On Sun, 02 Aug 2015 00:43:01 -0600, Janet B >
wrote:

>On Sat, 01 Aug 2015 19:18:47 -0400, Boron Elgar
> wrote:
>

>>I look forward to any advice you have because I know what a talented
>>gardener you are.
>>
>You are very kind and flatter me. I know that you are enormously
>successful with your garden as well.

I stick stuff in the dirt and water it.


> I guess I would watch that eggplant for a bit to see if I needed to
>shelter the soil or pot from the hot sun -- just until the roots get
>comfy in their new location. Osmocote is what I use. It might be a
>bit shy on the nitrogen for my taste. It is easy to get scald here
>and a bit more leaf cover would be good. I think that next year when
>we rototill I will put some grass fertilizer in. We have been putting
>tons of compost in there but it hasn't been sufficient to goose up the
>nitrogen.

I have switched off between Osmocote and MiracleGro over the years,
likely due to whatever my Costco had in the spring. I have never soil
tested, but enrich with compost and some well rotted manure each year,
as well as tossing in my favorite of Epsom salts. I rotate the crops
as best as one can do with most everything in tubs, and have even been
careful about re-using tomato stakes, but find that the late blight
has its own ways of sneaking in.


>I have vandals! Yesterday morning I went to the back yard and someone
>had a game of raccoon football or something similar in the corn patch.
>Canes were knocked over at the ground and some were simply chewed off.
>This morning I went to pick tomatoes and I see this lovely big, red
>tomato. . .I pick it and discover that it is covered with tree rat
>teeth marks. I'm telling you, the lack of a dog has let all the
>neighborhood critters think my garden is a rumpus room!

Since I am the second house from the woods and the only one with an
extensive food garden, we used to make jokes about our place being a
truck stop for all the critters.

When you say tree rats, do you mean squirrels or chipmunks? We have
been have a lot of trouble with an exploding chipmunk population here.
I've no sympathy for them, as they as so destructive.

It is awful to see one's well-tended garden torn apart like that so
late in the season. What's the old joke about how one knows when the
corn is ripe, the answer being one day before the raccoons get it.

I had to chuck 8-10 really big tomatoes yesterday because of a chomp
on the bottom or the side facing away. Drives me mad. That is why I
had not done many large tomatoes recently, but stuck to a wide range
of cherries. Little nasties had gone after my strawberries, too. I
have an old fashioned strawberry jar that is quite productive, and I
check it daily. I know when I have been robbed.

Alas, Rose, as a gentle bichon, did little to deter the groundhogs
that caused most of my mayhem in those years. They could have eaten
her for breakfast. Redoing the decking back there seems to have gotten
rid of the groundhog hiding places and the chipmunks and raccoons have
moved into that ecological niche. Such is life and the food chain.

Boron