How’s your garden doing?

How’s your garden doing with all the moisture we’ve been having? One thing we can’t complain about is that things are dry. We’ve had quite a bit of rain, and it hasn’t come as a gully washer which is good. The weather has a huge part to play in how our garden crops and the farmers’ fields produce. We normally don’t water our corn or potatoes except when it’s really dry, so this year we haven’t had to be concerned.

We have three high tunnels that we normally grow a lot of veggies in, but this year we only have two that are true high tunnels. One of our tunnels was plagued with mold or mildew or fungus, so we decided to remove the top and let nature in for the summer and next winter, kind of cleanses the tunnel if you will. Mother Nature rains on our ground, then turns around, and it gets dry and turns it into dry powder or almost concrete depending on your soil. Then later on, it gets down to almost zero and freezes the soil, getting rid of some bugs and unwanted critters. The soil goes through seasons of change, which is good for the ground and for the crops they produce.

Most of the time back in Nebraska, Dad would let the native grasses go to seed every couple years or so. Normally in the pastures where you have the cattle during the summer, the grass can’t go to seed where it’s being grazed off by the livestock. Dad liked to change things around so that the grass was left to seed making the next few years grass thicker and stronger. It also lets the ground rest and catch up.

Last fall in about the middle of August, we disked up our hill garden, which is a little more than half an acre, and planted the whole thing to turnips. Purple top turnips. It’s amazing how turnips somehow keep the weeds and grass and such from growing. I read once that turnips have a natural weed suppressant in them, which seems to be true. So up until we got a couple real hard freezes, we enjoyed the turnips. Then this spring we simply disked them under and turned them into a natural fertilizer. Amazing how much better the soil is after growing turnips there.

One of our neighbors who lives down the road hauls in a load of cow manure in and scatters it every year. Man, he has an awesome garden. We have the cows, but we would have so much hay and weed seed in the manure I don’t think we’d benefit. We fertilize with triple-13 fertilizer, which does a good job. Not as good as natural fertilizer, but it does OK. Dad would pile the cow manure up and let it sit for a couple years before he put it on the garden, which let the weed seed die.

All the rain may cause blossom end rot on our tomatoes. The rain leaches the calcium from the soil, which in turn causes blossom end rot. You can spray your plants with Blossom Set which has calcium in it, or you can water your plants with calcium nitrate, which will help as well. I added alfalfa pellets around my tomatoes with the hope it stops our tomatoes from getting it. Anxious to find out.

With all the rain, dirt has probably been splashed up on your tomato leaves. This will most likely lead to fungus and such on your tomato plants. Some spray for the fungus, and some just do the best they can. I read years ago that one could spray milk on the tomatoes, which in turn would control the fungus and such. Never tried it. But Dad heard that milk would help heal pink eye. It might, but I doubt it. One can hear anything anymore.

I normally have May tomatoes, but this year I doubt it. Most likely will be June tomatoes. Might even be July 4 tomatoes. That first tomato is something to look forward to.