Blossom End Rot

 

Last week I was looking at my one, nice-sized tomato on the Pruden’s Purple tomato plant. I knew it was cat faced, as early tomatoes often are. Cat facing is a problem with pollination caused by weather conditions. When I looked at that tomato again, I noticed it had now developed a bad case of blossom end rot (BER). My experience is the BER allows disease like fungal rots to penetrate the tomato and spread throughout before the tomato gets a chance to mature and ripen. So I removed and tossed it so the plant can put its energy into hopefully healthy fruit.

 

BER is a common nuisance and we gardeners spend a lot of time trying to avoid it, although what causes it is kind of a mystery. You hear all kinds of theories and advice. It’s a lack of soil calcium, a problem with calcium transport, too much nitrogen, too little or too much water, soil pH, yada yada. To prevent it add lime, add egg shells, add bone meal, add Epsom salts, spray with calcium, water more, water less, water consistently, and so forth. Paste tomatoes and some heirlooms seem to be particularly prone to it. I just try not to think of it and hope it does not happen, because all the advice seems to be all over the place and I doubt any of that is really going to help.

 

Coincidentally, I read an interesting article on BER in the UMass Extension Vegetable Notes newsletter. They excerpted an article by Gordon Johnson of the UDel extension service. Rather than excerpt their excerpt, you can find the UMass newsletter at this link so you can read it for yourself. The article does a good job of explaining what can cause BER. If you understand that, you can hopefully speculate what might be  happening in your garden. All of the suggested causes above have some truth to them, but as you might expect, it is complex.

 

Calcium is an essential component of plant cell structure. Lack of sufficient calcium in the cells at the blossom end of the fruit, farthest away from the stem, is what causes BER. In fact, all parts of a growing plant need calcium, it is just harder to transport it to the growing end of the fruit (the blossom end) and if the quantity is not adequate., the cells collapse, resulting in an ugly scar. There are many reasons why this could be the case. Calcium must be absorbed by the roots and transported in its ionic form, as the cation Ca++. To get calcium to an area, there has to a flow of water through the plant’s vascular system. Anything that disrupts the quantity of calcium or water flow can cause problems.

 

Some possible causes can be:

• Reduced absorption of calcium by the roots. The soil pH may be too low (less than 5.2), or there may be competing cations (e.g., ammonium, potassium, phosphorous), or there can rarely be a lack of sufficient calcium in the soil. Lime can correct the pH and supply problem. Do not over-fertilize and avoid ammonium and urea fertilizers to help reduce competing cations.
• There can be competition for water and minerals within the plant. A rapidly growing plant (as happens in the spring and early summer) will preferentially use its resources to build the plant structure (leaves and stems) rather than fruit.
• There may be insufficient water flow through  the plant. The soil may be too dry, too wet (reduces soil oxygen which impairs root function), compacted, root pests or pathogens, or high soil temperatures. If vascular flow is reduced, so is the transport of minerals.
• A lot of water flow is used to support transpiration, the evaporation of water from leaves that cools the plant. The parts that transpire more (leaves) will receive more minerals along with the fluid. Fruits transpire very little so get less. Humidity can also affect transpiration, with high humidity reducing it considerably. Plants covered with row cover have less air flow over them and consequently less transpiration happens.

 

See, I said it was complex. What it boils down to is: make sure plants and roots are healthy and actively growing, soil pH is within range, plants are not over-fertilized, and water is applied adequately and consistently, which of course is what we all try to do. After that, it’s out of your hands, unless you think your egg shells or Epsom salts or whatever really works. Then do that.

 

Artistic note: I do not have a photo of a tomato with BER I could use. I usually just toss those tomatoes in the compost, why would I want to photograph my failures? I looked for public domain photos but they were all butt ugly. So I used a photo of my Pineapple tomatoes grown in 2014, showing some cracking and cat facing but no BER. Hooray. Just shows my method of avoiding the whole subject works pretty well.

Harvest Monday 13 July 2015

 

 

It seemed like I tried to avoid the garden last week, but a lot happened despite that. Maybe I am just really efficient when I do visit the garden. So this post might be a little long, sorry. Let’s start with onions. The onion thrips essentially killed the White Candy onions so I pulled all of them to get them out of the garden (the white onions at the top). Everything else is doing OK. I pulled a couple of Tropea and Red Candy onions and a Super Star to use in cooking.

 

 

I finally uncovered the cucumbers and chard and will take my chances with pests. The chard has again shaded the cukes so I trimmed just the offending leaves on the edges of the chard bed.

 

 

The mustard greens also got a haircut and will probably be removed soon because they are starting to bolt. I may get one more cutting before that happens. I also pulled out all the Soloist cabbages which were riddled with holes and starting to bolt. Planting them without protection turned into a complete waste  of time and space.

Harvest Monday 6 July 2015

 

I had to clear out some of the beets shading my cucumber plants, resulting in this. Finally, a harvest the wife actually likes, and so do I . Greens get boring after a while. These are Touchstone Gold and Shiraz.

