I looked the Bandit in the face, and he came away scared.
It's been a long hiatus. I sincerely apologize for depriving y'all of my singular brilliance and magnaminity. Ha, I kid--but I've got sound excuses. One, I've been running overtime preparing my soil to get the seeds in asap: turning, turning, then turning the ground again. The number of treatments that must be done to a plot of earth (and specifically a former chunk of pasture) is astounding. Having never run a plow or a harrow or a cultivator, I'm totally reliant on my dad's expertise and dependent on his pace. While I welcome the rain, the level of ground saturation has literally bogged things down.
Two, I've been on a trek of mythical proportions. I looked the Bandit in the face, and he came away scared. Texarkana to Atlanta, I scoff at you. By about 500 miles. Chasing and being chased by this spring monsoon, I have just finished traversing the fabled Mid-South: Dallas-Texarkana-Little Rock-Memphis-Nashville-Knoxville-Asheville-Raleigh. And I accomplished this with my mother. After about twenty hours in a car with a family member, you both begin to pose more of a physical threat to each other than the other cars on the interstate. I'm proud to say there were no injuries. In fact, there may have been some sincere maternal-filial bonding. The producers of Sideways are standing by, ready to option our story about coming to terms with the earnest failures of motherhood and surviving your twenties.
I plan on a small debriefing of my culinary and agricultural adventures, like the ultra-hip Weaver Street Market in Carrboro, North Carolina (think Whole Foods if Whole Foods were local). Until then, follow the jump so that we can talk my favorite subject, tomatoes....
This picture is of one of my seedlings from a few weeks ago. As a matter of interest, it's not just any ordinary seedling; it's actually one of those upside-down tomatoes that are being advertised all over the place (my spam folder, for instance). My neighbor, a small farmer extraordinaire and genuinely decent guy, gave me this particular plant, which was grown by his mother-in-law in Bentonville, Arkansas. I have no idea what kind it is, probably something run-of-the-mill. And I suspect it might come from a hybrid parent, which doesn't bode well for my yield.But the provenance is not important here. This specimen is suffering from a common ailment of tomato seedlings. You can see it there in my rudimentary purplish, brown focus area, although you don't need my graphics to locate it. "Damping off" occurs where the stem emerges from the soil and is recognizable by the narrowing, diminished look of the stem. In most cases, if the issue isn't addressed, the plant will die as the stem shrivels into nothing.
What to do? I solved the problem by transplanting the seedling into my own proprietary soil medium and sinking it deep to allow new root systems to develop. But what do the experts say?
The following, written by Carolyn Male, comes from the Tomato Mania site:
There's no one way to start seeds but there are a few things that MUST be done or you tempt fate. Translate, you have lousy or dead seedlings. LOL
First, you MUST use artificial soilless mix. Regular potting soil has lots of fungi in it and you increase the chances of your seedlings developing damping off which is characterized by the young seedlings developing a narrowed stem at the soil level and falling down...as in DEAD. Rhizoctonia and other genera of fungi are responsible for this disease. Using a Benomyl drench or some folks say chamomile tea, may deter it. So start with a good artificial mix like Jiffy Mix (my favorite), or Pro-Mix or Peter's, etc.
Happy planting!
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