The Dog Food Small Bag & a Note Regarding This Blog

In a previous post, I mentioned the use of a dog food bag (a small one) as a garden plant container; the bag should have a mylar lining, some other waterproof lining, or be made entirely of a waterproof substance.  I now can report that such a bag (3.5 to 5.0 pounds of food, or so) works very well, especially for garlic or tomatoes.  Punch holes in the bottom for drainage, fill the bag to about 2 inches from the top with potting soil & a little mulch, and place it in the bottom half of a gallon milk jug for secondary containment (to catch excess drainage).  The 3.5 pound size fits perfectly into the bottom half of a milk jug.  For larger bags, you'll have to find some other secondary containment.  That setup gives you some nice container depth for a transplanted seedling.  For garlic, I think it may work as the final container...am running a test to see if that might be true for tomatoes as well.
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IMPORTANT note regarding this particular blog---
We've been up & running here for about a month and a half.  This is the seventeenth post, and thus far, there has been very little interest.  Consequently, I'm forced to cut way back on posting here...just don't have the time for something that appears to be going nowhere.  I'll still do it now & again, and I thank all of you from North America and Europe (primarily) who have been visiting.
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Within a week or so, I'll be posting a video on my YouTube Channel showing more plant containers (& their residents:)...including a few dog food or dog biscuit bags.  Will let you know with a link.

Happy Trails, and Be Well

Aspirin, Sunberries, Container Gardening, & More

Here's my response to an organic small farmer friend in CA regarding aspirin.  He was pointing out that salicylic acid is a plant hormone and that aspirin has a different chemical formula.

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Re:  aspirin---

Technically, you're correct.  Aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid.  Nevertheless, the plant hormone and aspirin have the same anti-inflammatory & analgesic properties.  Willow bark extract has been used for a couple thousand yrs for headache & other pain relief.  I didn't want to go into detail on the chemistry.  You can see why by reading this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirin

Too much, too time-consuming to explain all that. 

Re: light---

I have enough plants to experiment, and I love to experiment.  Plus, I don't care if the tomatoes are great producers; I have enough that if they produce any, I'll be tickled.  I don't can, & am not interested in learning that.  Can tomatoes be frozen without flash-freezing?  Even if they become "mush" when thawed out, can't that be eaten???  I don't know...any thoughts?  [I haven't Googled the question yet.] 

So far, the other plants are doing fairly well--- garlic, strawberries, spearmint, and sunberries (wonderberries).  Am already eating sunberries.  They grow like weeds, & haven't yet been outside; however, even though they are a good-looking plant, I wouldn't recommend raising them.  The berries are small, fragile, & have an almost bland taste.  [Articles I read after tasting the first one say the same about those raised outside.]  In addition, if you eat the berries too soon, they're poisonous.

You & Dixie are right about the light, but I'm giving this a try regardless.

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Bottom line:  the active ingredient in aspirin is salicylic acid, the plant hormone.  It was first extracted from willow bark in a laboratory in 1763 (if memory serves me correctly).  It was then put into the medication, aspirin.  I imagine nowadays it's synthesized in a lab.  The conventional wisdom is:  if you push one tab down into the soil of your plant containers and give that spot a watering, it will help your plants in both root development & disease resistance.  [Some people say:  put the aspirin in the bottom of the new hole when transplanting.  That might be too close to the plant/roots.] 

p.s.  Yes, you can freeze tomatoes (even whole tomatoes) without flash-freezing.  Use them later for sauce or soup.

Happy Trails, and Be Well

Even More on Leggy Tomatoes...& Salicylic Acid

Another friend of mine who is an organic small farmer in NM had this response to the post of several days ago...

...about leggy tomatoes... It is most likely from not enough light. Tomatoes are very sun hungry and need at least( and preferably more than) 8 hours of DIRECT sunlight per day. Most house windows will not get this , which is why people use greenhouses or grow lights. Grow lights are not  that expensive. I got the long fluorescent tube holders with aquarium/plant tubes for pretty cheap in the past.

