Gardening odds and ends

Several things we need to be aware of as we garden this summer. One thing is its June. When mid-June rolls around so do the big green caterpillars that just love tomato plants. There are really two sizes which seem to bother mine every year. The one is fairly big being about 1/4- to 3/8-inch thick and up to maybe 3 inches long. Being as big as they are they should be easy to locate, but they aren't. I check where there were leaves but now all there is is empty stems. You can also watch on the lower leaves and even on the tomatoes for small specks of black dung from the caterpillars.The other worm is about the size of the lead in a No. 2 pencil and maybe 1 inch long. These worms like to eat a hole right by the stem about the size of their body and then they will eat a hole down into the tomato. The tomato will look great but when you cut it open there will be a hole by the stem or the tomato may even be spoiling.

There are two ways of handling the caterpillars that are safe. Some try to find the big caterpillars by hand and pick them off and squish them. This works, but they can be really destructive before you find them. The little ones are almost impossible to find by searching for them. The easiest way is to spray your plants every week or two with BT or something like DiPel. I just got a pound of BT in the mail from Ebay. I think the directions say to use from 1 to 4 teaspoons per gallon of water. Check your garden centers or hardware stores. BT works.

Another thing to watch and even plan on happening is blossom end rot on your tomatoes. We have gotten a lot of rain, which many times leaches the calcium from the soil. Many have their tomatoes planted already so one will have to add amendments by watering them in. Most garden centers will have sprays you can use on your tomatoes. I use calcium nitrate on mine. I get this by ordering it over the internet. One mixes the calcium nitrate into water and then simply dumps about a quart on each tomato plant. When your tomato plants are putting on tomatoes add some calcium in one form or another. If one doesn't get enough calcium, a dark black spot will form on the bottom of the tomato virtually ruining it. Prevention is the key.

Most everyone adds fertilizer to the soil before planting. Most will use something such as "12-12-12" or "triple 12," which is a balanced fertilizer. This will get your plants growing and should be good for a month or so. I like to then add some fertilizer and kind of top off the goodies in the soil. I use an injector that puts the fertilizer into my watering system. But what you can do is mix fertilizer such as Miracle Grow in your water can and dump some water with fertilizer mixed in it on each plant. This will work. Onions need a little nitrogen. You can add this to the water or even side dress them.

You can hoe a little trench along the side of your row of onions and add a little nitrogen. Don't get the nitrogen on the plants. Cover the nitrogen with soil and then water it in. I use maybe a 10-ounce cup of nitrogen in maybe 30 to 40 feet of row. Don't overdo it. One also needs to side dress their sweet corn when the corn is maybe 16 inches tall or so. Hoe in a small trench by the corn and add the nitrogen, cover and then water it in. It seems like this nitrogen will just blow the corn up taller.

We have found potato bugs, so watch for them. Marge goes through and picks off all she can find. If they get bad, then one needs to spray. Also found where the bugs had been eating little bitty holes in the leaves on our eggplant. I simply dusted the eggplant with seven. It works. I found where the worms were working on our cabbage, so I dusted them with BT in the form of DiPel dust. This dust sure puts a whoa on the worms eating the cabbage.

Weeds are growing like gang busters. Many times I wish the garden plants grew as fast as the weeds. We have one weed that has some unreal stickers on it. Even when the weed is an inch or two tall they have stickers. Eventually they will get up to 3 feet tall or so. Awful weed, but then there aren't many good weeds.

If you start your own tomatoes from seed, June is when you need to plant the seed to end up with fall tomatoes. It takes about 6 to 8 weeks from planting the seed to the tomato plant being ready to transplant. Then from transplanting to the first ripe tomato is another 8 weeks. So if we start the tomato seed now, we should be picking tomatoes in mid-September which is about perfect. As fall rolls around the days will get shorter, which slows down the tomatoes' growth and their ripening. I'd plan on using determinate tomato plants for a fall garden. Oregon Breeze would be an excellent choice.

We planted one 24-by-48 high tunnel totally with determinate tomatoes. With determinate tomatoes, they set all their tomatoes in a month or so. So by planting the tunnel with determinates, we will have picked all the tomatoes off these plants and then be ready to plant some fall tomatoes in it the end of July. That's the plan. One interesting tidbit of info on tomatoes is don't scrimp on the water when the tomatoes are producing fruit. Each tomato plant can use from half a gallon of water to three-fourths a gallon of water per day.

If you are wanting to plant some pumpkins, then wait a little longer before you plant the seed. Pumpkins take around 120 days or so -- virtually three months. So if you want pumpkins mid-October, then go back four months or mid-June to plant them. Read on the packet of pumpkin seed. Then use the days to maturity to find your perfect planting date.

Gardening is really enjoyable if we don't plant too big a garden and if we garden smart. Plan on the bugs and stay ahead of them. Plan on weeds trying to take over your garden. Use some kind of mulch to cut down on the work.