Demise of a Tomato Plant

I've decided I will take a daily picture of one of my stricken tomato plants to document it's demise or, maybe it's recovery.  This is photo #1

Pet Harmony

I have the best dog, he's already so cool with the ducks, he just follows
them around and smells their many, many shits that are all over the place

Big step Today by letting Chui into the same area as the ducks with neither party restrained in any way.  I actually think my bud is a bit scared of them!  Which really, if you've met Chui probably isn't all that surprising; he's not the bravest creature in the world.  The ducks also don't seem to care much about him.

I'm still undecided on the ducks, part of me thinks I've bitten of more than I can or want to chew, but on the other side they are pretty neat and it's nice to have some more living things roaming around in the yard.  They make me laugh.

If this duck could hold and fire a gun I think he would kill me.  I noticed
that in every photo of the ducks, HIS eyes are always on me.
I think he may be evil, I should name him Damien

 I'm a bit flat on the garden right now, just not that excited about working in it.  I think the biggest reason is that my tomatoes are under some form of attack, it's unknown what is making them sick but they are dying off one by one.  On top of that my peppers look like shit!  Thin, sparse leaves, pale yellow coloring...  It's hard to be proud and enjoy working in the garden when things look so poor.  It's also that I don't know what to do to fix any of it!  I'm not letting myself dump a bunch of fertilizer on anything, people tell me to be patient and let the plants adjust but it's tough to watch things look so.... anemic, so poor

Apparently a Hundred Feet is Not Always a Hundred Feet

do not buy!

The SunCast SideTracker wall mount hose reel is crap.  I'll be uninstalling and returning this POS this weekend.  I'll go for the old school "hanger style" instead.

Duck Run

I intend to give the ducks an area about this size.
It's approximately 420 sq. ft.
That's just a temporary fence and I'm still working
on nursing the grass back

Keeping ducks is much more work than I anticipated, much more work.  I've been getting a little frustrated with the pekin' fear of me and how he will just about do anything to flee when I come to pick him up in his pen.  My patience finally wore out this morning and I just kind of plopped him back down with an "eff-you then!"  It bothered me all day, I mean he's just scared and I shouldn't be frustrated.  But I was and you can't really change that.

The plan I came up with was to get them out free ranging and roaming which was always the plan anyway.  I figured the daily routine of:

1. Moving their outdoor pen to a new location so too much poop doesn't accumulate
2. Rinsing the water bowl
3. Rinsing the food bowl.
4. Carrying them one by one (squeeling and squeeeking!!) from the indoor pen (which is soiled) to the outdoor pen
5. Fill the outdoor water container and chuckle as they all jump in immediately (good, a positive!)
6. Dump a scoop of food in their bowl
7. Say goodbye and continue with my day
8. regular life stuff, you know, work, bills, exercise, driving, cooking, etc.
9. Clean out indoor pen, wash food bowl, water collection tray and water bottle
10. Fill water bottle
11. Scoop out soiled sawdust (soaked with poo, water and pee)
12. lay down new sawdust
13. place bowls and fill with water and food
14. Grab each one by one (squeeling and squeeeking!!) from the outdoor pen (which is soiled) to the indoor pen (which is cozy)
15. Pause and look them and ask myself what I'm doing, maybe wonder if they will ever just let me hold them and not freak out
16. Light off, door shut - goodnight
17. Repeat next day

I mean shit, that'd get on anyone's nerves, right?  So Today I was finally tired of the little guy just not warming up to me.  I wanted ducks for pets, I want them to like me, I want them to follow me around and be social and at a minimum, NOT be terrified of me.

So back to the plan-  I will move them outside on a permanent basis, let them roam around, crap where they want, looks for critters, get exercise... you get it.  I figure this will reduce the repetitious labor and allow more time for enjoying them.

