#zone8

Remember those tomato suckers I pulled off of my mature Sweet Million plant? Well they successfully root and I ended up with 11 more plants! I gave 3 away and today I put my two larger ones into containers and my 6 smaller into the ground. I have never grown tomatoes in the ground so it will be interesting to see how they turn out! I never found them wilty in the process of rooting them and I was happy to find lots of healthy roots on all of them.

Remember that Cabbage White butterfly I told you about? After seeing them visiting my container garden I started checking for eggs. Today I removed by hand roughly 100 eggs from my 3 cabbage crops. I used tweezers and just gently scooped the eggs off of each leaf being careful not to drop them back into the container.

Today I set up some pots with dry soil in it to attempt to let some of my strawberry runners root. If they were in the ground they would spread like a ground cover would. Once it has roots the "daughter" plant can be cut from the "mother" plant giving you an entirely new plant. The white powder you see is diatemacious earth, an organic insecticide that works really well. I want to keep ants and other bugs off of my ripening strawberries.

Attempting to revitalize these Broccoli plants. They were planted and failed last year and surprised me when they popped back up this year. They didn’t look so hot and so I first watered them with Epsom salt a couple weeks ago and a few days ago they got some horse manure compost. They seem to be coming around, it will be awesome if we can get a harvest off of them or at the very leasr maybe get them to flower and seed so I can collect its seed. The first three pictures are today the last three were taken on April 4th.

I have strawberry plants that seem to be doing really well, because they are in a greenhouse I am pollinating them by hand. Its a pretty easy process, strawberry plants are considered self fertilizing so the pollen really only has milimeters to go in order to be pollinated. If they were exposed to wind that would be sufficient enough to get the job done. I did read that the more they are pollinated and if they are cross pollinated they produce bigger better strawberries. These berries were pollinated about 2 weeks ago based on what I have read they should take another two weeks before they are ripe. I also learned that there are two strains of these traditional strawberries, June Bearing and Everbearing. June Bearing are good for those with a shorter growing season. They produce only in May-June and produce bigger sweeter berries. If you have a longer growing season you may prefer the Everbearing like what I have, they will produce berries the entire growing season.

I learned the hard way that a greenhouse does not equal protection from parasites and gastropods. I discovered an aphid and white fly infestation on one of my Sweet Million Tomato plants. With the use of ladybugs (which can be purchased from any nursery or garden center) and daily pat downs with duct tape, I was able to eliminate the bugs and prevent them from spreading to my other plants. I believe the bugs came with this plant when I got it as a start. I read they are translucent in their early stages. I also learned that the white fly duplicates faster then the lady bug, so lady bugs alone are not a solution to a white fly infestation.

Learning to grow my own food, pictured is a Long Island Brussel Sprout that was planted by seed on April 9th, it has its first true leaf and will soon be ready to be transplant into its permanent container.