From My Garden to Yours

The days became so hot very quickly and basically fried my rose blooms to a crisp!  We had such nice cool weather as the roses went through their first bloom flush and then ZAP: crispy roses, anyone?  The hot weather put a stop to my all day pruning and cutting away from the fence in preparation for the building of the new fence.  WOW, I hasn't been drinking so much water in a long time, nor sweating so much since I retired.  Glow, heck; I just sweat!  Time for a break . . .

One of the more interesting questions from the Vallejo Farmers' Market went something like this: “My husband and I have a real disagreement about growing tomatoes.  He swears that the first blooms should be removed after transplanting; I don't.  Can you tell be something to make him stop?”  Now I am not going to step into that one, but I did suggest they compromise: deflower half of the tomato plants, leave the rest alone, and see which plants grow and fruit the best.  Sorry, but he'd already done all of the plants, that was a moot point.  I told her I'd look it up at home and if she came back to the booth, I might  be able to give her some answers.

My first thought was which tomato plants they bought: determinate or indeterminate.  This would make a difference as the determinate varieties of tomatoes will produce just so many flowers during the plant's lifetime.  The indeterminate tomatoes will continue to bloom and produce up until the frost or even beyond according to one home grower.  Picking off flowers from the determinate plant will lessen the total yield; therefore you just might be shorting yourself some fruit.

On the other hand, pinching off flowers can help the tomato plant develop stronger root systems according to the pro-pinch side.  However, that deflowering is done BEFORE transplanting into the garden; loss of pollination and fruit time can occur if the blooms are removed AFTER transplanting.  Another reason for pinching is if you plant your tomatoes early, there may no pollination taking place, those flowers will not produce and take energy from the plant that could go into developing stems, leaves, and roots.

If, however, you buy tomato starter plants when the warm weather is here, it's advisable to leave the flowers on the plant; if weather has been hot/cool/hot cool, we want to have as long a growing period as possible to give the fruits time to fully ripen.  Then too, leaving the flowers on the plants helps the plants the time of starting to bloom again; just plant these plants  a little deeper into the soil, removing the bottom 3 sets of leaves and putting that area of the stem below the soil line.  This will help put the original roots well into the soil and “tells” the buried portion of the stem to grow additional roots.

So if that woman comes back on Saturday, I'll hand her the information I found online and she can discuss it at home.  It appears that either way works, and that's what counts!

Did anyone read their new copy of SUNSET MAGAZINE yet?  Kudos to Rose Loveall for the wonderful article on Morningsun Herb Farm!  Wonderful article starting on page 54 (June issue).

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