Other post-vacation garden updates

Other news from around the garden:

• Shaggy (the Cherokee Purple tomato) had a bad accident while we were gone too – one of his main vines either got too heavy or got whipped around in the wind, and snapped completely. When I went to cut it off with my knife, I think I snagged the stem and dug into it. Hopefully poor Shags doesn’t mind a few nicks and scratches.

• The lettuce pest I mentioned the other day turned out to be a cabbage looper (as identified via e-mail by my wonderfully helpful local university extension office). They recommend I use a BT-based pesticide to help remove them. I picked up some Thuricide at the local garden center and sprayed it on the lettuces. This seemed to help for a bit but I noticed a few more eggs and caterpillars in the garden yesterday, so I guess it’s an ongoing process.

• We also returned to find a minor aphid infestation (also identified by the extension’s master gardeners) on the Black Cherry tomato plant…

I sprayed some homemade insecticidal soap on them (lighter formula this time) and that seemed to take care of them.

Full garden photo round-up (couple days old) after the jump.

Planted tomatoes, zucchini, and herbs … built badass trellis

We got the majority of the organic garden transplants yesterday from Bear Creek Farms and got everything planted today.

Container herbs:

• Parsley – Italian flat leaf – 3 seedlings, big pot
• Cilantro – 2 seedlings, big pot
• Basil – Italian – 2 seedlings, medium pot
• Rosemary – 2 seedlings, medium pot
• Thyme – standard – 1 (really large) plant, long rectangular pot

Container plants:

• Pepper – Jalapeno – 4 seedlings, 2 large pots
• Tomato – Black Cherry (heirloom) – really large pot

For a potting mix, we used a blend of Fertilome potting mix and Summer Field Farms “Professional Potting Soil” (mix of pine bark and compost). The Fertilome is pretty light and the SFF mix is somewhat heavy, so we used more of the former than the latter.

Raised bed (east) plants:

• Tomato – Prue (heirloom, paste)
• Tomato – Green Zebra (heirloom, medium size)
• Tomato – German Johnson (heirloom, beefsteak size)
• Zucchini – Spineless Beauty – 4 seedlings

We planted the tomatoes about 24 inches apart from each other, in a square, and the zucchinis about 8 inches from each other, with the intention of keeping the healthiest of the plants and giving away the rest of them.

We watered the plants in (not the herbs) with Nature’s Creation Liquid Plant Food per the instructions and mulched all the plants (not the herbs) with shredded hardwood mulch.

On the hardware front, we installed our cattle panel trellis for the tomatoes – 8 vertical feet of growing room for those babies. We’ll never be able to reach the top but they’ll have a good time growing.

Pictures of the aftermath: