"Mega-Cucumber"  This is what happens when you over look a cucumber for a few days. Yes! the scale is correct, 36.70 oz.  Thats over 2 1/4 lbs of future pickle, LOL.

Celebrity tomato plants are making reasonable sized tomatoes this year. Great flavor and large production.

Looking out the kitchen window provides this view of our garden. "2012"

Cucumber Straight Eight from this year's garden.

Black Cherry Tomatoes viewed from the top down.

European Burpless Cucumbers are my favorite. Enjoy growing them also.

We are eating squash already out of this year's garden. 05/12/12

Following a loving rainstorm.  Loaded with large tomatoes. I have picked 3 already. 05/12/12

Cucumber

We have really enjoyed the cucumbers this year. Very tasty!

Zucchini

People say these are too large to eat. They are wrong. Cut in half and rake out the seeds. Bake in oven after coating with olive oil. Cook ground beef in taco seasoning on top of stove. When squash is tender to the fork take out add the ground beef and top with cheese. Return to oven for a few minutes. Take out and enjoy.

Tomatoes etc...

Again, not as large as last year's crop.

Tomatoes 2011

Tomatoes are coming in a little smaller than last year.

Harvest June 18,2011

Although it is hot and dry, the rainwater I am putting on my garden is working.

Bountiful Harvest

The joys of a producing garden. Plenty for ourselves, friends, neighbors and strangers alike.

Tomatoes are in!!!

Tomatoes are coming in daily now. No bottom rot this year. Two attacks by spider mites. No other problems to date.

Squash blossom

Loads of blossoms, many bees and tons of squash.

Squash & cucumber basket

Four types of squash and one lone cucumber somewhere in the pile. Garden is doing GREAT so far!!!!

TOMATO

A good guess about the weight of the larger of these would be over 16 oz. The Bonnie Select came in large last year and they are doing the same this year. One difference I am seeing is the plants seem smaller than usual. We'll have to see how they grow as the summer heats up.

Monster tomatoes 6/4/11

June 4, 2011

Tomatoes are coming in LARGE this year again.

June 4th, 2011

Plants doing well following the spider mite attack. No bottom rot this year. Still watering with rain water.

2011 Garden

Smaller garden this year. Ten (10) tomato plants, ten (10) squash plants, four (4) okra plants and two (2) cucumber plants.

The raised beds are doing their job. The heavy rains have not effected them at all. Also they remain 98% weed-free. The squash and cucumber plants are producing large harvest already.

Tomato plants are heavy with large green tomatoes. Only the Early Girls are ripe and red on the vine to date. I had an attack of spider mites but caught them before they could do too much damage. The brown leaves are due to their attack.

May 29, 2011

Tomatoes, cucumbers and squash are all coming in now. We have been eating out of the garden for about 2 weeks. Early Girls are the only tomatoes ripe, however.

May 7, 2011 - Update

Good rains and temps are climbing.

Garden Update

Tomatoes are getting bigger everyday.

Squash plants

Tomato Blossoms

All tomato plants are covered with yellow blossoms. This after pulling them for weeks.

Update

Flying Saucer squash.

April 29, 2011 Update

Garden is doing well. Rains are coming at a good pace and amount. All plants are growing and have blossoms with the exception of the jalapenos. They require more hot weather.

Weed-X a no go.

After about a week of placing Weed-X around the base of my tomato plants, I determined the proceedure a no-go. The reason has to do with the fact that water is not passing through the material fast enough. I was going out of town for several days and I also feared that if the heat got very high while I was out of town, the plants might burn-up. So I pulled the Weed-X out of the buckets. Still a good idea to find a way to heat the soil.

Smaller box design 2011

I had an old plant stand I torn down and turned into a smaller box. This is what it looks like. Four Okra, four Marigold and one Ark. Traveler tomato.

Early Girl 2011

Always the first to come in each year. The amazing EARLY GIRL !!!

Early Girls II

Still more on same plant.

Early Girls

The Early Girls and living up to their name.

Weed-X trial

Each year I tried new things. This year I am trying a gound cover of Weed-X. I sure it will heat up the ground which is good, but I am not sure how it will allow water to pass. If it hold water, I will rethink this approach.

