Odds 'n Ends and the HEAT

There's a high pressure dome hovering centrally over the Midwest portion of the USA right now, extending itself Eastward with fairly uniform upper 90's temps across the entire seaboard.  This is not something I ever remember happening. 97 degrees in central Florida, pretty much consistent all the way up past Boston Massachusetts! They say we'll not see this heat abate until Saturday.  :-(

About midday yesterday I dipped my finger into the reservoirs of my tomato containers and it felt fairly hot. Like bath water. That can't be too nice for the plants. Thankfully, the soil is fairly well protected and when I dug my finger in I could immediately feel a cooler temperature. I'm really hoping the heat doesn't cause too much blossom drop. My Black Krim is a bit behind schedule on producing fruit and another setback could mean that I'll be getting only a small handful of tomatoes from it this summer.

Because the Black Krim is a little less hearty than the Lemon boy, I figured I'd supplement it just a bit with some extra water. I'm using a capillary action watering system that is intended for use on house plants when you go on vacation. I'd never used one before so I thought I'd test it out on the tomato plant.  Sure enough it does work, although the trickle is so slow that you'd need about 3 of these to substitute regular watering for a week.  Still, something is better than nothing!

Black Krim with water supplement

A couple of weeks ago I had rooted a sucker that was plucked from the BK, then potted it. I didn't expect to see much growth, but it did take off. It's rather late in the season for any hope of reaping much fruit. Still, I figured it would be a good experiment to test out a few things.

• I bought a bag of Jobe's Organic Tomato Fertilizer that looks really decent. It's something you add to the potting medium at planting time, and not really meant for amending existing plantings.
• I got some potting mix (not soil) from Miracle Gro ("MG").  MG has a mixed following with serious home gardeners. They make quite an array of different potting mediums. Unfortunately, I ended up choosing one that was beaned by the home grower community as retaining too much moisture. I'm hoping that my technique alleviates this or the formulation was changed.
• I mixed in finely pulverized eggshells for a healthy dose of calcium.
• I'd gotten one more SWC by Southern Patio ($12 was still a lot cheaper than alternatives), but this time I modified it for improved irrigation. I'll document that in my next post.

I watered the plant after potting and after a bit it occurred to me that all of the water in the reservoir would just be sitting there doing nothing until the roots could reach it. That might be a week or two. By then the nutrient rich runoff would have evaporated and a major booster would've been lost. So I had an idea... I poured off the reservoir into a jug and then diluted it with some water. The solution was so thick with nutrients that it looked like a heavily brewed tea. I gave some of this to the other plants and then kept it sealed up for future use.

Reused Jugs -- one is filled with fertilizer runoff, the other with plant food

So what is what? Well, neither of these jugs is filled with brewed tea. The one on the left is the diluted run-off from the new planting that had Jobe's Tomato Fertilizer added. The one on the right is a mixture of Jobe's Tomato & Vegetable Plant Food. They nearly look identical, save for the slightly different shades of color (due to dilution strength). I'm glad I saved that runoff, as it's likely heavily rich in nutrients that the plants will benefit from.

Why the brewed tea jugs? They're made from a very thick durable plastic with nicely sized smooth handles and a convenient shape. The one on the right has been in use for 2 years now and is holding up well.