Finally we’re at college football season. You might be surprised to know that this is good news to Nancy as well. Since I’m glued to the tube Saturday afternoons, she’s able to do the Ormond Beach bridge game guilt free. It’s almost a public service duty for her. I’m not expecting much this year from the gators but am anxious to see how the new coaching staff performs. It’s also scary that FSU is projected to have such a great team again. Next year we get some form of college football right here in Deland when Stetson fields a team. They’re in a non-scholarship league so I’m expecting the caliber of play to be maybe a bit up from high school. Still, it will be an option not previously available.
The second corn crop seems to be picking up and most stalks are approaching 2‘ tall, some even taller. I had planted it amongst the butternut squash but it seemed like the squash leaves blocked too much sun for the corn and they looked wimpy. They finally broke through and are trying to make up for lost time. A good corn crop would be another big surprise for the fall. I’m also impressed with the 3 San Marzano tomato plants that have survived and, apparently, thrived. Actually have green tomatoes on all three. At the same time I had planted 3 Whoppers, a variety that produced incredibly last spring. No survivors from the heat. I have a few seedlings, three different tomato varieties, that I’m holding off for a couple more weeks in hopes it will cool down just a few degrees where they can handle it.
Yanked out the Tomatoberry plant. It grew beautifully and produced loads and loads of blossoms but not the first tomato. Clearly something missing from the soil. Here’s the interesting part – it was located at the end of the row where the sweet potatoes were planted. At the other end of the row are the Ghost peppers with almost the same story – nice growth, plenty of blossoms, and virtually no peppers. So everything in that row grew well and produced zero veggies. It also just so happens that this is a totally new row that didn’t exist last year so it’s 100% compost with no natural soil. In a few weeks that row is scheduled to be loaded up with new cabbage plants and since the vegetation for both the sweets and the tomato did just fine, I expect the leafy veggies to do well there. Still, I’m going to pump the row up with a fertilizer light in nitrogen and high in the P’s – that’s phosphorous and potassium. Maybe even buy a few bags of top soil to layer onto the compost base.
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