2022 Veggie gardens!

That’s a lovely offer, @Rasam - thank you!

I’ve asked all my friends with moms who live here, but no luck yet,

I know there are nurseries in NJ that sell plants, but it’s too far for me (and too expensive for my light use).

I hate to assume, but if you mean me too, thank you for your generosity!

Yes, @shrinkrap and @saregama. Let’s hope I get flowers this year.

2 Likes

Saregama and shrinkrap, I’m game for propagating from my plants. Saregama, I’ll need your address My email is rob(dot)botanique(at)gmail(dot) com.

This person, in Virginia sells the plants on etsy.

California has strict rules on a bunch of plants, including Curry Leaf. The worry is they might be infected with Asian Citrus Psyllid, which carries citrus greening disease. My guess is inspectors would trash any discovered plants. However, they might allow passage if the plants were drenched with Imidacloprid insecticide, bare root and traveled with a “Compliance Agreement”, a contract where the grower promises to treat the plants with certain chemicals in order to prevent pest entry. This means you cannot use the plant parts for food until about the next year or so, when the chemical has broken down and new growth replaces the old.

Our nursery has a compliance agreement because we ship Nepenthes, Tropical Pitcher Plants, to California and other category one states. We use permit labels on the outside of boxes, so the inspectors can evaluate the contents and how the plants were treated.

Citrus greening disease has been found in Florida, so I would avoid any vendor, selling curry leaf, from there.

3 Likes

Your generosity never ceases to amaze me! When would be the best time to try it?

Also, I will be on The road for a week, and trusting my husband to be the eyes in my veggie garden. :pleading_face:

1 Like

Thank you! Making Murraya cuttings/offsets will be a new attempt for me; I’m curious about the process but have read up on methods. I’m not sure how fast either cuttings or root sucker offshoots stabilize. My guess is if the attempts are successful, Sept.-Oct. would work. That’d give me time to harden off the small trees and treat them with the prescribed insecticides, (even though there are no citrus psyllids or greening disease in Virginia). After that, it’ll depend on CA’s inspectors and how reasonable they are. I’ll need to ship bare-root and washed plants, too. So, the list of precautions:
outside labels with all information
bare-root
insecticide treatment
outside of a citrus growing area
inspected
washed

We routinely do this kind of stuff at the nursery when we ship to CA, which has the toughest regulations on incoming plants. Florida’s citrus industry is having a terrible time with diseases.

2 Likes

Thanks, @bogman! So generous, as always.

By the way, I moved the lemongrass and mint pots inside, trimmed the sad-looking tops off, and — guess what? — they grew an inch overnight!

Thanks again for the hardening off advice.

1 Like

Like everything else this year, our corn is two weeks behind.

We hand pollinate, and have been checking daily for it to start shedding heavily. Sunshine and temperature rule the day, and today there is an abundance of both. What we collect we sprinkle (like fairy dust) over the sticky silk.

We have 30 plants in our patch. The process of hand pollinating turned what once was a mediocre corn crop into a good one. Well worth the effort (and angst).

5 Likes

I have had a curry leaf plant for about 7 years and it has really struggled. It’s very dry here in winter, and I probably do not water enough. At one point it was quite full and leafy, but all the leaves fell off and I had a bare ‘trunk’ for months. Then


I had an umbrella, with leaves only at the top of a 40cm plant. This summer I cut it twice, leaving one stump and the top bit. I dipped in rooting hormone, hoping for the best, and stuck it in soil. The picture is poor, but both have little sprouts on them. Hoping it survives, as the nursery where I got it doesn’t seem to carry them any longer.

4 Likes

They look hopeful! I’d go after that little shamrock-like weed, Oxalis, once the plants are more stable. It’s a bad actor. Aside from some making underground stolons, most have seed pods which pop and throw seeds all over the place. We fight it constantly.

