Garden update week 8

[bearfan454]

It's getting over 100 here now almost every day. My garden will burn up so I put a shade over it. It was cheap. $1.25 for 10 foot pvc pipe. 28 cents for connectors. 89 cents for corner connectors. $29.00 for a roll of sun screen that is 6 ft wide by 20 ft long. Plastic lock ties were cheap too. I guess you can tell I'm cheap too. Here's what I made



3 plants are almost 7 feet tall now. I'm 6'4" and they are taller than me. My Early Girls do me proud every year.





I'm getting some good size ones but it's early



The Sweet 100's are putting out a lot.



I still have a lot of yellow flowers.



The Sweet Banana Peppers are doing good. This weekend I am going to try to can some of them. I need to get the mason jars and lids.





I have a recipe franmarz gave me. I'll post it this weekend.

[NMDemDist2]

1. wow! that's awesome! and remember to let me know how the canning

goes

:bounce:

[bearfan454]

2. The recipe is really easy.

My Mom got it from a family member from Spain. It has alum in it that makes the peppers crunchy. This is going to be fun.

[spindrifter]

3. That looks terrific.

What do you stake those 7-footers to? My friend who grows giant tomato plants here in Seattle swears that it is the staking and the deep watering that give her plants the energy boost to make them huge.

[bearfan454]

4. I made tomato cages out of heavy duty wire fence paneling.

They are about 3 feet in diameter. The 3 Early Girls I might need to pound a big piece of rebar through at an angle so the weight of the tomatoes doesn't pull over the cage. I've had that happen to me before. For some reason a lot of people I talk to at work about gardening say that their plants have yielded and are ready to croak now. Mine always take a really long time to make fruit and then they stay green for a very long time before ripening. I always snatch them as soon as they start turning colors so the birds don't get them.

[Gormy Cuss]

5. How do you attach the shade frame to the ground?

Is the pipe just sunken? I've been toying with building shade/frost canopies out of PVC. Yours is just what I picture.

On the rebar for your tomatoes, we stake our heavy tomato plants with wooden poles, two to a cage. The 'poles' are gleaned from our tree trimmings-- talk about cheap!

[bearfan454]

6. I used 4 foot sections of rebar

pounded in the ground about 2 feet. Each pvc pipe sits on one of those.

[Gormy Cuss]

8. Sounds like a good solution. Thanks. n/t.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. My brown thumb ........

.... is jealous of your green thumb.

:hi:

[babylonsister]

9. I've never seen such big tomato plants. I'm in AWE, and

grown in the heat of TX, no less!