It worked, I think.  I came home and rather than resume with step #9 from above I just walked over, said some greetings and lifted their pen to let them out.  It was cool, they walked around and didn't run from me.  It took no time for them to head for my corn seedlings but they were easy to shoo away.  They spent the next 3 hours roaming around while I crafted and installed a quick temporary fence to define their new run.  I chopped up some veggies, took a seat on the ground and they came to me, I even let them climb up on my lap to eat.  The pekin was having none of this, but he wasn't war away either.  This is the kind of interaction I want to have with them, it was great!

I feel the key is just letting them be more free.  I will build a little house for them that they can go in at night, but I don't plan to secure it and attempt to keep them safe from predators - I'm gone too much to attempt to keep that up, I don't want the stress of "oh god, I forgot to shut their door Tonight!" followed by frantic calls to neighbors to ask favors...

I should mention that I left them out in the run Tonight, it's nice out and they are a pretty good size.  As I came in the house to catch up on emails it took about 30 minutes before I began to worry and resumed with step #9...

Alls Calm

I didn't have a relevant photo from Today so I just skimmed through
some other folders and picked one of my best dog friend, Chui
I'm pretty sure he's about 10 months old here.

Was at the office most of the day, not much farm work.  Been a little worried about perceived paleness of peppers (say that 3 times fast!) in EW2 and suspected stunting of tomatoes in same bed.  I did some reading last night and of course there are dozens of different opinions and guidance.  I could feel that anxious feeling coming and then just-in-time a conversation I had with my wise (and getting wiser) friend Chad (farmer Chad, I've mentioned him before) popped into my head.

We were walking around his horse barn or something talking about various pest treatment options and bad weather and he commented that he finally learned to just relax and let the plants to what hey want to do, not to rush to action and try to fix things so quickly.  I think that's wise.  Not that he doesn't take action, but the point was not to react too soon and just give them a little room.

I followed the advice, I didn't take any drastic measures and instead spent 10 minutes updating their twine support windings, picking a few suckers and just relaxed.  Thanks Chad!

It Tastes Great

Despite it's apparent mutation, what I can only guess is the successful merging of two distinct seeds into a single carrot root, it tastes great!  I've begun the process of picking a carrot here and there to snack on, it's very much like how one makes several small strikes on cake at the office or the box of donuts that someone should not have brought in -

"Who the hell eats 1/5 a donut?!"

The phantom guilt-stricken snacker with 15 lbs they'd like to lose, that's who.  Just wait 5 minutes, when that sugary donut taste fades they'll be back for another 1/5 - repeat until a minimum of one donut is consumed.

Anyway, so that was weird, kinda?  That there's a Purple Haze and they taste great.  Carrots are in my top 5 favorite things to grow, going to do a TON of carrots next year.

PumpkaMelon

Baby Bear pumpkin - this is the kind for eatin'

Transplanted my "Baby Bear" and "Jack-O-Lantern" pumpkins along with my various watermelon seedlings into the new "tomato beds".  Did some brief research and it sounds like the main thing is to not disturb the roots too much when transplanting - I took extra special care and only broke up the bunch when necessary.  Fed the transplants with some Neptune's Harvest to get them off to a good start.

The plan is that these vining plants will grow at the feet of the tomato plants they share the bed with.  The tomatoes are North of the pumpkin, watermelon and cantaloupe and as such they shouldn't shade them out.  Combine that with the heavy pruning and eventual plant to keep a 20" branch-free space on the tomatoes and I think these new transplants will receive plenty of light.

watermelon transplants

Duck Update
The ducks are rad, they crack me up!  "Tweak" (temporary name for the neurotic Pekin) is eagerly eating out my hand finally, even though he stops to scream at me and spits the food he was in the process of eating.  I've been putting them outdoors in a small pen, letting them forage in the web grass, soak in their water bowl, see other animals, smell smells - just basically be animals.  I move the pen each day so that they are fertilizing multiple areas of the grass that will soon be their entire run.  I plant to make their short (24") fence out of recycled pallets - more on that later.

Zucchini makes Chui very nervous, VERY nervous!

A Picture's Worth...

Neighbor Pam's grandson huggin' some fresh beets from the farm

Heavy Pruning

I leave the considerably stubs to help with lacing the
support twine around the stem

I feel good right now, I think I'm hot stuff!