Rainwater Collection System

Each barrel holds approx. 55 gal.s of rainwater.

Rainwater Storeage System

The large container holds 330 gal.s and each of the smaller ones holds 275 gal.s.

Garden 2011

Planting is done and time to shoot photos. In addition to tomatoes,(5 varieties), this year I planted Okra, jalapeno, cucumber (3 varieties), and squash (5 varieties).

Early Girl 2011

What to plant?

Fielding more questions today. When I am deciding which tomato plants to put in my garden I plan for success. To do this I plant both determinates and indeterminates. Determinates produce lots of tomatoes at one time and the indeterminates produce fewer tomatoes but at different times so you have a constant supply of tomatoes coming off the vines. I also plant early producers like the Early Girl and mid to late producers. I hedge my bet my also putting in a more heat resistant tomato like the Celebrity or Solar Set. If I plant a grape or cherry tomato, I do have my favorites. I LOVE the TAMI-G Grape tomato. This is a wonderful producer that will fill your bucket all summer long. If I am planting a cherry tomato, it will be the Husky Cherry Red.

A well balanced choice of plants will ensure a more successful tomato production and keep you and your friends happy until the first freeze.

2011 Garden YEAH!!!

Well it is that time of year again. Ready? Some folks have been asking me why my tomatos grow so large and produce such huge harvest each year. Hummm I don't know. What I do know I will share now. A tomato plant is like a factory, a tropical factory to be sure. It needs only three things. HEAT, FOOD and WATER

The biggest mistake people make when planting tomatoes is they fail to bury the plant deep enough. A tomato plant needs to be buried with at least 2/3 of the plant in the ground. Do not pull the leaves off. This creates a larger root system and assist your tomato factory produce larger plants and more tomatoes. The FOOD I use is Berger BM-7 it contains peat moss, composted pine bark, calcitic & dolomitic limes, perlite and Canadian sphagnum. The peat moss makes up about 65% of the mixture. Berger 1-903-945-5403. I add to this cow manure, about 20 lbs. per pot.

Next HEAT I use 27 1/2 gal. blue plastic barrels. These are 55 gal. plastic barrels cut in half. I use a magic marker and a yard stick and make dots. I then connect the dots and use a circular saw to cut the barrel in half. Black barrels get too hot and you have to water too often and white barrels don't get hot enough. Blue barrels are the ticket.

Lastly, WATER I collect and use rain water. I am not sure how much this helps but I believe the taste is imporved. Maybe not.

Well now you know what I know. Best of luck with your tomatoes. Jerry Beare

Winter Garden II

We do not get much snow in this part of Texas. This snow stayed on the ground about a week. Very unusual...

Winter Garden

I planted Crimson Cover and it has survived the last snow as shown in this photo.

Aphid and Ladybug

Appears this ladybug is having an aphid breakfast. I suppose having ladybugs in a garden is a good thing.

Aphids (in a friend's garden)

I was visiting a friend's garden and he had a problem with aphids. He allowed me to take a photo or two.

Unusual attacks on garden 2010

Everything that goes wrong in my garden is my fault one way or another. I take full responsibility. Now here is a new one for the books.

On the other side of my fence is an open field. No harm in throwing "bad" tomatoes over the fence, one would think. One would be wrong. A few weeks ago something began eating the tomatoes off the vine. Ripe and green tomatoes alike. Some bite marks looked huge. Some tomatoes were totally eaten others only partially. One day my wife said she thought she saw a RAT. I said no-way but set out traps just in case. The first night I bagged three large Norwegian rats. The following nights one each and none since. What I am thinking is they found the ones in the field and came looking for more. Live and learn. I am keeping the traps out until I am sure all of my new tomato fans are gone. And no more tomatoes thrown into the field.

This weekend I am doing something I have never done before. I am pulling up my garden and replanting it. The garden looks soooooooo sad. It is the only thing to do.

Small brown eggs

Found these small brown eggs on the top side of a squash leaf today. Most likely, these are the eggs of the Leaffooted bugs I have been finding in my garden.

Leaffooted Bug

These guys show up every year about this time. According to Dr. Mario Villarino they are Leptoglossus or Leaffooted bugs.

Leaffooted nymph

Here is one of the buggers up close.