The Strangest Tomato
Honestly.
I have NO idea about this one.
I’m actually a little creeped out by it.
Tomatoes don’t have stones or pits like peaches or plums.
Is someone messing with me?
Is it a pupae? A fungus?
Or just a freakish scar from the remnants of a gaping pest buffet?
Arikara harvest
The last couple of Arikara sunflower heads were cut last week, including the big one. I wanted to leave them on the stalk a little while longer but then discovered the squirrels had found them.
Funny thing though, they didn’t attack the seeds like the birds do, ie pluck them out. Instead, they munched into the whole head like a giant cookie, starting from the edge. Below you can see that the smaller of the two has a nice section chomped out of it. Oh well.
I think I’ll save a few of the seeds from the monster head below and see what genes are passed to next years crop.
Time to collect the seeds, soak in the mild brine solution and roast.
Sorry, this is all I can offer this evening. 😉
More nature than you asked for
(Actually, no one asked for anything, but I guess this still qualifies as more than you asked for….)
Yesterday I posted this picture:
I took this one and the one below when I was out on my stroll because I was curious about what it was and recognize that Canon equipment almost always has a better memory than I do.
So what is it? My best guess was it was about to turn into a “Lord of the Rings” style orc but I figured I’d better investigate before posting that as fact.
Some googling for “knots in plant stems” revealed that these knots are technically called”galls”. It turns out galls are common and part of the life cycle of several species of plants and animals. Cause? Usually a parasitic insect or fungus.
More searching of “wildflower galls” led me to discover that goldenrod (which is plentiful in north Georgia right now) has a common gall type appropriately called “apple gall” or “ball gall”.
It turns out there is a small fly “Eurosta solidaginis” or Goldenrod Gall Fly that survives exclusively by laying tiny eggs in fresh goldenrod stems. This causes a reaction in the stem that creates the gall, which conveniently houses the gall fly’s larvae/pupae until the following spring. The fly hatches out, does the nature thing and then finds young goldenrod stems to continue the cycle. (The link above has several pictures if you are bug inclined at the moment.)
The golden rod seems to do ok regardless, although these look like the plants are topped off and won’t be flowering.
Useful info? Nah, probably only if you are trying to impress someone nerdy and have run out of made up stuff.
Mug of coffee and a camera
North GA mountain+ morning stroll + a mug of coffee + a camera = this stuff
See them?
Look closer. What the hell are YOU looking at?
Hosta sea
chestnuts
Better move along (looking up from same spot)
Mogen David on the vine?
Goldenrod Gall:
The price of pepper success
One of my Napoleon Sweet bell pepper plants has been really loading up for a big late season harvest. Mrs cohutt and I counted 13 or 14 peppers set on this one plant over the weekend and were smugly discussing how we might prep them for long term storage and winter consumption.
I had put the “tomato” cage around this plant earlier; it was certainly not capable of holding up any respectable tomato plant but seemed appropriate for pepper propping. One large branch was listing a bit but I didn’t see the need to tie it off; after all the overall plant was being supported fairly well in its laden state by the wire.
Bad decision. I last night I discovered that the branch had snapped at the juncture with the main plant stem and was hanging by a thread. The peppers were toast as it must have happened Monday – 48 hours of Georgia August sun with no water supply does not firm up a pepper.
Oh well. I will evaluate the other plants and make sure I don’t have any more potential snappers.
An uncleverly titled gourd post
[sarcasm/ON ]
This is just a basic update without a clever title or any “Dreamworks” quality laser eyed special effects. If my previous gourd posts have unfairly raised your expectations, I offer my most sincere and heartfelt apologies.
[sarcasm/OFF]
After branch runners of some of the gourd vines withered a couple weeks ago, I was afraid the decline have overtaken the entire vine by now. Not so.
Actually, the vines seem to have started a second wave of runners off the established root systems. The leaves appear to be a little smaller but the runners are quite vigorous. Here you can see the spotty vine remnants on the trellis in the background and the new grown off the base of the tower and running along the ground under the trellis.
This is good news for the obvious reason but also for the fact that the entire bed and the ground immediately around it is fully shaded again – this should be of great benefit for moisture consistency over the last of these hot days.
Little vines, little leaves, any gourds setting?
Uh, yes. This one is an example of a 5 or 6 day old gourd (after the pollination, not flowering), so fresh it still has its spiny bug repelling fuzz on it. I assume this offers some protection for the young soft shelled gourd from nuisance bug attacks.
I have mixed emotions since it appears that all 60 or so of the first wave appear to be doing just fine even as the host vines have suffered. The late vine in the corner compost pile is coming on strong now with its first wave of fruits- most appear to be like the larger, lighter green gourds that helped topple the tower a few weeks ago.
A couple of these were developing in the mesh and fortunately I noticed and pulled them out before they became one with the rusted metal and sealed their own doom. (I don’t suppose the local firemen would have been amused if I asked them to bring their “jaws of life” contraption to save them later.)
