Archive for the ‘Do It Yourself’ Category

The first of my tomato plants’ fruits began to mature about a week ago. To my dismay, the first tomato had a sunken, mushy, brown end to it. I tried to shrug off my fears and waited for the next one to mature. Sure enough, these fruits began to rot at the bottom as well – this time while they were still green. “Could it be?” I gasped. “Blossom End Rot!!! Now What??!?!?”
Blossom End Rot is caused by a calcium-deficiency. It can occur in tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and even squashes. As plants grow, they need calcium for normal cell growth – in fact, it’s essential in the development of their sweet, juicy, fruits. BER is not caused by a disease or a pest. It cannot travel from plant-to-plant. It is a physiological problem within the plant.

It has been exactly one month (to the day) since I transplanted all my seedlings into my plot at the community garden. Take a look at the growth! The large plants along the middle row are four broccoli plants. The broccoli rapini have already been sprouting small heads that quickly flower because it has been so hot lately. I have found, however, that the stalks of the rapini – even once their heads have flowered – are still tender and sweet enough to mix into a meal such as a pasta or stir fry.

This week, after I had transplanted all my tomato plants outdoors, I began to notice that the leaves on a few of my plants were looking white and translucent. I began to worry that they were getting eaten – or worse – had developed a disease. Now, after some research, I am happy to report that there is nothing wrong with my tomatoes – they are simply sunburned!

One of my childhood friends who recently moved back to our hometown of Tallahassee, Florida has started a blog. In her new post on “Look at this Fun Garden!” she describes how to make a type of raised planter bed called a lasagna bed. Lasagna gardening is also referred to as sheet composting, as you are essentially building up layers of composting material and allowing it to slowly break down to create “rich, fluffy soil”* for your plants and vegetables. Other sites online can walk you through creating a lasagna garden bed, but Claire does it best in her simple explanations of each lasagna layer and her anecdotal comments of her experience building lasagna beds both in her old neighborhood in Chicago (where she started a community garden in the neighborhood of Pilsen) and now, in her new backyard in Tallahassee.

This weekend, I discovered another benefit of keeping worms in my apartment, besides the dark, rich compost and the feeling that I actually am caring for some sort of pet:  the free worm tea!   This stuff retails for around $15 bucks per quart (for example, Amazon.com has a quart of Nature’s Big Bud Worm Castings Premium 100% Organic Liquid Plant Food Tea Fertilizer for $13.95) but I feel good about the fact that my worms made it right here in the kitchen for me, and I didn’t have to have anything shipped or transported from far away. At the rate the stuff was flowing from my worm factory, it looks like I’ll be able to recoup my investment in worm tea and compost in just a few short months – especially after I get a few trays going and the worms continue to multiply.  After actually seeing the stuff pour from the “factory”, I think I’d

I think we all know the rewards of having a thriving bountiful crop of tomatoes, and I’m sure we also know the frustrations of having a tomato plant that produces only four fruits all season. So, aside from watering our starts and checking on them constantly, what more can we do as gardeners to ensure that our tomato plant is best prepared to create a bumper crop of bomber, juicy delights?

It’s been over two weeks since my last update from the Worm Factory 360, and I was very excited to get home and check the status of the little guys.  I’m happy to report that they are doing very well.  Upon returning home, I harvested some worm tea, which I promptly used to water the veggies growing on the balcony.  Then I took a look inside – beautiful, rich, dark black compost.  The bin is full of tiny baby worms, which means that the older worms have settled in.  As the newer worms grow and fill the bin to capacity, we’ll be able to compost at a quicker rate (approximately 1-2 lb of scraps per day).  Here’s a picture of the beautiful compost.  I would say much of it is almost ready.  Within the next week or two, I will likely weed through for the bigger chunks and add them