I pruned the bejesus out of my Tomatoes (I'm happy with them, I wanna show respeck with a capital "T")  I knew I needed to do it, I've read bits and pieces here and there how pruning tomatoes increases yields, promotes strong stem and root growth and helps prevent disease and pest problems from soil born threats.

I've been pinching suckers since they were 4" tall and even more frequently lately as they've been in the ground and growing more rapidly.  What I didn't realize is that I had missed some suckers early on and they had grown to the size where I thought it was just a "split stem" plant - a tomato that had forked into two main stems, a Siamese-tomato plant.

I didn't give the "two stem" issue much thought until it came time to string them up to the supporting trellis and twine drops - suddenly I'm faced with a decision of which stem to support!  Literally, I'm standing there, mud on my knees, AM talk radio in the background, Corona shears in my back pocket and I'm just looking at a plant kind of having a prolonged brain fart, paralyzed by this seemingly simple quandary.  I denied my gut to google and instead thought critically, leveraging whatever fragments of recent information I had read on the subject.

You know I'm excited when I draw
Actually, drawing, like writing has the great effect of burning things
into my memory for a long time - this just an archival technique...

It paid off, I had my "ah hah" moment when I realized that in every single case one of the "stems" (aka twins) has a branch at it's shoulder, in many case I had already pruned the branch but the stub remained.  Given that suckers grow in the crotch of the stem and a branch I deduced that the "stem" with a branch right under it had to be the sucker.

Out came the shears and off went some seriously large suckers and branches.  There is something invigorating and exciting about heavily pruning a healthy, seemingly thriving plant - it requires confidence in your decision and action

I'm expected these plants to hit 6+ feet in height, it's
important to get the structure correct and the support in
place for their future growth

I really did it enjoy it, I went sort of nuts and reduced the overall mass of the tomato plants by an average of, oh I'd say 30%.  I then spent the next hour carefully stringing them up.  I feel like a big task is behind me and I've added a new skill to my repertoire that I will be able to use for the rest of my life - that's a feeling that's hard to beat.

Early Father's Day - 2011

Very full day with the family Today - parent's arrived around 11:30 and hung out, helped me get some last minutes things picked up.  Sister and J, Cait, Ella and Molly arrived around 1:45 - everyone stayed until about 8 that night, it was a really nice day.


Girls met the ducks (Ella even hand fed them), well, everyone met the ducks for that matter.  Harvested beets which my Mom whipped into a delicious dish with avocado, apple and red onion.  Baked some Zucchini crisps and used the beat tops and chard for lettuce on the grilled chicken sandwiches.  We spent pretty much the whole time in the farm area and it was great, I loved having everyone there sharing my favorite space and views with me.

Bean Blossom

Blossom from "Provider" variety bush bean

The blossoms from bean plants are not only beautiful but edible as well.  If I wasn't so eager to harvest the first beans that should be here in a week or so I'd use the blossoms on a salad - if nothing else they would look great.

New leaves from "Fortex" variety pole bean

 Don't eat the leaves though, I heard they taste terrible.

Duckage

Took the little bastards outside while I watered and did some small chores in the garden.  I'm excited to have them outside full time - they went right to work digging around with their beakshovels looking for bugs, eating grass, etc...  I'm sure once they start pooping all over the lawn in will grow real healthy, which of course will feed them so it's perfect!

You can't tell me they don't want to be in water!

This was the test to see how they handled being sprayed with the hose. I was told they enjoyed it and that it was one option to get them wet so they could bathe.  Sure enough they ran right into it and started shaking, grooming, fluffing and eating.

+1 Farm Status

I waddled one step closer to farm status Today with the purchase of 3 ducklings.  I had been kicking the idea around for quite awhile now and Today finally just drove over and picked some up.  I like the idea of being out in the yard working in a bed, harvesting, whatever and having animals around me.  Rumor has it ducks aren't as destructive as chickens, don't scratch as much.  They also allegedly attach to people more easily and are more pet-like.

