What's blooming in your yard?

[Patty Smyth]

Well, I have been away for a week and my dad said he would water my pots. So since he only did it twice and it was hot as heck here my garden is suffering quite a bit. My wave petunias are dead and some other things are borderline.

[marstec]

Ahh, sorry to hear about your poor plants, Patty. Imo, no one can take as good care of your garden than you...use that Green Thumb of yours to whip your garden into shape!

[Patty Smyth]

Well after a really good soaking some things are looking a little better lol. Thankfully my pride and joy Dragon Wings begonias are tough. I didn't think they could get any bigger but they did lol

[muggos0101]

Finally starting to ripen!

[AliceStewart21]

Finally starting to ripen!

it look very good,

[muggos0101]

Thanks, Alice!

[Lynn49]

It 's our first time attempting to grow pumpkins, but I'm thinking we're not being too successful.
Shouldn't the two of them be larger than a baseball by now?
Does anyone know?

[marstec]

Lynn,
I only grew winter squash once...it was butternut squash and one plant took over my entire garden! To add insult to injury, I only got one large and one small squash out of it.

Sometimes the squash will spend all its energy making foliage at the cost of fruit production. If it's not important to you to get more squash, you can actually pinch off the growing tip and that will concentrate the plant's energy towards ripening the existing pumpkins. Make sure you are watering it enough too, they require a lot of water at that stage.

[GoJays]

i beat you Lynnie! My watermelon is the size of a softball! lol... it's done.. i wasn't really expecting much from it anyway.. dd thought it was fun to try at least we got a couple of nice cucumbers this year.. next year i'll concentrate on more vegetable plants and less annuals

[Lynn49]

Lol...thank you Marstec, Jays...I feel better knowing there's an art to growing these!
I'll certainly head out there this morning and hack off that tip or more...you're right...it's taken over, must be 15' long!

Okay. I hacked the nose off the invasive thing and I hope that'll do it some good.
Or the kids will need binoculars to see the wee thing this halloween...
I should proudly give it to our grandson and announce that we grew it just for him!! LOL!'
He'd be too polite, I'm sure, to say anything but 'thank you'....hahaha!!!

[avoncallingu]

I "Harvested" our ripe tomatoes today. TWO ripe grape tomatoes! We had a little ceremony to celebrate. The TASTED good, though! We DO have others that are about to ripen. We have some nice grape clusters - pretty sour though and not enough to do much with them - I hope the birds find them!

[BC Gal]

I've been giving my cherry tomato plants Van Houtte coffee grounds. They are huge plants so I guess they liked it Thank goodness they are ripening since we get blight here and it's already setting in. I stopped growing other types of tomatoes because they take too long and the blight over takes the plant.

I'm not the best gardener, but I'm learning. A neighbour who's yard is a beautiful jungle told me to fertilize every 7 to 10 days instead of once a month during growing season. It has really made a difference. I use a little less than recommended and switch different ones around, including fish, seaweed, etc.

Anyone have tips/tricks to make gardens grow bigger and better? How do you keep your garden looking it's best?

[coupon girl]

oh i getting tons of little cherry tomatoes -love them in my salads-and a few regular tomatoes -but they seem to be crackling in texture near the top -does anyone know why-might need to water that sucker more

[marstec]

oh i getting tons of little cherry tomatoes -love them in my salads-and a few regular tomatoes -but they seem to be crackling in texture near the top -does anyone know why-might need to water that sucker more

Some tomato varieties are more prone to splitting than others. It could also be watering issues. You might want to pick them as they are turning ripe rather than when they are fully ripe - just ripen them in a bowl. The flavour won't be affected much unless you pick them when they are still green. I've heard about people complain when their tomatoes split right after a heavy rain, so the excess moisture might be encouraging growth that the tomato can't sustain, so hence the cracking.

BC Gal,

The only advice I can give about making your garden more productive is to amend the soil every year. Plants like growing in loose fertile soil with lots of organic matter. Composting helps a lot. I used to add tons of peat moss to my garden, but I found it really didn't help...it acidifies the soil and breaks down quickly without adding much else. If you have a source of well-rotted manure, that would be good too...but make sure you aren't introducing a bunch of new weeds or you will regret it!

Keep everything weeded as best as you can because plants don't like the competition. And learn about proper watering techniques so that you are making the most of the water, which allows the plants to develop a deep root system that will help them get through between waterings.

[BC Gal]

Great advice marstec. I have been adding peat moss to the soil because it's heavy clay, thinking that would help. Good to know to spend my money elsewhere. As well, I let a lot of native plants grow if there is room, but didn't really consider room for the roots. Thanks