Comments on: Hope for the future – planting for a “second season”

By: allep10

allep10 — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 03:43:28 +0000

Thanks for your post, drchelo. Here in Oklahoma we do have seasons, and mustard is one of my favorites. To get it to continue to grow through what can be tough winters, I’ve had the best luck with a planter on the south side of my house. It does re-seed very well. For some reason the soil here does not seem to care much for spinach or peppers, I have better luck with planters. Tomatoes do well, but suffer in the summer. I’ll try some of the hot weather varieties. Okra is a wonderful crop here, it loves hot weather, is very hardy, and makes very good pickled okra, soups and gumbos. Okra is by far my most successful plant here, although I do have good supply of jalepenos. And thanks for the toilet paper tip for planting small seeds.

By: biscuit

biscuit — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:30:03 +0000

Oh oh, mustard! Thank you for the reminder – I’ve been meaning to plant it, but have kept forgetting.

Somewhere in the past, I heard about this toilet paper planting method from people who’d done it – and they loved it. I think it’s time for me to put it in my toolbox of gardening tricks that I have got to try.

By: drchelo

drchelo — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:12:16 +0000

In the past, I have had success with “Celebrity”, “Carnival” and “Merced” tomatoes in the heat – but these were not available at the nursery when I got well enough to garden.
I have not seen “Heat Wave”, but I’ll keep an eye out for it. I did an Internet search for “heat-tolerant tomatoes” and found a specieals called “Sunbeam” that supposedly loves the heat as well, so I ordered some seeds, which I will try come Spring.
I love chard! I had some “Rainbow Lights” in the east bed that grew and grew for years, until I got too sick to tend that bed, so the mustard took over the chard…who woulda thunk that mustard could be an invasive?
I’m going to try chard again – maybe even getting some “Rainbow” as a ornamental plant in my perennial border…chard is so versatile!

By: Kate Petersen

Kate Petersen — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:56:05 +0000

What a terrific idea on the toilet paper! I have mustard seeds to plant and will definitely try that. Those seeds are tiny.

I’m planning on Swiss chard, too. have fallen in love with that stuff this summer, and it apparently is much more heat tolerant than spinach.

My French sorrel is surviving. Not going great guns, but hey, it’s still green. I hope it will do better when the weather cools off a bit.

Did you ever try the Heat Wave variety of tomato? I bought some seeds last year, the second really hot summer in a row, but this year I didn’t get a garden in at all. They are supposed to set fruit up to 100 degrees — but with my luck they might taste like sodden baseballs.