Update

There is so much to update that I decided to do a video so I can talk about every plant.

Tomato Leaf Removal

As I pointed out in the video there are some blighted leaves on the lower part of the tomato plants. This is normal for this time of year in the Mid-South. Blight is a fungus that is in the soil and it gets on the lower leaves when they are in contact with the soil or the fungus gets splashed on to the leaves from rain or overhead watering. The fungus then works its way up the plant. One of the ways to control blight is to remove all the diseased leaves from the plant. I took off all the diseased leaves and also a few more that were on or close to the ground. It opens up the bottom of the plant and makes it easier to see what is going on. Taking off some of the lower leaves does not harm the plant. Research I have read says the energy for growing the fruit comes from the higher leaves and it encourages the plant to grow more. I also sprayed with the fungicide Chlorothalonil.

Before. With all the dead leaves

After. There is now some air flow where the disease pressure is the highest.

Basil

I trimmed back the basil. It was getting to the point where the plants were growing together. I wanted to harvest it while pruning it to encourage future growth. I talked about the method in an earlier blog post here. It felt like I was taking a lot off the plants, but they will bounce back. I also made sure I cut all the blooms off the purple basil.

Before

After. A good pruning job on any plant makes it look like you were never there.

Replanting Cucumbers

The cucumbers are up, but the germination was poor (about 50%) so I have planted replacement seeds where they did not sprout the first time. I am not sure why we have had such poor germination on some of the brand new seeds we purchased this year. We have a larger in-ground garden nearby and there were two whole packages of brand new corn seed that did not come up at all, while a section we planted in 5 year old seed had almost all of them come up.

The Harvest

Like I said in the video I would be harvesting some of the veggies. This is the first tomato harvest of the year. I picked 6.78lb of tomatoes. There were 21 large tomatoes and 10 of the black cherry tomatoes as well. There are a few more that are about ready so there will be more soon.

I also pulled 11 carrots for 1.05lbs. Most were straight, but there were two that had forked.

I got a few green beans for .084lb

I trimmed the basil and got a very large harvest for only four plants, .38lb. I took it home and made two cups of pesto which is very good.

The purple seedling tray is to support the tomatoes so I can weigh the whole bag without them falling off the scale.