I don't know the gender of them, apparently it's not easy to sex ducklings like you can chickens.  There is a 60% chance I'll end up with males which at first was a negative as I had hoped to have a couple duck eggs each day but after learning that duck eggs are too rich for frying and scrambling I didn't care as much.

Start with a clear space

I'm going to setup a run for them against the West wall and will post progress as I work on that.  I didn't want to purchase a cage or pen for these ducks, I'd much rather throw something together from scraps and extra materials.  The design I went with is very simply so I won't mind trashing it when I'm all done.

For now they are living in the potting shed, warm and cozy.  They will spend another month or so indoors until they are too large to be prey for hawks.  I'll also try to pick them up each day and make them used to me so we're all buddies.  Chui needs to get used to them as well which I'm told is accomplished through daily interaction.

Add stolen cardboard from work to insulate from the floor

Create small frame from scrap wood to contain the
shavings (somewhat) and also provide a base for the wire
mesh walls.

Bend some 4"x1" construction mesh to tightly fit within
the inside of the frame.  Careful, this junk is sharp!
I also trimmed it down in height to 2' so I can easily
reach them

Newspaper to facilitate easy removal of the wood shavings
It's not an accident that the paper fits like that, a little
forethought can make repetitious tasks easier to deal with

Sawdust for the poops (which are plentiful!) laid on top of
the newsprint.  When the sawdust is soiled I will roll it all
up and throw in the compost pile

Water - interesting... turns out it's not a good idea to give
them a big ol' bowl of water because they will play with it,
poop in it and general soil it so fast that you need to change
it every hour.  Instead the water dispenser is placed in a
house plant dish to capture the splashing.

Add ducks and you are all done

Another Pill Bug Trap

I'm still having pill bug issues and was inspired after squeezing some OJ to try my traps again.  This time I cut up some newspaper squares and set the trap on top, the idea being that when I pick up the trap any victims that fall will fall on the paper for easy collection - no survivors!

The colors of the "Bright Lights" are really something, aren't they?!

I should take a minute and come clean; I'm not really out to kill everything that poses a problem for me in the garden, I'm much more interested in an integrated solution that will naturally keep things in balance.  However, when it comes to pill bugs I have not been able to find many strategies for dealing with them, not even many methods to trap or kill them.  I think the problem is really that this whole area used to be sod and even much of the dirt I'm using in my beds was extracted from the sod that was removed and it was most likely infested with pill bugs and pill bug eggs.

Computer Day

Worked inside Today trying to catch up on some work, no farm work at all.  I haven't posted anything in 12 days, however that doesn't mean nothing has happened.  I will back-post (which is kind of lame, I know) a couple of days to fill in the gaps.

Irrigation Test

At the last minute I decided to head out of town for a week, I'm actually writing this from my home for the next week.  I was having a difficult time with the decision because I was worried about irrigating my crops - I hadn't yet done a true test to make sure everything was working correctly and that the timer was properly configured.  I spent about an hour last night doing just that and things do seem to be working.  I also installed drip lines in the raised beds to keep the new carrots happy.

I'm excited to come home in 7 days and see the dramatic growth of everything.  I'm used to looking at the plants every day so it can be difficult to notice the growth, but 7 days should yield demonstrable results.

Trellis Wrap Up

last of the trellises installed in ES7 & EW8.  It's real difficult to pound
those posts 2' into the ground and also keep them plum, so if you look
down the line it's pretty wobbly

Spent the entire day outside in the yard finishing up the trellises and installing irrigation lines EW7 & EW8 (the new tomato beds).  My arm was shot from swinging the sledge hammer to drive in the posts and in fact I was starting to get sloppy and mangle the edges and corners.  I picked up a fence post driver to finish off the last of them, figured it's a good investment, the type of tool you have your whole life.

Ran about 6' of funny pipe from a nearby stubbed out
sprinkler.  Funny pipe is the greatest stuff!  Here you see
the funny pipe connected to a pressure regulator with
the 1/2" irrigation line hoop for 1/4" lateral lines.  The 1/2"
irrigation line goes back under the surface to the bed to
the left.