 

To deal with the legginess, you can also plant them very deep, for instance with maybe only 8 inches above ground and the rest buried. The stem that is buried will send out roots all along its length and it will be stronger therefrom.  Taking cuttings may set you back a little bit as the plant has to put so much energy into making new roots, rather than working off the roots that it has already established.

To make your own rooting hormone, to help them root faster, you can go cut a few willows and put them in water and the “tea” makes an excellent rooting hormone after a few days to water plants that need to root. You can make it faster by shaving the bark off the willow branches with a pocket knife and soaking them in water.

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Great advice; however, I still can't afford grow lights, so I'm pressing on without them.  About half my 50 plants (mostly tomatoes) are now on the back porch.  That porch is very "open", but it is covered; portions of it get maybe four hours of direct sunlight per day.  The primary problem there is that gusts of wind are sometimes very strong.  We'll see how it goes.

Regarding the hormone from willows...good idea.  I've read, too, that putting an aspirin in the container soil does the same thing AND triggers an immune response in plants that wards off disease.  I'm experimenting with that idea.  It makes sense because willows produce salicylic acid...aspirin.

I also like the idea of transplanting tomatoes deeper.  Just make sure only the main stalk is underground; cut off all the lowest leaf branches or they'll rot and likely damage the whole plant.

Thanks again, Alex and Dixie.

Happy Trails, and Be Well

 

Thanks, and More on Tomatoes

Regarding the last post, a few people emailed me with suggestions...thanks!  We'll get to that shortly, but first... after receiving the information, I did a little research & discovered something interesting, as follows.  [Most of you probably know this already; even though I've been around a long time, it was news to me:]

There are two broad categories of tomatoes--- determinate and indeterminate, in relation to growth/height.  The first are the "bush" varieties (such as Roma); the second are the "vine" varieties (such as most Cherry types).  The "vines" are supposed to grow to 6-10 (or 12) ft high. The "bush" guys---3-4 ft.  I never knew that...thought they all grew to 3-4 ft.  I have a lot of cherry tomatoes!  The articles said they're usually grown on a trellis; the cages are for the bushies.  Live & learn, eh?  In my outdoor or non-container gardening days, I guess it was dumb luck that all I ever raised were determinate tomatoes... never, ever had an indeterminate "vine" tomato.

Here's a response I received from a friend in CA who runs a small organic farm there.  He and his wife, among other things, can about 50 gallons of tomato juice each year.

Yes your problem is insufficient light.Also when you 'clone" plants:take cuttings, propagate from them, they don't produce as well as when from seed.

The remedy is a cold frame. yes it is outside, but the plants will have enough natural light. The other remedy is using lights.The best window for plants faces southwest, and gives good light, no tree shade,curtains.
I plant my tomatoes in the beginning of March, then almost immediately, I put them in a cold frame, if the temps go below freezing, I throw a cover over it.I also have heat actuated openers on the cold frame, so it doesn't get too hot in them.I have nice compact bushy plants.I start my peppers over the wood stove, they must have 80+ degrees warmth in early January.When they are 4-5" high, also into the cold frame.

The melons planted later, also do very well in the cold frame.

Cold frames can be made out of an old window sash, and all used materials.The opener is what you have to buy,or be there to open the cold frame yourself.One warm day without the cold frame opened can damage your plants.

Here's his YouTube Channel...entertaining & informative---
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR3R2OutoTkY4TLSnEUaexw
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I'll post another, different response next time.

Happy Trails, and Be Well

A Couple Brief Notes on Tomatoes

Am having a problem with some of my container tomato plants, so I'm trying an experiment.  The problem is:  a few of them start out great, but when they finally get to the largest container, they get very "leggy" and spindly.  It might be due to insufficient light.  Until very recently, it has been too chilly here to put them outside.  Now that it's hot, it's usually too windy.  [I can't afford any decent tomato cages, and have been too busy to make my own from cut willow saplings.]  My suspicion is that they are growing in height like crazy, trying to "reach" all the available indoor light...even when they are near a window and it's a sunny day.  [I can't afford "grow" lights either.]

