Re: [gardeners] Tumbler tomatoes
penny x stamm (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Thu, 14 May 1998 00:24:57 -0400
George, I ordinarily hang two good-sized pots on the open
front porch every year, with geraniums and/or petunias, or
any combination that strikes my fancy. The porch is small, all
white even above, and the afternoon sun beats onto it causing
the temps to reach 100 almost every day in midsummer. The
planting medium is ordinary potting soil.
Under those conditions, I pour a quart of water into each pot
morning and night, and they look gorgeous. The morning
water has 1/4 tsp Peter's 14/14/14 per gallon in it; the evening
water is room temperature plain.
I do have an unopened box of Viterra Planta-gel in the garage,
a granular super absorbant horticultural hydrogel (polymer) that
increases the water holding capacity of the soil -- but I have never
tried using it as yet.
Because of the price, I would never try it in the garden beds.
However, it should work wonders for hanging baskets and window
boxes.
I've got a special problem this year: the weather in some fashion
has loosened some of the paint right across the back of my long
ranch house, and this must be corrected. Since we were under a
siege of 12 days of non-stop rain, the house is too wet to scrape
and paint. They need about 7 warm, dry days. It's 42* here, a
very strange temp for May! And the rain is definitely due to
return by Sunday... Now the conflict arises with the fact that I
cannot plant the proper veggies, nor can I plant any of the annuals
in the big flower bed by the house, until the men are finished. This
is because:
1. They have two left feet.
2. They only speak Hungarian.
3. They've never seen growing plants in their lives.
4. They cannot believe that you kill a rose bush if you
place a ladder in its middle.
Why do I use them...? They are old-world trained painters,
extremely polite, unbelievably neat and tidy, and they appreciate
the quarts of iced tea with which I supply them. When they were
saying their goodbyes, some 4 years ago, they said to me,
"You --- very --- gentleman!"
How could I resist....???
Penny, NY zone 6
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