Programmed and tested the irrigation controller to water the beds every three days for 15 minutes.  I'm planning on leaving town the rest of this week so won't be here to water - it's about time I put the drop lines to use.  I also installed some plastic mesh around NS1 to keep the cat (I found cat shit so I'm assuming my recent pest is a cat) out of the bed.

• repaired punctured 1/2" drip line in the North end of NS2
• installed the twine for tomatoes in EW7 but didn't yet fasten to plants
• fixed leaky plug cap on RB1 1/2" drip line

Freebie Tip!  Paint stir sticks make great crop tags/stakes.  In two trips to Home Depot I've acquired more than 30 of them and of course they are free.  If the drooler in the pain department says anything just tell him you forgot to grab some when you picked up the 20 gallons or pain earlier.  "Oh, sorry.. is there a charge?" - there isn't, but the mere fact you ask will turn things around.

Johnny's charges $59.95 for 100 wooden stakes or $0.59 each!  What a rip!  Based on $0.59 each my ~30 stir sticks saved me about $17.00.  To be honest, it's less about saving money and more about sticking it to Home Depot for all the annoying experiences (14 registers with only one open) and low level morons ("oh, uhmm, this isn't my department" he says while quickly walking away from me to find another isle to hide and piss away his 8 hours)  I've had to deal with while shopping there.

New Trellises

Finally built the new trellises for my tomatoes and pole beans this afternoon.  When I worked out the material list I was surprised with just how much lumbar I actually needed, it's one of those projects that seems like it will be quick and simple but ended up being a bit more involved.

Picked up my old truck from the office to make a home depot run for the (28) 2x2 8' lumbar and some other materials.  Because the truck just sits in the parking lot all the time we(I) haven't kept the registration current - driving the truck around is risky with all the cops in my area.

I sorted the lumber into different categories based on what it would be used for.  Pieces with more knots were used for vertical posts or if the knots where near the ends they would be used to make the (4) 6' pieces I needed.  After sorting things out I built a jig for the table saw to cut the pointed end on the posts.  Jigs are really worth it for cuts like this; not only is it safer but you get a nice consistent result.  I saved the jig for future use when I make more posts.  The only problem I ran into with this operation was that the waste pieces kept getting stuck in the blade opening on the top of the saw so I'd have to shut it down to clear the piece.

My mistake is obvious in this photo - you can see the
pilot hole is not centered correctly and ends up opening
the joint by a fat 1/8"  :(

Next up was to make the cuts for the lap joint where two pieces would meet at a post.  A lap joint is perfect for this as it let's both horizontal boards rest on the post.  I had originally thought about using an angled lap join (rather than notched) but instead just narrowed the joint so that 1/4" or so of each horizontal piece would rest on the post.  The joint worked correctly, but unfortunately I miscalculated my drilling jig and put the hole about 1/6" off-center resulting in a combine 1/8" gap in the joint.  To make things worse, this reduce my 1/4" "ledge" to only 1/8".

Another jig was created to drill out the pilot hole in the tops of the posts.  The idea is that you simply drop a nail in to hold everything together, more like a pin, then you can easily remove it for later disassembly.  The cross-cut for the lap joint was done on the table saw, but the lengthwise cut was with the jig saw which is why it looks a little crappy - I couldn't figure out what other tool to use for the cut!

Posts driven to same depth, well actually to the same
finish height - the depth varies a bit I'm sure

I drove in the posts first using a string and level to guide the depth.  Basically I drove one end post to the desired depth, then drove the opposing end post in far enough to be stable.  I then marked the set post 12" down from the top and strung a string from that point to the opposing post.  Next I marked each of the middle posts 12" from the top and drove them in until the mark lined up with the string.  Finally I used a regular stright level to drive the final end post in.

Next time I do this I need to use something to protect the top of the post as I drive it down with the sledge - it really beat some of them up and I'm worried about splitting the posts during future installations.

