stubbed toes and mud pies

[flowerbug]

Still growing Big Beef, FlowerBug? It's only the last few years that they and Early Girls are not in my garden.

yes, those are what we hoped we planted. so far they are putting on fruits and doing ok by the looks of it. the earliest ones picked have not been very good yet, but the are not horrible either so that's ok. just need to get some to ripen naturally more first and then pick.

Instead, there are heirlooms except for Yellow Jelly Bean F1. There's this "seedsaving" responsibility with heirlooms but they are behaving in their rather idiosyncratic ways regarding growth and production. Concerned about this, I had thought earlier to write about it on the 2024 Tomatoes thread but they are now settling into production mode.

I'm caging their growth this year and crowding them a little. They have still had rampant growth. A couple produced a single fruit and then went back to growing taller and taller! At least now, they are becoming loaded with fruit.

during the hotter spells we had i don't think much fruits were being set, but they may catch up. i really don't mind what they do at this point.

i am, however, very happy that i didn't have to hunt down too many tomato worms this season. only three that i've found so far.

 

[flowerbug]

My thyme is taking forever to grow in a pots . I read rosemary and lavender are great companions but those dreadful weeds are back again, smothering everything and my back is not into shoveling them out again.

yeah, it can be a lot of work to clear out an area after it gets weedy. cut off what you can that will drop seeds and dispose of that and then just chip at it a few minutes a day.

I've potted potatoes earlier , I think around April. But they are still not flowering at all. I fed them tomatoe feed and put grass cuttings on them.so they are well covered

Now wondering what else I can do

me either! without being there it is often hard to tell from a distance what is going on...

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

Thyme is slow to get started . I put the plants out in the garden they do better there been blooming little tiny flowers.
They never get watered once established . Very hardy plants. Creeping thyme.

Enlarge pic of flowers. Tiny cutie pies.

 

[Marie2020]

yeah, it can be a lot of work to clear out an area after it gets weedy. cut off what you can that will drop seeds and dispose of that and then just chip at it a few minutes a day.

Thanks . I'll have to control myself. It takes forever doing anything like weeding, it hurts. But once I start I do it until I drop then have to lay down.

me either! without being there it is often hard to tell from a distance what is going on...

I don't get it. I did everything as advised. One flower came up then disappeared, since then nothing at all.

 

[Marie2020]

Thyme is slow to get started . I put the plants out in the garden they do better there been blooming little tiny flowers.
They never get watered once established . Very hardy plants. Creeping thyme. View attachment 67791

Enlarge pic of flowers. Tiny cutie pies.
View attachment 67792

Thank you. Well they are still alive.
I would love to get them near my rosemary and lavender

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

Just as long as they get indirect sun light for 6 hours a day. Keep them watered until established , depending on your growing zone they may or may not be hardy. In zone US 8b here .

 

[flowerbug]

Thank you. Well they are still alive.
I would love to get them near my rosemary and lavender

pretty much they will do the best without having any other plants around them. otherwise they will often be weaker and that will give weeds more of a chance to invade. both rosemary and lavender will do ok, but they may not do very well if overwatered. thymes also may not do as well if they get overwatered. i'm not sure what you are doing there or if the gardens are getting enough light. a common problem in the city is that gardens may not get enough light in general for the more light loving plants.

 

[flowerbug]

Just as long as they get indirect sun light for 6 hours a day. Keep them watered until established , depending on your growing zone they may or may not be hardy. In zone US 8b here .

we have three or four different thymes here and all of them love full sun the best. once established they also don't need a lot of weeding (but some is usually needed here or there). they may get watered or not, but i generally don't have to worry too much about them. the rabbits only eat the taller types in the middle of winter when they have absolutely nothing else to eat. the deer and groundhogs ignore it.

filling in holes from deer hooves and chipmunks digging up my crocuses is something i have to do at times. any weeding or maintenence of them is pleasant as they smell good when disturbed.

propagation of large chunks becomes easier as you get a larger space going with them. pretty much i can go along an edge and cut a strip and move the whole strip at a time. the main idea though is that you need to make sure there are roots down under the strip you cut so the first strip cut may be wider than the 2nd strip from the same area in a short time as the thyme may be sprawling and not yet rooted. taking plugs or chunks can work for filling in an area too but i've found that all those spaces mean more weeds so i like strips better. cut, move, pack a little dirt around the edges so they don't get too dried out quickly and then water in. keep spot weeded as necessary. using them on top of a ridge make the ridge wider than the strip by 8cm (narrow ridges erode too quickly and the strip will dry out too much and struggle to grow and stay filled in).

do not let grasses or other stolon running weeds get established in them. Irish Moss seems to be compatible with the lowest growing creeping thyme i have (there's some that is even more compact than what i have but i don't have a sample of that yet - it's on my list ).

the smallest creeping thyme works really well as erosion control on a clay slope, but i add some mini-terraces along the way to help soak up some of the water. it's pretty much filled in now.

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

@flowerbug yes Irish moss is a good companion plant. I have it in a flagstone area 35’x15’ growing between spaces between each stone . Both flower in summers, Irish moss and creeping thyme are available thru ‘Steppables’ advertised as plants that can be walked on . Both hood up well thru winters ice and snow.

 

[flowerbug]

@flowerbug yes Irish moss is a good companion plant. I have it in a flagstone area 35’x15’ growing between spaces between each stone . Both flower in summers, Irish moss and creeping thyme are available thru ‘Steppables’ advertised as plants that can be walked on . Both hood up well thru winters ice and snow.

i had a nice small patch of Irish Moss growing but last winter really knocked it back. this season i've not pulled away some of the Creeping Thyme that was growing around it as i think it liked the extra protection from drying out that the thyme provided. i'm not sure yet how much of it is left out there but i do have a few tiny patches. the first patch came by accident with the thyme and i've put it in a few different locations since then to test how it does.