Saturday, May 24, 2008

Big Rainbow Has A Tomato


On Friday, I didn't do too much except minor “training” of the plants.

Today, we did a bit more.

I picked a couple of Red Currants early in the morning. After breakfast, we purchased some neem oil to address the leaf footed bug issue. Our plan at that time was to wait a few days to let the plants dry out (We had a freak rainstorm overnight), then apply the neem oil to the Red Currant plant. As reported earlier, I saw small bugs on one of the first tomatoes I picked. About half of the ones I picked show some damage due to bugs. That's not as disastrous as it sounds, as our Manchester Terrier loves them just the same.

I showed the Red Currant plant to my wife, who promptly picked some more ripe ones. Several showed minor damage, which went to the dog (Oh by the way, we're down to one dog since Monday. We'll get the poodle back tomorrow from my mother in law.). Most were fine, but several appeared so damaged that we didn't even bother feeding the dog with them. Altogether, we picked 17 Red Currants today.

Because it dried out later today and we were not pleased with the bad tomatoes, we used the neem oil in the afternoon. We'll see if it affects things for the better.

I pruned most of the low tomato branches on all the plants. While pruning Big Rainbow I noticed, hey, it has a tomato on it!

I told my wife that I had some minor concerns about Garden Peach. She was elsewhere in the garden when I told her this and she was interested in seeing it for herself.

I noted the color, which is slightly more gray than the other plants. But my major concern was that there appeared to be hundreds of dried blooms on it. The plant feels a bit brittle compared to the others as well. My wife agreed and was a bit alarmed by it.

Now that I'm writing this I'll give it some fertilizer. That should help. It does have four growing tomatoes and has good height. It's just that I would have expected dozens more by now. Let's hope the fertilizer helps.

Sigh...when I got home and added worm castings to some of the plants in the back I noted that the Manchester Terrier had knocked off one of the Golden Jubilee tomatoes. It was at least quarter sized.


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