No Tomatillos.

Getting late in the summer and I'm getting tired of cucumbers. I picked a dozen the other day and turned them into pickles. At least that way they will be eaten. The cucumber plants are getting a little tired looking and they'be been discovered by the spider mites so they're probably done for the season.

I planted a pair of tomatillo plants each in a 5 gallon bucket in the spring. They grew fast and put out lots of flowers. Lots. But I've had a terrible time getting them to set fruit. I've tried hand-polination, taking one flower from one plant and transferring pollen to the flower on the other plant, but it's not producing results. There are only a few tomatillos on each plant and I don't think they'll ripen before the plants finally pack it in. The leaves are yellowing and there are spider mites everywhere. Sometimes I forget to water them. But I do like the smell of the plants and they make the balcony look green and leafy.

The celeriac is still growing though. I think it's time to maturity is something like 110 days. I was reading that the roots don't really fill out until the weather starts to cool off so I might have to wait a while. I don't think I'm at 110 days yet.

In the empty space next to the celeriac I planted some beets. They struggle but a couple might make it and that's all I really need to be happy with them. I had to put up a little fence to keep the celeriac from drooping over on the beets. Does the job nicely.

Vacation watering

I was setting up my Claber Oasis to water my dill and coriander during an extended long weekend. I got the hoses all setup and filled the thing with water. But before I could locate a 9v battery to try it out I noticed water dripping from the bottom of it. There is a long tube that you insert over the valve inside the chamber and I must have pushed down on it too hard, cracking the plastic beneath it. Maybe I can seal it up again, but likely just a matter of time before it leaks again.

I was never that happy with the Claber. A little over-priced for what it does. But the ceramic watering spikes I've been using for years now never let me down. I just wish they put out more water. In the hot sun, outside, they barely keep up with the water requirements of even the smallest of plants. With some shade from the sun, my celeriac and radicchio were able to survive with six of these spikes in the soil. Looking inside the bucket they were sucking water from, it only looks like the used a couple of litres.

And with all the hot weather, my dill has started to flower. It's suppose to be a smaller dill plant, I think. But it needs to get bigger than this. The coriander isn't doing that well either but in it's defence, I haven't been paying much attention to it. The container could use more light. Less heat would be nice too.

Everything else was fine without me watering it every day. Most of the containers are self watering so the tomatoes, cucumbers and tomatillos had no problems. And the radicchio seemed to thrive behind the temporary sun shade I put up. It still gets some direct sun but only for a couple of hours. Maybe I'll leave it there for a while longer.

Off to a good start

I finally got my basil planted. I like to start it late, well past the risk of frost or a cool windy rainy night. Still lots of time for the plants in this container to get tall and bushy. I also got my cucumbers planted. That's another one I like to hold off on until the weather warms up.

I've grown celery in the past so for something different I'm growing celeriac this year. Those are the two scrawny plants in the left side of the container below. They don't look like much but they're actually growing fast. The two plants on the right are radicchio which is something I've never been able to grow right. This variety should form a small red head.

I also started a large container of dill and coriander. I'm not too sure how that will go. Hard to keep the spidermites and aphids off those. And of course, I have my tomato and tomatillos planted. I don't have much space to plant more but I have free containers and lots of potting soil so I'll likely have something else planted by the end of next week. Hard to resist that urge to plant in the spring once the weather gets nice.