I find the corner vine to be every bit the opportunist as the other vines. First, it smothered the ugly wire scrap metal while making good use of it. Now it has managed to neatly escape along the ally side of the fence in order to catch the western sun in the afternoon. I haven’t had to redirect it away from the gate yet although left to its own devices it would have it covered before Labor day.
Well I hope this fascinating gourd update tides you all over for another week or two. That’s all for now. 🙂
Rocks in my head?
(The knots in my back seem to be in proportion to the rocks in my head. Why I start some things I’ll never know.)
In recent day’s I’ve concentrated on cleaning up the garden and getting ready for fall. I have managed to set some spinach and peas planted and a few brussel sprout seedlings sprouted on the back porch. I’m waiting for a soil cube device to arrive to start more fall plants- it is an interesting little device and concept and I promise to post about it in excruciating detail should it ever arrive.
I’m beginning to think some more about the old boxwood garden and how I will rearrange the old plants this winter. I will be happy to let anyone help who wants experience in moving large root balls a few feet the old-fashioned way.
Earlier in the summer I started poking around under the dirt and discovered that the part of the shale walking path stones I could see was “the tip of the iceberg”. I sort of slipped into a trance and uncovered a dozen or so of them before I considered what I was doing- the picture below shows the damage I managed to do before I caught myself.
So today I was surveying the layout and just wasn’t getting any visions so I decided I had to bring some order to the stones and started lifting, dragging, pirouetting and flipping these heavy bastiges around until I had them somewhat organized in a clustered ring around the bell:
Is this where they will stay? Nope. However, this has cleaned up the obstacle course my earlier probing left behind and it has given me an idea I can develop a little.
I did cull 3 exceptionally large flat ones and move then to the transition area where the lawn ends and the path between one of my beds and the fence shed begins. I can tell you, I respect the rock moving abilities of both the Druids and the slaves of ancient Egypt a lot more this evening.
Anyway, this is where they lay now for visual absorption during future garden rest breaks:
I promise you, these are some large ones:
Global Crop Diversity
This is a public service announcement and doesn’t include any pictures or inane ramblings about gourds.
OK, so Russia looks like it is closing one of the largest seed sustaining operations in the world to make room for {{cough}} an apartment complex. The Pavlovsk Experiment Station isn’t a “vault” or “seed bank” like this new Svalbard monster in Norway that looks like it could be Dr Evil’s lair.
Not all plants species can be preserved by freezing and sorting their seeds deep in a tomb somewhere near the arctic circle; some, including most fruits and berries, actually have to be sustained in controlled living nurseries generation to generation. This is what Pavlovsk is- a living nursery and growing station for thousands of unique fruit and berry species(?) or varieties.
So why does cohutt care?
Genetically modified and hybrid seeds have brought us higher yielding crops tailored to “modern” industrial farming practices. However, there is more than just a hint of evidence that modern farming practices aren’t sustainable in the long run.
The seed banks and the whole seed saving movement as promoted by organizations like Seed Savers Exchange (see link in lower right column) are important defense mechanisms to the unintended consequences of the increasing percentages of GMO crop plantings worldwide.
I’m of the opinion that we can’t contain nature; a diverse and actively managed seed stock is insurance against our own cleverness in the agricultural and genetic sciences.
I’m not a greenie tree hugger type (I drive 8 cylinder vehicles) but I am somewhat educated in risk management and therefore believe that this organization is on to something. The green movement gets under my skin in a lot of ways BUT I do agree I probably am concerned with many of the same things, but often for different reasons.
So read a bit and see what you think; consider supporting this if it makes sense to you.
The Global Crop Diversity Trust
(Not that I am optimistic that signatures on a petition will change the Ruskies’ minds. Uh, send money instead?)
By the way, the US is the “bread basket of the world”, right?
Uh, not exactly anymore.
The US is a net importer of food now. When we became a net importer of oil back in the 70s it really didn’t concern us all that much did it? We’d work it out, right? How complicated and divisive has our foreign policy become in the 35 years since?
If we get as worked up as we do about our oil supply, how do you think we will we react when it comes to our food supply?
Just sayin….
It’s 98 degrees, let’s get ready for the fall garden
Most of one of my big beds in the back has been prepped for fall except for the 2 Brandywine plants still producing beautifully at the end. This bed was mostly a Roma factory until late July. Shortly after this picture, the last remnants of the tomato roots were removed and the whole bed was refreshed with layer of leaf compost and a couple of wheel barrow loads of composted dairy cow manure.
(((( Pressure ))))
I have to deliver; I’ve been instructed to plant so much spinach this fall that the hiring of a few migrate workers might be necessary for the harvest. The good news is I saved a bucket of Bloomsdale seed from the spring planting and bought an ounce of the same @ Ace Hardware here for 59 cents. (It was on the 50% off table, how could I not?)
If I follow the SFG planting density suggestion I would plant 9 plants per square foot, which would (potentially) provide 576 plants in this one bed.
(Oh honey…. will this be enough? :))
I also discovered that large stacks of pleasantly rusted tomato cages are almost invisible against the brown fence in the back.
Behind cohutt's fence 
