September 17, 2009: Another One Bites the Dust

Note to self: Next year secure all tomato buckets securely to buildings or fences to prevent toppling.

Fortunately, only two plants were unsecured. Unfortunately, both were lost when they toppled over, one from a wind gust and the other from the weight of the tomatoes.


This one toppled from the weight of the tomatoes. Mr. H uprighted it and turned the heavy side toward the building for support, but it's wilting badly and may not survive the shock of the uprooting.


These are my properly staked and tied tomatoes. The tops of the 8-foot 1x2 stakes are securely attached to the fascia board with heavy screws, and the bottoms are pushed all the way to the bottom of the bucket. The bad side of this is that I need a ladder to reach the top of the plants to tie them. They have now grown above the stakes and onto the roof.


Although the tomato plants look very nice when they are pruned and staked, the yield from them is not very good in comparison to the non-pruned. I do think they grow beautifully in the buckets (nearly bottomless), but next year I'll use the 8-foot secured stakes in conjunction with doubled up tomato cages, and forgo most of the pruning.

I've been sick all week, so I haven't been out in the garden much. Today I had to bite the bullet and do a bit of harvesting, even though I'm still coughing and feverish, my head feels as though it's exploding, and my nose is running like a kitchen faucet.


The green zucchinis got a bit large, but everything else was in pretty good shape. The beets will be pickled and canned today, the zucchini shredded and frozen, and the carrots will be combined with peas and served with salmon and scalloped potatoes tonight. There might be just enough strawberries to add to my frozen hoard and used for a final batch of strawberry jam.


The Hale's Best melons have been a real disappointment. I've only harvested four melons, three that were all smaller than a medium sized tomato, and one that is around two pounds. All of them have been bland and mealy. All three of these should have been picked a few days earlier.


I was too sick to fool with much this week, so yesterday all of these vegetables were donated to those needier than we.



I did, however, take time to put another pound of sweet bell pepper strips in the freezer.


As well as a 12 ounce bag of chopped hot peppers.


17 comments:

  1. I am so sorry you are not feeling well. Take care of yourself and I hope you are feeling better soon.

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  2. Granny, too bad you're sick....hopefully you'll get well soon. There's an awful flu (not swine flu) that's rampant where I live right now, and luckily, I haven't had it. Those staked tomato plants look really good - all neat and tidy. I'll show mine tomorrow, as they are looking pretty rough these days. I figure our gardens will play out in about 4 weeks, anyway....

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  3. Yuck! I hope you feel better, Granny. Make the man make you some good soup.

    Hale's best were small for me as well, but I got two fantastic ones.

    Sending you good germ fighting vibes.

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  4. Rachel & EG, thank you, I really am feeling a bit better this evening. This was the first day this week that I didn't have to go lie down in the afternoon. I got my little bit of gardening done, the beets canned and dinner cooked. Looks like I'm on the road to recovery.

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    Ribbit, The last time I was sick...really sick (stomach pukies), Mr. H decided to fix dinner for me and made fried hamburgers, chili and French fries. I turned down his "fantastic" meal, and he's never forgiven me, LOL!

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  5. Oh, man. Maybe at another time you could put aside some frozen brothy soup and rice or something so you could just microwave yourself a "get well" meal?

    Men. Sheesh.

    I think tomatoes falling over would be a cause of celebration around there. I hope you're on the mend truly.

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  6. Stefaneener, I should be celebrating the fall of the tomatoes...what is wrong with me that I cannot let go? I think I need a 12 step program.

    I have not lost my appetite through this bout of flu/sinus infection/bronchitis/bad cold. Au contraire. I have devoured the entire stash of leftover morsels from the fridge, a sausage biscuit from Jack-in-the-Box, and all of the remaining strawberry ice cream from the freezer. I'm afraid I will have to recuperate to the point of making an ice cream run by tomorrow.

    I have also made use of this leisure time by getting my desktop computer to go on line via Charter Cable. Last spring, two Charter tech pros gave up on the Dell (a new machine that had been sitting unused all winter). Yesterday I spent 5 minutes downloading a new driver, and had it on line and had the router up and running (they said my new router was no good, too). Sheesh, I could have been using the wifi on this laptop all summer. I should have worked on it sooner! Sometimes us old grannies aren't so dumb ;-)

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  7. Sorry you're not feeling well.....its going around-I found out first hand.
    I've never pruned tomatoes and always wondered if I was "missing out" on something. Glad you set the record straight on that. I just need to come up with a better method of staking.

