Blossom End Rot

One of my Opalka tomato plants has come down with blossom end rot. Blossom end rot (BER) is not a pathogen-borne disease, but rather a calcium-uptake issue. Either there is calcium soil deficiency, or conditions (drought or excess water usually) lead to impaired calcium delivery from the roots. None of the other neighboring tomatoes are suffering similar issues, so I am loathe to blame this on a soil calcium deficiency. Also, this area is pretty heavily composted each year, and my compost is rich with egg shells. This plant has been lagging behind the others -- spindly and few leaves. I suspect the lie of my uneven clay soil is to blame - drainage is not ideal in this specific area. Also likely to blame is this crazy weather -- the area around this plant especially can look very parched, and then it gets completely soaked with these quick, heavy storms.

Even though I am convinced this a water issue, I gave all the plants a good soak with compost tea, as well as some organic fertilizer. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the early fruits on this single plant will be the only ones affected. I don't think you necessarily have to remove the fruit (not a contagious situation), but I didn't want the plant pouring energy into deformed tomatoes. An interesting tidbit I found is that paste tomatoes like Opalka are more prone to blossom end rot. Many folks attest to the productivity of this variety, so hopefully the next round will come out healthy!

Gallery of Failure

The June blossoms are cascading across garden blogs in a rainbow of colors. Gorgeous photos of lush foliage and romantic arbors are glittering through my internet browsing. I know you can shoot any garden carefully, edit well, and probably wind up with a montage somewhat able to convince the casual viewer that you reside within the pages of a gardening magazine. I don't begrudge these bloggers their brag books -- I love to see the healthy plants and flowers and to appreciate, for example, the way they have creatively planted a container.

I have been blue all week and don't have the heart to gloss over the many disasters brewing in my garden. I have decided to post my own photo gallery, but of the abject failures of June, the blights in my otherwise thriving little patch. Do I post these just to be grumpy? No. Perhaps a reader will have an idea for how to rescue the situation. Or perhaps my less-than-perfect outcome can serve as warning to others in gardens to come (Yeah, right! We gardeners never learn!).

• The sweet pea and asparagus patch

I read in a garden book that one should grow sweet peas among asparagus plants - the flowers would wind their way up the spears and the whole effect would be quite romantic. Instead, I have an overgrown shaggy mess in the corner of my garden. Weeds are thriving, since everything is so snaggled together that any maintenance is near impossible.

• The passion fruit vine

This plant seems to be the caviar of the garden for slugs and snails. I cannot keep the leaves from being shredded as soon as they emerge. This poor little seedling is the only one that has survived the onslaught -- it has been limping along for months. Now, many passiflora references attest to a "slow start" for transplanted seedlings, but this plant has literally been frozen in time since March, when I put it out under a cloche. I probably jumped the gun with the weather - but I was hell-bent on extending the growing season to see if I could get mature fruit.

• The kiwi vine

Now, speaking of "frozen in time" this kiwi vine has done absolutely nothing since I planted it upon arrival from the Stark Brothers nursery. I followed planting directions to a T. Since the roots burn easily, I have been careful to not fertilize. Most references attest to the vine's vigor and the need to begin training the first year. Since it has less than a foot of sorry-looking growth and a few wimpy leaves, I have no idea what I am supposed to be training. Do I rip it out, or wait to see how it does next spring?

• The toothache plant

The Spilanthes oleracea seedlings I nurtured all spring suffered mightily in the recent wet,nasty weather. Dave's Garden plantfiles reports no insect problems and "glossy" foliage, but this is a bedraggled plant that also seems to have had it's share of insect predators. I can only hope that the numbing effect of the leaves worked their magic on these pests.

• The rose mallow

I wintersowed some rose mallow seeds and failed to do my research when transplanting the seedlings: mature height is 48"-60". I planted the seedlings in front of my peonies, and now have a silly front bed with tall, skinny plants in front of short, stout plants.

Time to buy some beer

Thanks to the wet weather, the slugs have come out in force in my May garden. I pulled three off my "maypop" passiflora this morning -- damage had already been done, as you can see in the above photo. The kohlrabi, below, looks like it was a delicious midnight snack for these pests. Hopefully the young plants will bounce back, but the leaf damage on the kohlrabi was pretty extensive.

Mama's goin' to the corner store tonight and pickin' up some PBR. I'll sink the cutoff ends of plastic bottles into the ground and fill them with the beer. Some books advise using saucers, but the only spare saucers I have are from my mother's old china. It all seems a bit too frou-frou to lay elaborately decorated dinnerware around the backyard. Recycled plastic will do. I also make morning rounds on the slugs' favorite plants and handpick them. The beer and daily vigilance has worked well in the past, but the general clamminess of the past few weeks may require a more aggressive approach -- I recently read that coffee grounds are an effective deterrent. I certainly have a steady supply of those. I may not be trapping my slugs with craft beer, but I can battle them with fair trade beans!