Curry leaf loves very warm weather and hates drying out. If the latter is an issue, try growing it in a larger pot so the plant doesn’t suck it dry. To prevent mineral salt buildup, grow it in a plastic pot with something to elevate it from any water in a saucer. Mineral buildup can be an issue in any potted plant. Water and fertilizers deposit deadly amounts of salts and dissolved minerals. Periodic leaching of the soil, and washing of saucers is essential.

If you don’t like the look of plastic pots, hide them inside a clay pot. Clay pots evaporate water faster and accumulate minerals faster as a result. I soak used clay pots in water with a healthy pour of white vinegar, to help dissolve calcium and other. “scale” buildup. Then, they’re left where the rain will leach them for a while.

3 Likes

Thank you for the very helpful advice. Yes that weed seems to have blown into all my balcony plants. I will try harder to get rid of it—I thought it was harmless. I also have rogue tomato seedlings in all my plants from my worm compost.

First quart of black currants this summer

9 Likes

Love this! How will you use them?

We planted red currants this year, and want to add black next year.

1 Like

I might try to make blackcurrant juice. I like the imported blackcurrant juice from Poland and Germany, and haven’t tried making it.

I’ve made David Lebovitz’s Jam, a version of rote gruetze, and a lemon black currant drizzle Cake in the past.

I tend to be lazy and make a quick compote.

2 Likes

My spinach is done, butterhead lettuce done, half the beets are up, and my shishito pepper plants are producing quickly. I’ve had several lunches of blistered shishitos already, and will again tomorrow :slight_smile: I bought a second round of “red sail” lettuce seedlings to grow in containers on the deck, where I can keep them mostly in the shade, and am enjoying having salads from them for supper; in previous years, seedlings planted in mid-summer bolted quickly, so I know not to hoard this lettuce, but to enjoy it while I can.

The poblano and bell pepper plants have peppers on them, but none yet ready.

The real story is the two tomatillo plants I impulsively bought and planted, which are enormous, crowding everything, exploding, and generally loosing their goddamned minds. There are eleventy hundred fruits on them; the husks appear first, initially empty, then the fruits grow inside to fill them out. No clue how long it’ll be til they are ready to harvest, but it’s been fascinating watching the plants grow.

My heirloom tomato plants are similarly exploding, but I haven’t harvested the first mature tomato yet. There are many absolutely enormous green tomatoes on them. The single prized black cherry plant is also heavy with clusters of small green fruits.

I spent the evening tying up various branches of tomato plants and trying to contain the tomatillo branches. I feel like this is the calm before the storm: the last days before we are buried in tomatoes.

7 Likes

How exciting! You may have already said, but if not, what are some of your heirloom tomato varieties?

ETA Nevermind; I found the tomato varieties. How about the poblanos? Any particular variety, and what are your plans for them?

1 Like

poblanos: i’ll probably stuff one or two and make rajas with the rest. There won’t be that many - i just have two plants and they’re not that big. i don’t remember what variety they are - will have to check the little tag. I was so surprised to see them on offer at the nursery that i snapped them up without even looking at the details.

2 Likes

my favorite thing is to be buried in tomatoes!!!

3 Likes

oh, same here. i can’t wait.

1 Like

We have a concrete jungle in our backyard. Baltimore container gardening in Federal Hill can be a challenge because there is almost no green space or yards for blocks and blocks. We do not have a lot of pollinators. Second is our neighbor 2 houses over has a huge tree with makes full sun a challenge. But we persevere.

Today, our count of green tomatoes doubled over just a couple of days ago. And we finally have some heirlooms starting to fruit. We will be burried in cherry tomatoes shortly. So on a per tomato basis, we are at $6/tomato or so. We are getting quite good fruiting on several peppers but not others. Cukes and Eggplant are just starting to do their thing. The zucchini are not showing any fruit nor flowers.

![20220711_1732191|700x525](upload://yZLVBx9H2fwrwPCUjzZsE07Sy1w.jpeg)
7 Likes