It's all out there, somewhere

You really do see everything in this job. Tomatoes are my crop of choice: they give clear signals of illness or health, their requirements are pretty simple and easy, and the results are really very rewarding. So I've seen a lot of things happen with tomatoes, and I understand how they function in most situations.

I got sent some pictures today by the help desk, which has been stumped for a week by a diagnosis problem. I did have a reply, but only after my eyebrows hit my hairline. I'd never seen edema on tomatoes before -- technically, just about any dicot can get it, but while I've encountered it on a host of plants (citrus is particularly prone) this is a first for me. Edema presents differently on every plant, but if a tomato were to get it, I can believe that's what it would look like.

It wasn't just the lumpy stems that looked like they were ready to sprout adventitious roots across 75% of their surfaces (but no roots were growing). It was the combination of cold rain (thus wet conditions) alternating with bright hot sun *and* a fertilizing regime of 19-19-19 every two weeks. Bingo!

On the plus side, they'll be fine, as long as the gardener lays off for a while. It's left me shaking my head, though... I guess now I know what it takes to spur widespread edema lesions on tomatoes.

When staggering isn't struggling

The cucumbers and regular basil have gone in -- the lemon cukes are seeds, but the Armenian and Cool Breeze are small transplants.

One thing I learned over the last couple of years is that proper timing is really important. I used to plant my peppers too early, which is why they never thrived -- they simply didn't recover from the chill, and stayed stunted all season. Conversely, last year I planted my tomatoes too late, and a third of them died from Fusarium when they were too young to bounce back (while the peppers tried to take over).

So this year I'm separating things out -- tomatoes first, while the soil is cool, along with the squash, beans, and some flowers. Then the tomatillos. Now I've got the cukes and basil in, and I'll hold off for a little longer before I put in the peppers, melons, and Thai basil. Finally, the hot weather stuff -- the sweet potatoes and okra -- will take up the rear. If I've done it right, nothing will stunt, and I'm going to finish off by Memorial Day so that (hopefully) nothing will fry either.

As the garden gets larger, this also makes planting less of an all-day push. I can go out and spend a half-hour putting cucumber seedlings in, then it's another week before I have to plant anything else. As long as I have the bandwidth to track the weather and what still remains to be planted, it works really well.

I'm trying to allow the celery and parsley to go to seed... the last pepper will have to share some root space with the parsley, but the Thai basil still isn't even showing in its pot yet (there's celery in its spot) and the other celery plants are shading the young tomato starts. So I think it'll work out.