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  8. Good for you getting your PC connected! Glad you are feeling better and up and about more now. The tomato plant does indeed look distressed - but I dare say you have gotten your share of tomatoes for the season. :)

    Continue to get better please!

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  9. Granny - those beets and carrots look absolutely perfect! I'm so jealous. I'm still waiting for my fall beets to bulb up. I have a feeling I will only be eating beet greens this fall, which isn't nearly half the fun as beet root.
    I'm a relative newbie to vegetable gardening, so I have to ask, why do you grow tomatoes in buckets?

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  10. Oh also, I hope you feel better! (Shame on me for not saying this in my last comment.) :)

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  11. I'm so sorry to hear that you still aren't feeling well. Get better. And train your man to do what mine does when I'm too sick to get out of bed. He brings home takeout when I'm really sick. He even asks me what to bring home. When I'm stuffed up it is always the wanton soup from our local really really good Chinese place.

    I think the next time he has the flu you should feed him chili and fries. A taste of his own medicine would teach him ;>

    If I were sick I wouldn't be canning. I just give it all away. I know it must be so hard though. It all looks scrumptious.

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  12. I found my way here from Tasty Kitchen! Your harvest looks wonderful...and I'm especially eyeballing those beets! I love me some beets! Hope you get to feeling better!

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  13. Sue, I hope you aren't sick! I'm assuming you are still traveling.

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    KitsapFG, do you really think I've had about enough tomatoes? LOL! Really, those two plants were probably more for eye candy than for harvesting. Mr. H commented every day about how he liked the way they looked against the garden shed. The did make that brand new shed "settle in" and become a natural part of the property.

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    Thomas, I originally had planned to turn all the buckets into self watering containers (SWC). I had, for the first time ever, decided to start my own tomato plants from seed, and got a bit carried away. I grew way more plants than would fit into the veggie garden, so I felt the SWCs could be set in convenient areas around the yard. AS it turned out, I only got four of them made (using 8 buckets), and I had four buckets left over, so I cut large holes in them and used them like that. Well, the SWCs didn't work for me. If you scroll to the middle of the post at http://tinyurl.com/l42m8m you can see why. The single buckets, with the large holes in the bottoms, allowed the roots to go deep into the ground below them. The buckets, sitting up off the ground as they do, kept water from splashing mud onto the lower leaves, so there was no disease. I took the time to paint a couple of them (Fusion paint) to match some outdoor planters, and I'll paint the other two next spring. I was just very happy with the way they grew in those five-gallon buckets....until two of them toppled over. Next year the support system will be perfected! I think Daphne, at Daphne's Dandelions likes to use buckets for her tomatoes, too.

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    Daphne, Mr. H is 74 years old, and virtually untrainable at this point. I just deal with it ;-)

    I was well on the road to recovery by yesterday afternoon. It didn't bother me a bit to can those beets. It's not like I had to...they could have stayed in the garden much longer. I think I was just getting bored.

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    Calamity Anne, welcome to my blog! I am feeling much better, thank you.

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  14. I'm sorry you're not feeling well! That's the pits. :(

    Your harvest looks beautiful! I've been kind of absent for a while, so nice to catch up on your blog! I've been busy canning, and I'm afraid I've developed a bit of a wrist problem from all the chopping. Ouch! Oh well, thankfully I think I'm done till next year. :)

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  15. MommyAmy, nice to see you again. I'm feeling MUCH better today, thank you.

    "I've been kind of absent for a while" I've been watching you....you've been spending too much time at your favorite restaurant, eating all that good Mexican food! LOL

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  16. Granny, so sorry to hear you are under the weather, my little ones have it or something similar as well.

    Too bad those melons were a bust. Do you have any favorite green tomato recipes in case those vines don't recover?...I just know you can't stand to let anything go to waste! ;)

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  17. Kelly, the only green tomato recipe I've ever liked well enough to make was green tomato mincemeat. However, it must be pressure canned (I don't have a pressure canner) or frozen. I don't think there will be enough room in my freezer for it. I'm also going to be so busy getting stuff packed up to head south, I doubt I'll have the time to do much of anything with them. My neighbor will take some, maybe I'll Freecycle the rest.

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