Garden Progress Pics!

I'm long past due to post some pictures of how the garden is coming along. In early June, it looked like this. Check it out now!
And forgive the weird picture arrangements as I try to figure out blogger - coding html into a WYSIWYG editor is killing me! When I figure out how to get the formatting the way I want it, maybe I'll post the code changes.

The pics face south. On the left, the moonglow tomato (left of wall of water) and the tomatillo (right of wall) dominate the pic. The wall is around my Sungold cherry tomato, a late addition that is a bit blocked from the sun by the huge tomatillos. On the right, the monster in the foreground is the papaya squash. The okra is in the wall of water in the foreground - it's producing , and has the most beautiful creamy white/yellow flowers!, but hasn't gotten that big. There's peppers behind it, tomatoes behind those, and the papaya squash monster behind those. The dying melon is to the east and underneath the papaya.

And, lest I forget to mention, the upside-down tomatoes! They are getting pretty big and have lots of tomatoes forming! Not as big as my Moonglow, but bigger than some of my other tomatoes in pots (probably because I started these earlier). I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do when the tomatoes get big and weigh down the branches, since squash are right underneath both plants...




Here's the delicata squash on 7/4, and then again on 7/28, AFTER I cut it WAY back so it wasn't blocking the entrance and walkways. This plant literally was growing a foot a day last week. I also discovered tons of squash forming!!!


Eggplant budding, ridiculous giant sunflower, my morning glories/moonflowers vining like crazy (hopefully both the sunflowers and the vines will have flowers soon!) The vines are now growing 6in-1ft a day. Some are reaching the top of the arbor (8 ft?). I am training them along twine strung in a sunburst pattern (hard to see in the pic) - hopefully it will be pretty! Both of the sunflower shots are taken facing north.

Upside-down tomatoes!

They're going great! You don't need any fancy product! You can make an upside-down tomato hanger for $8. Here's the setup:

• 5 gallon paint bucket and lid from hardware store $7
  
• permeable soil barrier scrap that fits inside bottom of bucket: scrap of landscape fabric, coffee filter, etc.
  
• 100lb-test chain, S-hook for hanging, $0.69/ft, $0.30 (optional, if you don't have a hook from which to hang the bucket handle)
  

Please refer to my skillful Google Sketch diagram :)

1. Cut a 2 inch hole out of the bottom center of the bucket. I used a drill. I also drilled 4-5 small drainholes in the bottom.
2. Cut slits in the landscape fabric or coffee filter in an X pattern, like in the diagram. The slits should form a hole big enough for you to ease your tomato seedling through.
3. Ease the seedling, still in its pot, through the fabric slits - tip first - so the fabric is snugly around the plant stem near the soil line, or however deep you want to replant the seedling. I wrapped my seedling gently into a saran wrap cocoon to protect the little leaves.
4. Balance the bucket between two chairs so that it's right side up but off the ground and the seedling can hang freely from the bottom. Ease the seedling, tip first, through the 2 inch hole in the bottom of the bucket till the fabric is flush with the bottom of the bucket. While holding the seedling in place with one hand, carefully begin filling the bucket with soil around the seedling with the other hand. When there's enough soil to hold the seedling in place in the bucket, remove its pot and loosen the roots.


5. Finish filling the bucket with soil to the top.


6. Secure the lid and turn the bucket over so the bucket is upside down but the seedling is upright, sticking up out the hole you drilled. Let the plant 'sit' for a week or two so it can settle in its new home, extend its root system, etc.


7. Turn over and hang by bucket handle in a sunny location. I hung each of my buckets from my plot's arbor/pergola by wrapping the chain around the handle and an overhead 2x4, and securing the chain with the S-hook.
   

Here's some real-world pics! My roommate and I painted the 3 buckets. Like the bucket monster? That one is actually a 3rd right side up planter I have at my house, inspired by my 3rd roomate. I painted the sunflower and monster buckets, and my roommate painted the sun/moon scene bucket. The pic with the red flower is actually just the other side of the sunflower bucket. Notice my earthworm with sunglasses :)

I left my plant right side up for about 2-3 weeks, during which time it got cold, the soil got really cold, and both tomatoes experienced symptoms of phosphorus deficiency (really, just an uptake problem b/c of the low soil temperature) - curled, purple leaves, stems erect. I thought it might be a real disease, because these mimic some leaf curl virus symptoms, but as soon as the weather warmed up the symptoms subsided. My tomato plants probably doubled to tripled in size by the time I hung them upside down in my community plot. That's not saying much, as they were pretty small to begin with. But, when I took off the lids after hanging them, I found the roots had made it all the way through the 5 gallons of soil! Hopefully that's a good sign I'll have some big tomato plants soon!

UPDATE: Here's a pic of the bottom hole.