Re: [gardeners] Tumbler tomatoes
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Fri, 15 May 1998 07:32:59
At 12:58 AM 5/15/98 -0400, you wrote:
>George, I was unaware before this month that the Osmocote would
>"use up" in the very hot weather. I had thought that a 90-day or
>a 120-day fertilizer would last 90 days or 120 days, more or less.
>Now I realize that this would only be if the temps remained at about
>70* or 75* -- their "fine print" is too darned fine! Last summer I
>did go around with a hose-end sprayer and give the annual beds
>a single booster shot of liquid fertilizer in August. It worked very
>well. Osmocote had a much longer lasting product on the market
>for a very few years -- it was called "Once" -- but the company
>decided that it didn't sell well enough for them to sustain the cost
>of supplying it, so it disappeared. Pity...
As our summer heats up I'm using Peters fertilizer for tomatoes on the
tomatoes and chiles. I like the Osmocote for giving the plants that
necessary first growth and strength.
>
>About the paint -- I agree that the peeling paint must have come
>from some form of improper application, and/or moisture. This
>was a $8900 whole house repair (painter, roofer, carpenter) after
>the Winter From Hell with its 18 snow storms. The south-facing
>gutter froze over, and the melting snow worked its way into the
>eaves and then into the attic, ruining my ceilings. It also did an
>incredible job on the outside of the shingles: the water came down
>the sides of my white house a brilliant orange, completely staining
>the shingles! This was the product of the melted snow water getting
>into the attic lumber and then running back out.
>
>My hubby Jimmie discovered it outside while I was finding it coming
>down the kitchen venetian blinds and thence down the wall into the
>basement! State Farm sent for auxilliary adjusters from Chicago and
>Atlanta to handle the volume of claims -- and I was allowed every
>penny for repair that I had requested! It's interesting, BTW, that my
>carpentry and roofing repairs were done by my excellent firemen
>who have side businesses. They are the greatest find of the century!
>They never fail to show up; they always finish the jobs; they never
>charge exhorbitant prices; and they are super-conscientious.
>
>So, Jimmie grabbed me and dragged me outside in the snow banks,
>while we decided what to do with an orange house. He rigged a
>garden hose to the kitchen sink hot water faucet, and washed down
>the house with as much force and heat as he could muster. The color
>disappeared! Then he Rube Goldberged the hose to a threaded steel
>pipe, at the top of which he screwed on a garden sprinkler body.
>Then together, with me halfway out the 3rd floor bathroom window, we
>hooked that sprinkler body over the edge of the frozen gutter, and he
>turned on the hot water from inside the house just fast enough not to
>run over the gutter, and left it on to melt down the blocked ice both in
>the gutter and the leader. It worked -- ain't that grand? Periodically I
>would sit half way outside that bathroom window and with a very long
>pole, I would urge the ice chunks to move on - or I would even shove
>them over the edge, into the snow bank below. It ws a challenge, and
>while it was deadly serious, it also was kinda fun..
>
>So, the painters certainly could not repair the outside in January in
>the snow, and waited until April. The entire house had been sanded
>down to bare wood only one year earlier, what a shame! They did
>what we thought was the right thing -- but here I am with sudden
>peeling paint. The boss painter came over to look, and said that
>he will absorb the cost of redoing the entire back of the house, even
>tho it's been several years! Will miracles never cease..!
>
>I have to add one more comment: right after we used the hot water
>on the whole side of the house, the painter commented that this
>could end up causing us grief, for the moisture might have penetrated
>into the wood shingles or BEHIND them, and the new paint might not
>stick. I told him that I could not very well have left the house all
>orange,
>because it would have taken him 10 coats of white to hide it later, and
>MORE paint is never better. Under these horrendous circumstances,
>there was no right answer...
>
>Penny, NY zone 6
>
We had a 24-hour ice storm in January 1997, our first ever down here. We
ended up replacing the roof, tearing down the existing garden shed (no big
deal, it was old and ratty anyway), repairing about 30 feet of 4 foot
hurricane fence, and then repainting the entire house. Ended up costing
about $3200.00 of which my replacement cost insurance only paid about
$2000.00. I'm in the process of going through mediators to get Allstate to
pay the rest. Lots easier than suing.
Sounds like y'all had quite an adventure. Makes me glad I live in the south.
George, who doesn't like cold weather, aggravates my angina