The silk on the Hickory King corn is really pretty
Category: Fruits and Vegetables
Really Big Tomato
While these Mortgage Lifter tomatoes grow really large … they have a lot of bits that need to be trimmed. Seems like a tomato bred by turkeys and chickens (who get to enjoy all of the trimmed off bits).
Corn
The corn is getting really tall — no cobs yet, but the stalks are about as tall as they’re meant to get.
First Ripe Tomato
It finally cooled down enough for the tomatoes to start ripening …
Fall Seed Starting
I got the seeds started for our fall harvested vegetables. We bought these little seed starting trays on Amazon — a tray, a 12-cell insert, and a humidity dome with an adjustable vent. The kit came with plant markers … but it seemed silly to write something permanent on the marker. So I turned them into reusable markers by adding some of the blue tape you use for painting a room (because that’s what we’ve got & pen works OK on it). First I put three of the markers in a line on the tape.
A couple of quick slices with an Exacto knife, and I can change the label as needed.
I started the normal fall veggies — broccoli, broccolini, chard, and lots of cabbages. But I also started a sweet tomato that’s meant to produce in 60 days and a watermelon that’s supposed to produce in just 75 days. That’ll be the end of September so maybe we’ll get some watermelon this year!
Garden Progress
I knew the garden was growing well — there are tons of bean flowers, cucumber flowers, and tomato flowers. The buckwheat has sprouted, some of the corn is about a foot high. But it’s really cool to see a few veggies forming!
Orchard Layout
We should finally be past freezing nights for the season, so it’s time to get the fruit plants out in the orchard. I’ve got a couple of gooseberries and a hardy fig to put somewhere. But, in the next few days, I’ll get the currants, honey berries, seaberries, pawpaw, and cherry trees planted.
2022 Garden – Seeds in Dirt
The pepper seeds are in their little pots and (hopefully) will sprout in the next week or so. Anya put a few of her herb seeds into pots as well … but she’s got more seeds to start.
Next up, I want to get the broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, ground cherries, and tomatoes going.
2022 Garden – Seed Starting
We started soaking our first seeds for the garden this year — Anya has quite a few herbs getting ready to be started, and I have an assortment of peppers.
Home Automation and Gardening
Something like 20 years ago, I tried to grow a plumeria flower in my apartment. I had a broad-spectrum light, plenty of heat, and plenty of humidity. But getting the light turned on and off at the right times wasn’t easy (especially if I was at work all day!).
This seems like a really good use for home automation — our home automation system tracks the sunrise and sunset times for our zip code. It’s possible to essentially cron “stuff” off of these times — e.g. get the birds ten minutes before sunset. I could easily track sunrise and sunset in Honolulu then have my light turn on at sunrise (or first light) and off at sunset (or last light). Voila — “sunlight” that runs for the proper duration every day.