Growing Tomatoes , Extending Your Season

I have a tutorial on our Gardening Page on how we plant our tomatoes. I will be adding this segment to it, but for now I'm going to make this as an individual post for today. 

By this time in the year, if you're in the South or hot climates with humidity, your tomato plants might be looking like this about now. They look kind of scraggly. Don't fret. You have to remember they just put all their energy producing their fruit. We had already been picking some tomatoes off these plants before we took these pic. They will look like they are dying and browning but I have discovered that there are some things you can do to get maybe one more picking or at least help them produce new fruits and new growth up until your first frost. Now let me say this, we live in the South and our summers and warm weather can go well into late October or early November.  So we can try to get as many as possible for our season. This is some things I do come this time of year. I try to keep all the dead leaves pruned off. This will help the nutrients get to the rest of the plant. 

Now this is where it gets tricky. I stress keeping the suckers pinched off during the growing process because they take away nutrients from the main stem and branches. Anything in this little 45 degree angle in the fork of a main stem and branch, is a sucker.  During the growing process, these have to be kept at bay and pinched off so they will produce the first fruits. Now, when your plants have produced their first set of fruits like above, you can actually start letting these suckers stay on the plant now to produce new growth and possibly second fruits.  Also, you will need them to replace all the dead leaves and branches you had to prune off. 

See the new growth and new blooms now? If you take very good care of these plants for just a little longer, you just might get a set of second fruit. You will once again have to baby your plants for the rest of the summer. When you start seeing new blooms, you can fertilize again with a little gentle homemade fertilizer. I use coffee grounds, epsom salt, and baking soda. Equal parts of each. I just sprinkle around the base of the plant and cover mulch back up. 

Now here is an idea with all those little suckers (no punn intended), do you see all those hairs on the suckers? Well, they actually create roots when you put them into the ground or into some soil. You can actually start a whole new plant. See those rough hairs at the end of this plant at the base. That's how tough they can get. They will eventually become roots. 

Now, one thing to keep in mind. If you live in a climate or zone where your fall season comes early, you might not be able to do this and have an extended season. Since our first frost or cooler weather doesn't come until October or November, we can extend our season. You can always experiment and  sacrifice a few plants and try this, or take some of the bigger suckers that you  had to pinch off and put in a pot with some soil and take it indoors to grow. It's worth a try. 

I hope you enjoyed this information and hopefully you will play around and have fun in your garden. You never know what you might come up with. 

Harvesting Is Upon Us

We have been getting alot of goodies from the garden. Happiness is   canned, fermented sauerkraut,  fresh corn and tomatoes from the garden.
The cabbage that I was fermenting into sauerkraut was ready to be put up for long term storage. We have been getting some tomatoes a little at a time. I am saving them up until I get enough to make a big pot of sauce. We harvested two of our rows of corn and got them pit up. We will have two more rows ready in two weeks.

We are getting lots of zucchini and squash too.

Please, everyone stay safe and hydrated during this summer heat. Take care of yourself.

Good Birthday Weekend

I've had a good weekend. Got to have my buddies with me too. Poppie took all of us to eat Friday night. Got up Saturday and swam in the pool, played on the splash pad, poppie fixed us lunch, rested and came back out and did it again. Poppie fixed me a bday meal of Shrimp Boil and then he fixed us girls some ice cream cones. Lots of playing and Bible stories at bedtime. Poor poppie has given up his bed two nights in a row to let us girls sleep in our princess bed and watch movies and eat popcorn and goldfish in bed. Then the next morning he stands in the pouring rain to cut me some fresh roses off of his rose bushes and gave them to me. Then I get to try my hand at growing herbs indoors all year. 🎉❤🤗🎂👑  thank you sweetheart.
That  morning when we woke up, Atleigh said,  "Happy Birthday Gmaw!" and smiles real pretty. Caroline looks up mischievously at me and said, "Stinky butt!" You gotta love kids different personalities.  ❤❤❤🤗🤗🤗
When it was time for them to go home they had a melt down and didn't want to leave. I'm glad our babies love us and want to be with us that they don't want to leave us.

