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Heidi
May 10, 2021 7:44:08 GMT -6
Post by chrysanthemum on May 10, 2021 7:44:08 GMT -6
I’m glad I’ve found a spot where people appreciate my sharing things like that. Thanks.
The condensation barrel actually lives beside our blueberry cube where we keep our potted plants. I need to collect it to meter our the water since they are in pots, but we try to avoid ever using our tap water since it’s so high in calcium, and I understand blueberries hate that.
We have two drains on opposite sides of our house, and the other one runs to hose that we stretch to a mandarin orange tree in the backyard. It used to be eighteen feet across, but it suffered so much damage in the freeze that it’s going to be tiny this summer. That air conditioner isn’t running right now, but I think we may need to reroute the hose so as not to overwater. I’ll have to monitor the soil there when the heat really kicks in this summer.
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Heidi
May 10, 2021 9:35:03 GMT -6
Post by heavyhitterokra on May 10, 2021 9:35:03 GMT -6
When I visited Ben Franklin Science Academy, back around 2010, they had heavy plastic collection barrels set out behind their school to catch rainwater from the rooftops and used it to gravity feed their garden down near the bottom of the hill behind it. There were two tanks there about a thousand gallons each, but water has the curious trait of not caring how wide a body of liquid it is, rather only how tall the water column is, so a plastic 55-gallon barrel the same height as a 1,000-gallon barrel will provide the same amount of water pressure. (All open-top water columns are subject to the same atmospheric pressure).
Therefore, a home gardener could build the same setup at a much lesser cost, by using a single plastic 55-gallon barrel or by setting 55-gallon barrels in series, using 2" inch PVC pipe nipples to connect them. (Just be sure to place some sort of mosquito screening tightly sealed across the top of any opening) to prevent mosquitoes from laying eggs in your irrigation water.
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Post by chrysanthemum on May 10, 2021 20:10:33 GMT -6
Before we moved two Texas we had two rain barrels. One was a 55-gallon pickle barrel that my sister had built as a prototype when she was going to be teaching a rain barrel making class. It was an early trial and was a reject on design. It still works, but the spigot was too high, so we were glad to get a freebie. The other is a 35-gallon trash can that we converted a few years later. Both of those served us well in Virginia where it rained fairly often.
Once we moved to Texas we realized that that setup was entirely inadequate. It doesn’t rain frequently down here, and when it does rain, it’s often a deluge. We’ve been adding rain tanks over the years, and they’ve gotten bigger. It has been an expense, but we can now store about 3,000 gallons of water. Considering that we are almost constantly under water restrictions from our community well, it’s great to have that water available for the garden whenever we need it. It’s also calcium-free, so it’s great for adding to my blueberries or raised beds without driving up pH. Our largest tanks are right in front of our house on either side of the porch, and we installed gutters last summer to funnel water to them. It has helped immensely to help prevent flooding that used to occur in front of our home, but when we get our real frog stranglers, they both fill up and overflow.
We don’t use pumps for the barrels. The one nearest to the garden is constantly used as I can run a hose from it to the garden to fill ollas or watering cans. We have two tanks in front of the house that fill up fast whenever there is rain, and those are a bit higher and taller than the garden tank, so we hook together hoses and siphon from them to refill the garden tank when it has room. We moved two hundred gallons on Saturday while we were working on our fencing project, and I actually wondered if the sound of running water is what brought the armadillos out. They were definitely rooting around right by that rain tank. Maybe they thought they heard rain and were hunting for worms or something.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jun 24, 2021 13:00:42 GMT -6
I just wanted to update this thread to say that my five year old has a few green tomatoes on “Heidi.” I also got him a more heavy duty cage for it and changed it out before the plant got too big. I could tell that my little hand me down wasn’t going to work. The little cage is now supporting two Maglia Rosa plants in the garden, so it’s still useful.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2021 13:04:42 GMT -6
I had a compost sitting on the far corner of my main rectangular garden bed. The goal wasn't just compost, but for the compost pile to condition the soil for expansion.
I lifted that compost in late winter 2021, this year. In it were tomato seeds that did not get hot enough to kill. I easily have tomato volunteers in the actual yard with bermuda so it did not surprise me that I had many volunteers from the compost bin.
Because of the tree that needs to be felled, I did not install my tomato trellis. I have only the volunteers.
Among these is Heidi. I wanted to note that Heidi is doing very well in this natural unkempt state, unlike other heirlooms such as Cherokee purple or Roma. The state of natural volunteers usually stunts the growth of the size of the tomato, but not Heidi. They are robust, full size and are not nearly as bug damaged as the other varieties of volunteer plants.