Again, you can see my bummer mistake with the pilot hole.  You can also see how little of the left rail is
sitting on the top of the post.  I may end up redoing the lap joint at the end of the season to correct this
stupid mistake

Fortex on the left and Red Noodle on the right - these are my first
pole beans and I'm learning as I go

With the top rails installed it's time to start stringing some things up.  The beans need the attention more than the tomatoes so I took care of them first.  I've never done this before so I was thinking about the different options and methods to train the beans up the twine. I didn't want to anchor or stake the twine into the dirt so I ended up looping the twine under the "shoulders" of the cotyledons then twisting it 4-6" back up the line and tying off to secure it.  This approach will still let me pinch of the cotyledon if needed while still leaving the shoulder stubs for the twine.  As the vine grows I will twist the twine around the main step once a week or so.

I was eager to solve the same problem for the tomatoes; how to attach the twine without using clips or staking the bottom of the line into the ground.  I basically went with the same approach I used for the beans, but I doubled up the twine to account for the substantially heavier load of the tomato plants.  It looks like this could create a problem if you don't consider that there is currently NO "load" on the twine, that is the plant is not being supported by the twin yet so the fact that it's wrapped around the base of the lower branches won't matter.  After I wrap the main stem around the twine 2-3 times it should start to increase the friction to a point that the bottom loop around those lower branches won't have much stress on it.

A Template for the Perfect Morning

The dirt is so soft I can dig it with my hands.  I then set the transplant and
firmly push into the bottom of the hole, followed by a real long soak,
backfill and pat down and finally one last long drink of water

Maybe not "perfect", but certainly the way I'd like to start the majority of days if possible.  The alarm set for 5am, that in itself not a rare event, waking eagerly at it's report however, is!

I went to bed early the previous night with a belly full of carne asada and Sierra and a plan to wake early, get Tomatoes in the ground before my 8:30 physical therapy appointment and then onto the office.  I was excited to be up early and have hands in the dirt while the sun rose; dawn is absolutely my favorite time of day.  The challenge was to finish the work in the narrow slice of morning between darkness and my cutoff to take a shower and be rolling on the freeway to my appointment.

I'm actually trying to not bit my thumbnails so they will be longer and I
can use as a tool for pinching.
That's a double-whamy statement right there; sure to make the girls go wild!

I was able to do it and it was everything I hoped it would be, arguably my best morning in months.  Yet another indicator that this may be the life for me.

I pinched off the bottom 1-2 branches on all the tomatoes before planting deep in their new permanent homes.  A few of the plants had already set flowers but I pinched them off to keep the plant focused on roots and top growth.  Also took care of suckers in just about every plant.  I like the process of pruning and grooming the tomatoes, it's very fitting for my tendency to want to do "many little things".

Other Stuff:

1. Pill bugs continue to be a problem, they are chewing on my new pole beans and have successfully destroyed two of them, chomping them off at the stem.
2. I had a dark aphid-like infestation on a single red noodle pole bean.  I sprayed with a little "vegetable safe oil" (I forget what that is) and they seem to be staying away
3. Carrots in RB1 are doing OK, seem to be taking the heat well

Something's Going to Die

I hope it's not a neighbors cat or a nice little raccoon family cause that would be a sad story, but something is digging up my beds and if I find it I'm going to kill it.

Two nights in a row my arugula has been dug up, each time I've lost 10-15% of my seedlings.





 I've got a couple ideas:

1. Wire mesh cage around the bed - this is a terrible plan, it makes my life considerably more difficult when it comes time to work the bed, additionally it will be an eye sore in the yard.
2. Motion activated cameras - This sounds more fun.  If I can see what it is then I can possibly consider an appropriate trap (either kill trap or live capture).  At this point I have NO IDEA what it is, I'm not a hunter or animal tracker!  I can't look at print spacing and determine gait, breed and age?!  I (to use a military term) Actionable Intel in order to proceed.

To clarify; I don't want to kill some furry critters, I like critters, but when something screws with my most important hobby the "animal lover" in me tends to diminish a bit, or at least hide for a while.