Family Fun

Finally got to have a Grab Your Granny Day this year. I named it this because this is a day we take once a week or once every two weeks and I call my momma up and say, " Hey, you wanna go somewhere or do something?" Or I simply call her and tell her I'm coming to get her and be ready. She's always game for something. But this year this Covid stuff has threw us off. However, we got to get together yesterday for Grab Your Granny Day. We love to go swimming at one of our favorite places and we love to pack a picnic lunch. It was not crowded since it was the middle of the week.
 We had such a great time.

Great 4th of July

We had a great time with family and friends with food, fellowship and fireworks. 
We will always make sure freedom rings at our house.

Happy 4th of July From 4D Farms

Today, I am feeling extremely patriotic because I live in a country that I love and I will keep fighting for it and defending my home. I will pray very hard for those who seek to destroy it. May God have mercy on them.
Today of all days we should be thankful,  proud and renew our commitment to fight for our country's freedoms and principles this country was formed on. God Bless America. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Getting Ready For The 4th

We are working hard trying to get everything ready for our July 4th get together we host at our house every year. We so look forward to it every year.

Tonight, I took left over spaghetti and made spaghetti bake and I made some bruschetta with some of dear hubby's cheese he made, and a summer salad with cabbage, zucchini and squash all from the garden. It was yummy. 

We have laughed at our cat and this bird. Lastweekend,  we were in the pool and saw Annie going to the end of the house all the sudden we saw her running lickity split back around the house through the back yard with a bird chasing her. We all just laughed.  Well, the next day, we were eating supper on the back porch and Atleigh noticed Annie's tail bleeding, so I doctored it. Well, today, I'm sitting on the couch in the living room and hear this noise outside the window behind me. It is this mockingbird squaking at Annie and she is trying to sleep on the table.  I think these two have a rivalry history. 😂😂

Then it will start flying up and down behind her. It may have been what got a hold of her tail. We will see how this turns out. 

The flood waters have gone down in our town and people are trying to clean up. 

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Flooding and Zombie

It has been an exhausting night for us. Our area has had thunderstorms all night and flooding. First, we got a call from our oldest son around 11pm last night that our youngest wanted to come home after changing his mind about spending the night with big brother. It was storming and Dakota did not want Dallas driving home in it by himself so he told Dallas to follow him. He said one minute he saw him in the rearview mirror and the next he didn't.  He called to check on him and Dallas said he don't know what happened but he just couldn't see the road and he hit a ditch and mailbox.  The road was already covered in water and it was raining so hard both boys said they were having trouble seeing in front of them. They were only going around 30mph. Dakota said Dallas' airbags deployed and Dallas must have hit his airbag and the seatbelt took some hide off of his neck and jaw. Dakota was so worried over his brother. He has always been so protective and a second dad when I need him. When he got Dallas to his house, he carried him in over his shoulder and put him on the couch and told Jossie to check him. They were both so scared and worried.  Bless them. Dad got up and threw on some clothes and went to pick up Dallas. They went back to Dallas truck and had to call a cop to come out so we could file a report for insurance. Thank goodness for full coverage insurance because it is going to cover the peoples mailbox damage. The front wheels on his truck are underneath the front of his truck and came up through the floorboard on the passenger's side. They finally got home around 2am.
Dad made Dallas stay awake for a few hours and make sure there was no concussion and to monitor him. They finally went to bed around 4am. I finally got in bed but it thundered and lightened all night and was so bad at times it shook the ground. Needless to say we didn't get much sleep.
However, after dad picked up Dallas from Dakotas, Dakota got called into work for power outages. Dakota was out in the storms all night with over 300 strikes of lightning in several hours. He was soaking wet and exhausted. He never got to go home last night.
We woke up this morning to flooding and washed out roads and flooded bridges. Our local mayor has declared our city a state of emergency. Businesses and vehicles are still underwater as of 6pm this evening. And it is thunderstorming again and pouring down rain. I had to get up this morning and take my MIL to the eye dr. I had to have some strong coffee since I only had about 3 hrs sleep. We made it though. I got home and had to lie down because I just could not function anymore. Only slept an hr. 😡
Oh well, I will sleep good tonight.
 Dear hubby has been on the phone with insurance company most of the day. Looks like we will be truck shopping again.
This morning when I did get up, I needed to check on things outside like the garden. All I could do was pray and hold my breath. To my relief only a few stalks of corn got blowed down. Everything looks good. I did capture this though:

Look carefully in front of the corn stalks. She's mad cause she can't get into the garden.  😄😄 so she's just gonna plop down right there.