What Kubla said. Also, once you are consistently over 92 degrees or so, the plants will pretty much be done setting new fruit. Grape or cherry tomatoes will continue to produce in the heat, though.
I stopped growing shit down here. After last years nightmare where everything died by August because of the heat, I said fuck it. I have some basic herbs, but I tried tomatoes and watermelon and other stuff and it all ended up like garbage.
The tomatoes and herbs were mostly yellow and sickly looking last week... here they are after an initial heavy dose of soluble "tomato and veggie" specific fertilizer, along with a normal dose a week later. Tons of new tomatoes have shown up and just had the first one start to redden up today, and everything looks so much healthier and stronger and it's grown like crazy. Same with the cucumbers.
According to Gallagher fencing you only need like three or four strands but you need to use a tape (the 1/2" tall thin wire) twisted so that it shows up with one or two of those wires on the outside perimeter and then a couple more on the inside perimeter (like two feet inside) so that it messes with their vision. They do that on feed plots in Michigan. I'm going off of memory here so I could be off a bit. I may have to re-watch that video.
Ive tried the fish wire strands to "confuse" the deer. Didn't work. There is a couple around the corner that have a normal 5 foot electric fencing set up and Ive never seen their huge garden get touched. SOON: Spoiler
Very nice. Soon indeed! Here's my little brandywines, a couple weeks late compared to last year but still truckin' along. Its about golf ball sized for scale. The San Marzanos and cherry tomatoes are basically in the same stage. Beans! First time growing these so its exciting to peek in-between the leaves and see bunches of these. They grow so fast. Picking these tonight. My different kinds of day lilies are booming now too. I love these things. I think I'm over the hump with soil troubles, all of my pepper plants are really growing up now and bearing good looking fruit. Holy crap do pumpkin vines grow fast too, I don't see any fruit yet but I'm guessing its soon. I don't think planting those was a mistake, yet. Picked my first zucchini on Tuesday too, I have no idea how I didn't see them but there were a couple of big 'uns hiding there and ready. Thus last night we ate something from the garden for the first time this year. Last year I discovered a giant zucchini while ripping vines out at the end of the season, it was hiding on the pavement under a mass of leaves. We're talking State Fair grade. Had no idea what to do with it until a maintenance guy visiting our house mentioned his wife ran a daycare and I figured the kids would get a kick out of it, so it went home with him. 80 lb. good boy for scale.
My Jalapeno's are doing great, this is one of three plants. My Bell peppers aren't doing as well for some reason. There are more on this plant but are smaller.
Just finished plumbing in the automated watering for the herb garden. After doing it once with all the fancy fittings, it didn't work worth shit due to uneven pressure. Instead, I just cut all the bare tube, blocked all the open ends, then just poked the tube with the pointy end of a box cutter to open a very, very small hole. When it's powered up, everything maintains the same pressure and it gets a good spray/soaking where needed. All in, $40 for the timer, and about $40 for the tubing and connectors/plugs. Totally worth it... It now spray waters every 12 hours for 2 minutes (6am, 6pm). I'll monitor and adjust as needed.
This is true, however, you can look for varieties bred for hotter conditions. It isn't a huge difference, but some varieties are more tolerant by a couple degrees, which means they have the possibility of setting fruit at night. I took these this morning. I am letting nature take its course at this point. Spoiler The cuphea sriracha rose plants that I started from seeds are finally started giving me lots of blossoms. Spoiler
Here is a smattering of my first tomatoes: Spoiler The first one is the real show stopper and even Layla's melon head doesn't do it justice. Unfortunately the tomatos are still cracking during ripening. Then the birds are getting to them once they are rip enough. The frustration never stops. Spoiler One of my plants collapsed under its own weight. I had tried to keep the main stems on the inside of each cage, Ill have to weave them next year. Also I had put my haul today on my car floor so my dog didn't step on them. She then decided to splay out and lay DIRECTLY on them. She squised a couple.
Found four more Hornworms today. A couple big ones. Went to a Home Depot and local gardening center and they were useless. Ordered thuricide off Amazon but wont get here till tuesday. Here is a bug that I'm glad to have in my garden. A young praying mantis on my Cayenne pepper plant and here is my Ghost pepper plant.
Wow... those are huge. I only have 1 pepper on each of my jalapeno and (some other spicy) pepper plants.
You might just want to cut them off. If the plant is just using all it's energy on one pepper, just cut it. This usually forces the plant to throw out more flowers. At the beginning of the season I usually cut off the early peppers on any of my plants. My Jalapeno plants I took off the first few flowers and they are loaded with peppers.
Yeah same goes with tomatoes. People will buy the plants from stores that already have a tomato or two set. It's always advised to pluck them and let the plant focus on getting established once it's been transplanted.
Mother fucking cock sucking faggot birds: Spoiler Ive now got my whole patch covered in bird netting and I murdered the two mocking birds that were hanging around the garden for good measure.
Earlier this year I bought a weeder hoe, basically this: I dug out a 20 foot trench along my garage where my intention is to plant a row of flowers. But since I haven't made up my mind what flowers I want to plant in it the trench got completely overgrown with weeds. It took me all of 5 minutes on Saturday to clear that entire trench with the weeder hoe. Best garden tool I've ever used.