Re: [gardeners] gardeners Digest V1 #611

Barb Rothenberger (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Mon, 16 Aug 1999 06:48:56 -0500 

oh Penny, what a stitch.  I am trying to get caught up on my old e-mail and
just read your message.
Barb
At 03:21 PM 8/1/99 -0400, you wrote:
>
>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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Barb Rothenberger
Columbia, Mo.
brothenb@socket.net
web page in process of being updated.  See pictures of Chelsea flower show.
http://www.geocities.com/PicketFence/3257/