Answers to your gardening questions (by those in the know!)

Done.

Removed all the yellow leaves in the process.

And I've dragged the pot to a warmer spot. Breezier too, so it's getting a thorough airing. Plus given it a (liquid) fish fertilizer feed.

It's looking kinda happy.

No new yellow leaves yet, so fingers crossed!
(Ya never know! Consider this a scientific experiment! )

if its looking like its recovering then you were just overwatering the poor little guy.

Its good you moved it cause if it is fusarium, youll save your other tomatoes.

I will satrt my tomato seeds oon ground hog day (Feb2). Ive already started onion seeds and parsley and lettuces. They are in the greenhouse where I have the heater set to a low 50 degrees . It chills off at night so keeping it warm then is a challenge

I will report back on the progress of my tomato plant. Ealy days yet ....

You sound so organized, like you really know what you're doing!
I keep thinking I must find out more about different seed varieties (especially when you Americans talk about them so much) , though I wonder if for my (relatively small city backyard purposes) whether that would be useful or not.
You'd be into mass plantings of various vegetables & for that sort of purpose propagating from good seeds make a lot of sense.
I hope your greenhouse seedlings survive the winter chills.
Is there some significance in starting tomato seeds on groundhog day?
In Melbourne, accepted wisdom dictates that tomato seedlings must be planted by Melbourne Cup Day - the first Tuesday in November.

Nothing to do with gardening questions or gardening problems. Just posting to share.
I came across this photograph of a tomato "tree" while Googling & was very impressed. Wow, that's some tomato plant!



Tomato Tree - Epcot Center - Picture taken by deror avi on October 2005.

speaking of tomatoes, mine are wee seedlings that have just cleared their little pots. This yer I put 10 of those expanding peat pots INSIDE a fiber planting box of dimension about 6 X8" , then, as the peat pots are slowly expanding (from a liberal dose of very hot water) I added potting soil all around. This creates a nice plant cube for each tomato plant so I can leave em grow to planting size inside the fiber box and when time for planting outside, I just pry out the little peat pot with all the roots. I saw this trick in a garden mag and if it saves me from transplanting seedlings, Im there.

Ive got peppers(hot and sweet) two kinds of tomatoes (Indeterminate and determinate). Egg plant and several kinds of flowers that need an early start to bloom this year (Perennials)


Tomorrow and the next day will be in the mid 60's so Im going to plant sugar snaps peas, onions, and salad greens like a mix of mesculen and pepper grass and beet greens with a base of deer tongue lettuce. Also Ill add to my spinach that I planted last fall and which ios already up abot 2 " and will be ready to pick by end of MArch , which is waay early.

rhubarb is busting through and the crocus are blooming . Daffodils are gonna be in bloom next week and thats about 4 weeks ahead.

I'm jealous. I keep thinking I can go ahead and sow my cool weather seeds and I tell myself to wait until the next new 5-day forecast to be sure. Always tucked into the new forecast is at least one night of below freezing temperatures while the rest of the week is in the upper 30s. We had temps of 70 here yesterday. Tonight we're supposed to be in the 20's and may have snow tomorrow.

I'm real tempted to just go ahead and plant a few and take my chances. I can always sow more later when the last freeze date in April finally arrives.

ool weather crops as soon as the sopil is workeable. Peas, onions, spinach , lettuces (garden sewn not transplants) will all srvive several frosty events and actully germinate better in the cooler wether.

The Amish around us all start their peas before the snow is melted. They sew the peas right on top of te melting snow.

WHAT is a good fertilizer for peas and whos got experience with using it? I am skeptical of garden links cause many of them dont seem to be written by people with garden experience. One garden line I saw was a word for word clip from one of our local native plant purveyors and that guy is wholly into major chemical warfare.(Im sorta not organic but I try to use natural substances)

For the last two years, I've only used a general all-purpose fertilizer when I prepare the beds for the first Spring planting. I have good composted soil and spade well-rotted manure into the soil each Fall. I do use the rhizobia bacteria in the rows when I sow the pea seeds. We had a bumper crop of peas last year and had to have Diane's help in keeping pace with the eating of them.

Here's what the Burpee Seed Catalog folks say about fertilizing peas. I've followed their advice for most of the seeds I've purchased from them and have had good results.

Ill try the rhizobia . My peas last year were not a great yielding crop and I thought that it was pH. SO Ive taken the pH up a bit with lime.

Gardening season has begun here at 36 Wistful Vista.(photo enlarges)

A four foot wide new iris bed is gonna go straight down from this view.


The 2013 catalogue is full of good choices to set in
around about September. August is the time to order.

ANYBODY have any direct experience with Asian Pears??? (please no links, Im looking for real hands on).
I want to grow some and Im not sure about the possibilities of some cultivars that the nursery has packed as bare rooted. trees.
Several new cultivars are out there and Im looking at those acclimated for us (zone 6.5)

If youve got some Irises they can be divided and replanted in spring. Theres really no bad time for planting Iris (except of course if the ground is hard as cement).

I eat a lot of them...love 'em!

My daffodils are only now beginning to fully pop out of the ground. Will be another 3 weeks or so before they bloom. I think a lot of the bulbs died during the winter due to long streaks of freezing and very little water.

Latest Spring we've had in the 4 years I've been here.

We are so different! This is not a knock, just that we are. If I saw daffodils in my yard here, I'd freak out.

Wild strawberries in the yard. A weed I don't mind having around.


fragara virginia (click image)

Anyone know how to grow garden poppies in zone 5? Do they have to be started by seed?

It's been a crazy weather year. Just this week I got another bloom on a Little Kim lilac tree, my wisteria vine, clematis, and even on my magnolia tree WTF?? It's been hot and humid here.