 

 

Next some turnips and the first Azur Star kohlrabi. The white turnips are Hakurei and the others, according to my planting map, are Boule D’Or, but clearly are not. Hmm, where did I plant the Boule D’Or? These are Royal Crown, a purple top F1 hybrid from Sakata I purchased from Pinetree. They look very nice compared to the typical dried out store-bought turnip. Besides being good roasted or mashed, they are a good low-carb substitute for potatoes in some recipes.

 

 

Finally, I picked some lettuce. I was very bad about planting lettuce this year, but these two did get in the ground. These are Winter Density and Marshall, both Romaines. Unfortunately, they are showing signs of bolting, so I have about a dozen heads to harvest soon. Why did I plant 6 of each?

 

 

More peas, and plenty more where these came from. This is 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg). So my plan to trellis them rather than grow them in a block seems to be paying off, and they are much easier to pick. Next year I only need to plant half as many.

 

 

The onions are starting to size up, so I need to start pulling and using some of the ones I want fresh (and there are a lot of them). These are Red Candy, Tropea, and White Candy. The White Candy went into the lemon risotto for our Fourth of July salmon. The foliage on the Copra storage onions is already showing signs of falling over. The leaves are very tall and at first I thought it was wind from one of the storms that pushed them over. I think I will be harvesting them soon.

 

What I also noticed is that many of the onions are showing thrip damage. Onions for me have been pretty trouble free, but last year I figured out I had some apparent thrip damage and even some purple blotch. Thrips are hard to control. They are hard to see, being about a millimeter in size, and they produce 8-10 generations a year. The rapid reproduction means they can quickly develop resistance to whatever you spray them with, so you have to alternate sprays. Apparently spraying Surround clay on onion foliage repels thrips and they can’t build up a resistance to what is a mechanical control. Maybe I will try that next year. I have to find some more uses for my 40 pound bag of Surround.

 

That is what happened in my garden last week. To see what other gardeners around the world are doing, head over to Daphne’s Dandelions, our host for Harvest Monday.

Crystalline Ice Plant

 

Crystalline ice plant, or ficoïde glaciale in French and Eiskraut/Kristallkraut in German, is a South African succulent plant (Mesembryanthemum crystallinum) and is popular in France and Spain and very trendy in New York restaurants. While it grows wild and has spread around the world, the only place you can score some around here is from my garden.

 

I first saw ice plant on a John Kohler You Tube video. It was one of several strange greens he was growing in his front yard garden (tyfon was another and I also have seeds for that). Pinetree has the seeds so I decided to plant a small patch of the stuff this year just to see what it is like. Ice plant is in the Aizoaceae family and is actually related to tetragon or New Zealand spinach.

 

 

 

The heart-shaped leaves are broad and light green colored in the Spring and covered with crystalline bumps used to store water. The plant is salt tolerant, often growing on the coast and on sand dunes. The leaves are edible and the taste is very subtle. It has a briny, slightly salty taste. Since it is a succulent, when you eat it, it sort of melts in your mouth, releasing the briny juices. Chefs often pair it with seafood for that reason.

 

 

I have yet to experience it, but in summer the foliage changes form to smaller grey leaves with pink flower buds and white aster-like flowers. The buds are edible and attractive and are prized by chefs. The flowers are attractive and you can see a picture of them in the Baker Creek catalog. They describe them as looking like sea anemones, and they do.

 

In climates without frost, the plants can become invasive. There is another ice plant (Carpobrotus edulis), another succulent from South Africa, that was used for ground cover and is now an invasive species causing a lot of trouble in California. That plant is also called Hottentot fig, highway ice plant, pigface and sour fig. It produces a tart fruit that is used to make jam. I am not sure if the two plants are related.

 

So far I have only had a few leaves to add to a salad, where it does not stand out. The plants are now large enough to produce enough leaves for a more substantial dish, but I am not sure what I will do with them. While this is certainly an intriguing and attractive plant, I surely will not plant it again. The little taste and texture it has is just not worth the space in my small garden.

Harvest Monday 29 June 2015

 

 

The kohlrabies are sizing up quickly so I harvested a few more. These are Winner, but the Azur Star are also putting on size and will be ready soon. I may leave one or two of the Azur Star plants to see how big I can get them. The ones I saw at Tower Hill were the size of a large grapefruit and apparently remain edible at that size. Just more to enjoy. I also pulled another Red Candy and a couple of the Tropea onions to make room for the pole beans.

 

 

The snow peas and snap peas are in full production now. And I definitely had a green snow pea mixed in with my Sugar Snap peas, so that adds a little unexpected variety.

 

 

More peas. It is time to start freezing snow peas. The snap peas, if they make it home, are being used with kohlrabi and radish slices and some hummus for quick lunches.

