Chiles Jalapeños & Tomatoes grown in my garden on the Baja desert

[foakes]

That is a clever enclosure, Alex —-

Good job!

It may be difficult to get decent locally sourced fruits and vegetables this year, at least for us.

Stopped by Byron Takahashi's fruit stand yesterday on the way back up the hill.

Byron said that many/most of his farmers have been flooded out and/or the weather is still Winter.

Apricots, peaches, plums, beans, berries, apples, squash.

And generally we can get decent crops from over around Watsonville, and the Coastal areas if our local farmers are not productive.  But those places have been deluged and flooded also.  Same with up North in Modesto and Sacramento.

That leaves Mexico, Central & South America.

Imperial Valley & Arizona may be OK —- not sure yet.

Picked up 3 small baskets of strawberries yesterday —- all white inside and not very flavorful.  Zucchini was good, tomatoes were good —- but obviously hothouse produced.

We'll see how it goes this year...

Best, Fred

[steelfish]

That is a clever enclosure, Alex —-

well, it was what I had on hand but previously before planting my tomatoes plants I saw on some youTB videos and saw many people using the 5-Gallon bucket

**** the next two pictures were taken from the web ***

[reelynew]

The soil is heavy in clay, in winter remains fairly wet but in Summer dries out in the upper layer

This is a great thread with a lot of really good advice.

I grow in a similar soil structure year round with heavy clay.  Wompus Cat's recommendation for getting your base soil tested is great advice.  Some elements can accumulate in clay soil which are immobile and are not easily leached out like phosphorous.  There are some great labs in the US who accept international soil samples and can provide you with recommendations on amendments (one being logan labs).  For me, I had too much magnesium which is prevalent in clay soils.  I used gypsum to leach out the magnesium along and heavily mulched using straw which gave me an extra day or two between watering.  If you are already in mid season and you cannot amend your soil, you can look into foliar fertilizer applications, which you spray on usually at night or in the early morning.  That can have a very positive and immediate effect. 

[Gfish]

Food grade buckets, good plan Stan. My Wife had me get old ATV tires for Taro, etc. Then I pointed-out that they might be toxic——-so my new assignment became break it all down and proper disposal... never ends. I wish I had a slave...

[steelfish]

we have tomatoes, I repeat we have tomatoes on the garden

one on the bucket planter and another one on the ceramic planter, they're tiny right now, the smaller is no more than 0.50" and the other is no bigger than 1"

[steelfish]

well, I finally harvested some tomatoes from my Garden 

but... they dont look any similar on size or shape to a BeefSteak Tomatoe     
ooh well.
but they DO look like BeefSteak on the inside meat     

by the way, they tasted pretty goood!! pretty sweet flavor, it was weird to find a sweet taste on a tomatoe slice 
the meat felt almost like eating a big grape pretty firm and juice and sweet.

[reelynew]

Am curious if you saved those seeds from the previous year crop or used the same ones that were left over from last year?  We had a long winter.  Mine are still under grow lights.  Nice to see someone has fruit already.

[steelfish]

since I didnt received any seends on my mailbox I opted to buy some small tomatoe plants, they are supposed to be BeefSteak Tomatoes, I said "supposed" because they were bought from a church that was selling many plants of different veggies and fruits to get some money for shelters, orphans, etc

I bought two small tomatoes plants on a church charity event few weeks ago, they were sold as BeefSteak tomatoes

[steelfish]

....... We had a long winter. 

winter or freezing temps are almost non existent here in Baja, Mx, well maybe one or three pretty cold weeks but thats all for the winter season 

[JasonGotaProblem]

Summer is almost worse. Those may well be legit beefsteak, how big they get before ripening is partly determined by climate. Where it's hotter they ripen faster. When it's really hot they just crack first.