Setback

You can read about it here. Sigh.

Well, that was fast

I planted the radishes on Monday, and they sprouted on Wednesday. Now it's Friday and they have visibly grown. I am pleased. There is a lot less waiting around with radishes than with carrots, and it's kind of satisfying. Now if they can just stay cool enough, we're all set.

In other news, I re-staked the tomatoes on Monday night, because I watered and they all fell down. My largest plant was the height of the stake on Monday. This is that same plant today:



Is that not insane? It grows VISIBLY from day to day. It's almost as tall as me. I grant that that's not very tall for a person, but for a tomato plant, I'm impressed.

This week's column

Is viewable here. I finally planted radishes, bought bigger stakes, and picked up an organic bug-killer. And it's hot.

Bugs

I suppose it was only a matter of time.



I think some of them are aphids, although I haven't found a good picture yet. The majority of them are the exact same shade of green as the tomato plants. I think there are some whiteflies, too, but when I went out to take pictures they were gone.

Now I need to decide what to do. I'd like to avoid chemicals if possible, so if there's an organic suggestion I'll go with that first. I'll also go over the plants and hand-squash as many as possible. Spraying with water is supposed to help with whiteflies, so I'll try that too.

It seems only the tomato plants are affected. I looked over the peppers and didn't see anything amiss. I already needed to go to the garden store to get taller stakes; pest control is one more item on the list.

New column

It's here. I finally planted the raspberries, although not where I'd planned to. They're looking more perky now that they're in the ground. I think a couple of peppers are juuust starting to start, and cherry tomatoes are budding. The Early Girls are enormous, and I do think they're expending more energy growing than they are in making actual tomatoes. I do have several more tiny green tomatoes than I did last time I posted, though, and that makes me happy.

I watered on Monday for the first time in weeks, and several tomato branches buckled under the strain. Not having any stakes long enough to support them, I had to twist-tie the short stakes together and then twist-tie the plants onto them. They're currently listing a little drunkenly. Maybe it was all that extra water.