If conditions allow, I will be Saving Seeds from this Heidi plant. She is now fully acclimated to the environment and is giving me all sorts of signs to be robust, energetic and tough.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jul 10, 2021 6:53:53 GMT -6
The words “robust, energetic, and tough” are high praise indeed. I hope you do get to save seeds.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 2, 2022 20:14:38 GMT -6
Another Attestation to the Hardiness of Heidi Tomatoes George gave me and Hank some Heidi tomato seeds that had been frozen since about 2013. When I initially attempted germinating them, I only got two or three to sprout. I potted those right away and carried the moist Ziplock bag in my pocket for a few more days, waiting to see if any others would germinate. After a few days, I set the bag aside, giving up all hope. Then today, (7 days later) I noticed that about 10 more of them were beginning to germinate.I guess they were just late bloomers. I ended up getting about 80% germination from these 9-year-old seeds. Not too shabby!Thanks, George.
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Post by macmex on Apr 3, 2022 6:07:57 GMT -6
I'm really working on my seed storage. Though from 2013, those seed have been in frozen storage for probably 5 years. Now I just need to remember to record those details. Little by little I'm cataloging all I have in storage so that I can find it without having to search through multiple bins and can tell what I have with a quick computer search.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Apr 10, 2022 15:25:46 GMT -6
I think the seeds that macmex shared with me for Heidi came from that same year. They’ve germinated well for me, and I’m excited to have Heidi growing in my regular garden (instead of pots) this year. Last year a bunch of tomatoes got stolen off the plants that were on my deck. I think it was just too tempting for the squirrels to run along the railing and see a crop there, and they wiped me out in one night. I’m looking forward to trying again this year in a less exposed area.
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Heidi
Apr 10, 2022 21:59:23 GMT -6
Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 10, 2022 21:59:23 GMT -6
I've seen many a squirrel running from my garden with a red tomato in its teeth. I use live traps to get rid of them. It's tough to find a bait that they like better than a tomato. Trouble is, they'll never go inside a live trap to get a tomato when they can get them off the vine all day for free.
I've found they have a soft spot for Atwood's salted peanuts in the shell though. They'll go in a trap almost every time for a few peanuts in the shell. That is, until you catch all of the dumb ones. After a few days, they become 'trap wary' and you have to give them a few weeks' break to forget about it and get careless again. That's usually fairly easy to accomplish with a few 'free' peanuts left lying in strategic places.
I'll bet I've turned more than a dozen squirrels loose on the other side of the river in just the last few years. No matter how many I trap out of my garden, I never run out.
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Heidi
Apr 11, 2022 6:17:37 GMT -6
Post by macmex on Apr 11, 2022 6:17:37 GMT -6
Used to be, when I had to trap a marauding squirrel, that we'd just eat it, but now our daughter, who lives next door, has a red meat allergy, which includes squirrel. It has't been worth my time to process one when we've been raising so much rabbit (which she can eat).
Fortunately, our cat frequents the garden. Her presence seems to be a major deterrent to squirrel and rabbit invasions.
I am really looking forward to Heidi this summer as we have plans to do a lot more sauce and dehydrated tomatoes.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Apr 11, 2022 20:21:26 GMT -6
A couple of years ago, I was having a lot of squirrel problems in the garden, and we started using lethal tube traps for them. I think the squirrel population had gotten somewhat out of control around here, and we helped bring it back into a little more balance. We haven’t used the traps for the past couple of seasons because new neighbors moved in, and their three cats like to frequent our property. We don’t want to catch one accidentally, and we figure they may be keeping the squirrels out of the garden area.
We also seem to have a family of red shouldered hawks in the area (I was watching two fly today and listening to them “scree”). I hope they’ll help me out if the squirrels in the back yard get too greedy. I love seeing them glide over the property.
Three times recently I’ve seen a fox under a large tree behind my garden. I think it might have a den there as there is a large hollow in the tree, and the fox seems to jump down to the ground when it appears. It startles me but then just moves off quietly.
I started three more Heidi seeds today for my neighbor after talking to her about tomato plants. It’s a bit on the late side, but I started them later last year for myself, and they did fine, so I figure it was worth a shot.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Apr 18, 2022 20:58:44 GMT -6
I spotted my first blossoms on my Heidi plants this evening. It made me excited, so I thought I’d share.
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Heidi
Apr 21, 2022 12:50:36 GMT -6
Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 21, 2022 12:50:36 GMT -6
First bloom on tomatoes is always exciting news! Thanks, for sharing.
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Post by chrysanthemum on May 1, 2022 19:24:20 GMT -6
I did a little pruning of my tomatoes yesterday, just getting the lower foliage and suckers off, and I noticed some small tomatoes on my Heidi plants. Exciting.
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