 

There is plenty more to harvest from the garden but weather and my schedule have not aligned. It has rained a lot and temperatures are colder, with some nights in the 50s, and it is rained Saturday night and Sunday. I hope we don’t go into some long rainy stretch here which will just promote the spread of disease. All this rain is coming from tropical storms and Midwest weather and I hope this is not some prolonged pattern. However, looking at the forecast, it rained Sunday and is forecasted to rain Wednesday and Friday, so that is looking like a pattern. Time to start preventive spraying in between storms.

 

On Saturday I did get to check on the garden, pinch a few suckers from the tomatoes, and harvest the peas above. So far everything looks healthy. I noted some of my peppers are starting to set fruit, which is always an encouraging sign.

 

 

Above is the large Jimmy Nardello pepper I showed last week along with its puny siblings. You can see 3 sizeable fruit in the photo but if you blow it up, I count 11 peppers visible. Above the frame the plant is loaded with blossoms. Wish I had 6 of these. I’ll just have to be patient and wait for the rest to grow up and become productive citizens of the garden.

 

 

Another nice view is this one of an Hungarian Paprika plant. Wish I had six of these like I planned but I only got two to germinate after a lengthy battle. The seed was sourced from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and they say their seed originated in Hungary but do not provide a local name for it or even say what village or even county it came from. The “sweet, spicy” peppers are described to be slender, 4.5 inches long and they ripen to a dark red color. I have fantasies of making my own Paprika but how do you dry these peppers? Air dry or dehydrator? Does it help to split them open before dehydrating?

 

That’s what happened in my garden last week. To see what other gardeners around the world are doing, visit Daphne’s Dandelions, our host for Harvest Monday.

 

Harvest Monday 22 June 2015

 

 

Harvested some more spinach and the first cutting of tatsoi. I thought the tatsoi was ruined by the flea beetles, but some judicious spraying and a break in the weather caused it to outgrow the flea beetles. There is more in the garden and the cool, rainy weather we have this weekend will hopefully suppress the beetles and allow me to harvest the rest next week.

 

 

The bulk of the garlic scapes were harvested this week, after a few early scapes became available last week. Another first picking was the Golden Sweet snow peas. These are growing quite rampantly. I had to use twine to raise the mass of the vines off the  radishes in the middle of the bed and pull them toward the trellis. The prevailing (high) winds have been blowing the vines away from the trellis, keeping the tendrils from grabbing the trellis.

 

 

I opened the brassica tenting to see how they are doing and took the opportunity to cut the first harvest of the Beedy’s Camden kale. Now I have kale for smoothies, my baked eggs, and some massaged kale salads. All of the brassicas are still looking good. There are some holes in the bottom leaves of the kale so maybe I should try spraying some Spinosad in there next week. I examined the broccoli and no sign of heads forming, which is good.

 

 

More firsts in the root vegetables category. I actually succeeded in growing a kohlrabi, only my second in years of attempts. I started these indoors in soil cubes and transplanted them. This one is Winner. Also harvested were the Red Candy onion and the first Rossa Lunga di Tropea onion, to use as fresh onions in cooking.

 

 

Besides the root vegetables I picked a large quantity of the Golden Sweet snow peas and the first Sugar Snap peas.

 

 

 

I pulled most of the radishes from the bed so I can plant something else. The purple Boro King radishes were huge but had a lot of maggot damage.  The white radish is an off-color Boro King. And more strange shapes from the Dragon radishes. I wondered if  this could be cause by some problem, like nematodes or a soil-borne disease. It is not rocks, there are none in the raised beds. Apparently not, daikon radishes often exhibit the same strange shapes and I will bet there is some daikon in these.

 

 

After photographing the radishes I found this one in the corner of the bag. It is strange enough to deserve its own photo.

 

That is what I harvested from my garden last week. Check out what other gardeners are growing by visiting Daphne’s Dandelions, our host for Harvest Monday.

Tomato Inventory 2015

This year I have 28 tomato plants, 14 each in the raised-bed and in-ground gardens. All but 5 of these were started by me from seeds this winter. There were ups and downs but I generally did a decent job this year starting my tomatoes from seed. In addition to the plants in my garden, I was able to give another 9-10 tomato plants to other gardeners in the community garden. What you wind up with in the spring is not always what you plan for in the winter. Each year you have to be satisfied with what you achieved and supplement it with purchases if necessary. What follows is an inventory of what is actually in soil and growing now. Just forget those garden planting schedules I made in February, they no longer matter.

 

The Raised Beds

Working counterclockwise around the raised beds.

 

 

Above  is Esterina, an F1 hybrid cherry tomato that I am growing in lieu of Sungold. I love Sungold but it has a terrible tendency to crack whenever it rains. Esterina is just as sweet and prolific and more crack resistant. I grew it last year and liked it, so this is the second year. I have 3 of these planted in the raised beds and gave away 2 of them. My seeds came from High Mowing but it is also carried by Territorial and William Dam in Canada.