Tootfinder

With a heavy heart I ripped out one of my tomatoes yesterday. Plenty of flowers but not a single fruit, plus new growth in last week looked stunted and twisted. Assuming some sort of virus. #tomatoes #garden #allotment

Bonus points for the person at the allotment who covers their water buckets so that mosquitoes don't leave eggs. #mosquitoes #allotment

First harvest of San Marzanos. But not by me. The usual suspects are squirrels, chipmunks, catbirds, and sparrows. #tomatoes #allotment #garden

Watering the tomatoes. The white PVC tube is 24" long, capped at the end, and has 1/8" holes every 4". If I had to remake I'd probably make the holes 1/16" so that the water was released a bit slower. #tomatoes #water #garden #allotment

My 12 tomato plants are now in. Each gets a deep hole filled with compost, plus a root waterer made from a cut-off wine bottle and some PVC pipe that has holes drilled along one side. Now hoping weather cooperates. Zone 7b. #tomatoes #allotment #garden #gardening #watering

If anyone needs a gift for a vegetable gardener, I just love my folding Opinel harvesting knife. It's especially useful when the zucchini plant is crowded with stems, flowers, and fruit. #garden #gardening #allotment #zucchini

Yesterday I found a squash vine borer (Eichlinia cucurbitae) egg on one of my zucchini. I highly recommend examining stems, leaves, and flower stalks several times per week so they can be removed before the larvae emerge. Swarthmore, PA, USA. Zone 7b. #zucchini #squash #garden #allotment #sesiidae #lepidoptera #pests

One of the shelling peas grew up on the wrong side of the bird netting. Sad, but a nice reminder that all the effort setting up the structure was worth it. #peas #sparrows #gardening #pisum #birds #allotment

Sharing my solution to squash vine borers (Eichlinia cucurbitae), the larvae of which burrow into the roots and eventually kill the plant: inject Thuricide Bt into stem wherever you see frass accumulating. This is easier to do if you train your plant vertically so that lower parts are visible. I also regularly police for eggs. #garden #gardening #squash #zucchini #vegetables #allotment #insects #lepidoptera #moths

Backlit corn silk to show off the feathery surface that helps snag falling pollen grains. The stigmatic lobes can grow over an inch per day. #corn #maize #pollen #botany #gardening #allotment #pollination #pollen #stigma

Stilt roots of maize are really creepy when they are reaching out for soil. #maize #zea #roots #corn #botany #garden #gardening #allotment

Every spring I reread this article on how tomatoes respond physiologically to even a single night below 50 °F (season-long reduction in yield). I'm always left wondering whether planting them out now (lows in upper 40s) might allow an earlier harvest, albeit at the expense of total productivity. Because I'd be OK with that. Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. USDA 7b. #tomato #tomatoes #garden #biology #circadian #gardening #temperature #weather #allotment #philadelphia https://agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov/1996/oct/tomato/