Gardening is all about ideas, planning, thinking, reviewing, planning and inventing and imagining. I think that is partly why I enjoy it so much, it gives me a way to be creative that allows mistakes, changes and is very long term.
At the moment I have lots of ideas about my native bush garden I want to plant at the back of the yard. But at the moment it is just imagination, ideas and planning, but eventually over many many months and years it will be a solid form of my ideas.
The other way ideas are important in gardening is fixing problems. One of my roma tomatoes in a pot has some kind of disease. Oh dear a problem, which needs some ideas to fix it.
Research told me what the disease was and what caused it. That funny looking stuff on the end of the tomato was blossom rot and it is caused by "erratic watering". Well I know my watering has been pretty good, but we had several really really hot days, the 3rd most hot day in history in Canberra, apparently. Well I suspect that the hot weather was enough to cause the pot to dry out and cause the disease.
What could I do about it?
I didn't read much, but I got the feeling once it has started on a tomato it is not going to stop. In the end my "idea" for this year was to pick all the "bad" and "damaged" tomatoes off the plant so it can put it's energy into ripening the "good" tomatoes. To help with the watering problem I've taken to soaking the pot in the dog's pool. (Jess my dog is NOT happy about that, but we all have to make sacrifices occasionally.
OK so I've kind of solved the problem for this year, but what "ideas" can I think of to prevent it from happening next year.
Idea 1) I could just not growing any roma tomatoes, but hey I like them and I want at least one. That idea, not good enough.
Idea 2) What about growing the roma tomatoes in one of the baths? Yep that might work, that idea has potential.
So I begin to realise that being a gardener is about constantly having ideas, trying them out and seeing if they work. I don't know that I have reached a full solution to my blossom rot problem, but I'll keep thinking about ideas until I plant next November. I just have to remember to think about this problem, when I am planting next year. (It's called learning from your mistakes)
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3 comments:
..blossom end rot is usually from the plant not being able to aborb calcium (deficent)..usually thru erratic watering ..add lime/dolomite to the soil before planting . its not to late to try and fix it ..pick of all the affected fruit ..adda sml handful of lime (if acid ph )dolomite (if alkaline )mix it in and try to water every 2nd day .
I found that some tomatoes get it no matter what you do ... its disheartening ... good luck and hopefully you'll get it fixed .
sweetpea
Another thing that helps add calcium and is very earth friendly is save all your egg shells and add it as an amendment to the soil every spring.
A fun bonus is birds like to pick them up in the spring when they are nesting (I would assume to make up for the calcium deficiency they suffer from laying eggs).
Thanks for that information sweetpea, I think i might go shopping for a ph-tester. I'm going to start saving the egg shells for next year.
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