Re: [gardeners] gardeners Digest V1 #611
penny x stamm (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Sun, 1 Aug 1999 15:21:29 -0400
Margaret, we both thought your tomato note was hysterical!
In retrospect, I am told that tomatoes do and don't set fruit
according to the timing of the fertilizing -- am I correct? We've
had tomatoes other years, because they were planted with
Osmocote in the hole and collars around, and soaker-watered
in very full sun, twice a day.
This summer we planted about 8 things in June, and half of
them drowned. There was far too much water available on them,
since the entire veggie garden was not in use. The 2 brocolli plants,
the walking onions, chives and garlic chives have survived, along
with the tomatoes. HOWEVER, due to ghastly life pressures, the
tomatoes have never gotten out of their original pots -- unbelievable
<sigh>... It's supposed to be Jimmie's hobby.. Suddenly, last Friday,
when the temps were at 90* and the humidity stayed all day at 100% --
frankly, the worst day on record for working that I can remember --
Jim decided to rototill and weed and level the veggie garden, and drag
the excess soaker hose out onto the lawn, at random. Naturally he will
not listen to me that a lawn attacked by dollar spot should not be
excessively watered, so we are at a standoff. If our County law people
do not take away our watering privileges very soon, Jimmie Stamm
will have the unique honor of having drowned half our property in a
year of record heat and drought.. Imagine that as a statistic.
Oh - and I heard water running at lunchtime. Sonuvagun if Jim hadn't
suspended an open hose from the lowest branch of our struggling pink
dogwood tree, and was watering the roots by the trunk..! Well, he
said, you told me that if the rhodie leaves point upwards, they have had
enuff or too much water. And the dogwood leaves are pointing down, so
it must be dying of thirst. Right.......
And i scream, and i yell, and i hollar -- can't help myself. And Jimmie
says, what are you , a fishwife...?
So much for having been married for 56 years. There oughtta be a law
forbidding all men from retiring without the permission of Congress.
That should slow things down... or maybe, speed things up, depending
upon one's point of view.
Penny, NY -- the promised last day of the terrible heat wave, so they
say.
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