordinator, Belmont Victory Community Gardens

me in the garden

My sister got hold of my camera and took photos of me and Skippy.

Those are raindrops on my shirt. We had a few more of our spectacular downpours today. Why not show our CA visitors what New England weather is like! My sister and I got soaked in the garden.

photos of Kathy

me

I don't usually post a photo that someone else has taken. In fact, I don't think I have ever posted a photo that I did not take. But why not a first. My husband took this picture of me.

Garden Rant recently asked what we gardeners are doing with ourselves in the off season (their post is titled "Substitutes"). Here, I'm doing my only outdoor winter activity. The daily dog-walk. At least this gets me out. Today we have light snow. A few inches of very light fluffy whiteness. The spring garden seems pretty far off.

photos of Kathy

photos from squirrel brand community garden day

Who knows what I talked about. But it was really nice to meet the gardeners at Squirrel Brand Community Garden. Thanks everyone!



Photos of Kathy

belated update

I haven't looked at my poor abandoned blog in so long! I am surprised to check now and see snow on my last post. We have had weeks of balmy spring weather in the 80's since then.

Here is part of a note I just wrote to a reader who asked where we are:

Dear Pam,

Thanks for your note. Fortunately I do not have any bad news to share. My job has preoccupied me. About 2 years ago I started a company to help women with breast cancer. The process of starting a company and getting it off the ground is time consuming.

My garden is growing well this year and I have lots of photos saved up. Last Wednesday, I took a vacation day and dug and planted seedlings and seeds in my parents' garden. They return from wintering in FL in a month and I want them to enjoy a fruitful garden. My peas are in (planted on St Patrick's Day) and I'm working on a new trellis for the middle of my community plot. What a great spring for gardening! Soon, I will get my blog updated.

Kathy

PS. Today is Skippy's 7th birthday

link

I was just reading the redesigned Garden Blogs List site at The Providence Journal. Along, with about 200 other gardening sites, Sheila has added a link to my site. She writes:

Skippy's Vegetable Garden is east of Boston, and it's a study in snow-covered plots. Skippy is a Portuguese water dog whose owner, Kathy, hasn't broken it to him that it's not his garden alone.

To relieve all that whiteness, she's pulled up photos from last year's garden -- a kind sight for winter eyes.

She's posted her 2007 seed order, too, which might give you some ideas.

As Shelia writes, all us Northern gardeners are pretty much on hold now, and buried in snow and ice.

And, by the way, I'm actually located west of Boston. There's not much to the east of Boston - it gets pretty wet....