Have you ever noticed that no matter how short weeds are cut, they will just keep producing flowers?  That thought prompted my experiment.  Am now taking "cuttings" from the tops of my problem tomatoes.  Each one of those cuttings can be placed in a regular water bottle and they will grow roots from the end & lower sides of the stalk.  After that, each one can be placed in a container with potting soil.  The experiment is:  will the original problem plants now stop growing in height (if I keep cutting off the tops) and instead "flesh out"... eventually producing flowers.  [It isn't time for them to do that yet, they aren't old enough; but when they do, I don't want those flowers on 5 to 6-foot high plants with spindly stalks.:]

Time will tell.  If anyone knows some other cause of "leggy" tomatoes, please let me know.  All I can figure is that it's insufficient light.  Plus, from Botany studies years ago, I know that cutting green plants triggers them to produce flowers at shorter heights.

Happy Trails, and Be Well

Pruning Tomato Plants, Plant Litter, and Green Manure

As your container tomato plants grow, some of the lower leaves most likely will begin to die off.  Prune those... snip off the whole leaf branch near the main plant stalk.  All those dying leaves do is sap resources from the plant.  Keep the removed portions on the soil surface in your container.  Such material will dry up and serve as plant litter...commonly called "mulch".  Mulch helps retain water in the soil.  If you have the time, cut up the removed leaves into smaller pieces and spread those around on the soil surface.  That takes only a minute or so.

Another option is to push the fresh litter under the soil surface...just a bit, and not near the main stalk...to serve as green manure.  Don't bury this material too deeply or near the stalk because when it rots that may affect the plant (including the roots) in a negative way.  Eventually, as humus forms due to friendly bacteria digesting the fresh litter, nutrients will leach down to the roots when you water.  I prefer to leave the litter on top of the soil to dry.  That really helps maintain soil moisture.

We also need to prune tomato plant "suckers", or "sucker branches".  Those are smallish shoots that grow where a branch of leaves meets the main stalk of the entire plant...right in the bottom of that "V" area.  Suckers make your plants much bushier, thus drawing resources/nutrients away from "fruit" formation.  [In Botany, the organ containing plant seeds (or that IS the seed) is usually referred to as a "fruit"...even if it's a vegetable or a nut.:]

Happy Trails, and Be Well

Don't Use Cardboard Roll Inserts With Your Seedlings

This idea of using half a toilet paper center cardboard roll to facilitate both seedling germination and transplant seemed like a useful, clever one.  I saw it on YouTube and gave it a shot...several shots.  In the beginning, it seemed to be working just fine.  By placing the roll in a vertical position in the scooped out hole in the receiving container during a seedling transplant, the process went a little easier.  Later, when watering, the roll appeared to keep the moisture close to the seedling.  All seemed well.  I even recommended the use of the roll in one of my Container Gardening videos here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/ScottHaley12 .  I think it was the "Part 2..." video.

About a month or so later, I began to notice that my tomato plants with the cardboard rolls were beginning to look a bit stunted.  Not all of them were that way, but it was true of the vast majority.  I had lots of plants without the rolls, as well; they were doing much better.  I do like to experiment, but admittedly, this was not a controlled experiment.  In other words, I didn't account for all the possible variables that might result in the stunting of the plants.  The stunting and the cardboard rolls being in the same pots could be nothing but a coincidence.  Nevertheless, I think there's something to this.

Here's what may have happened.  Cardboard contains toxic glue.  There's not a large amount in the center cardboard of a toilet paper roll, but maybe it's enough to affect seedlings.  Water won't dissolve it (release it from the cardboard), but soil microbes will release it when they digest the cardboard.  I'm guessing that's what happened.  My recommendation is:  don't use those rolls.

Happy Trails, & Be Well