I'm Kaye, and I'm a Late Bloomer.
(whistle logo)
One of the perks of having a garden show,
is, people send me things.
They send me live plants and seeds,
and sometimes they send me
products to try.
Today we're going to talk about
the GreenStalk vertical garden system,
and the Tomato Ring vegetable support.
So, stay with me.
In my recent 7-Day Greens Challenge,
you could see my GreenStalk
in the background, and
a couple of people wrote and
asked me about it.
Well, GreenStalk is a vertical,
stackable, garden system,
that's easy to use and it has
an internal drip watering system.
Which is pretty genius, and
because I have such a small garden,
I was eager to give it a try.
It's also made in the United States,
which I'm pretty excited about.
I started with a 5-tiered system,
but, I personally found that
at five feet tall, that I'm lifting
a two gallon watering can
up, you know, kind of over my
shoulder to pour in that...
into the reservoir,
uh, the watering system,
was a little bit, um,
awkward, ha, ha, ha, ha.
And, um, plus,
where I have mine set up,
as you can see, in the background,
um, it's much nicer to be able
to see what's growing on the top.
So, I got one more tier
and now I have two 3-tiers.
And they sit on a rotating,
spinning disk.
So, because of the way the
sun goes over at my house,
uh, they only get sun in the afternoon,
so, I like to rotate them
during the day,
If I remember, ha, ha, ha.
I, uh, rotate them during the day,
and, um, so they can get
sun on both sides.
My GreenStalk came with these,
uh, dwarf French Mix marigold seeds,
which I planted in the top,
because marigolds, supposedly, ha, ha,
keep pests away from your plants.
And, I planted the whole
tops in marigolds.
When I got the GreenStalk,
it was time for cool season vegetables.
So, I decided to give it the real test,
and just planted seeds.
I planted seeds all around,
cool season, uh, dwarf kale,
lacinato kale,
uh, some short carrots,
Parisienne and Nantes carrots,
and, of course, beets and radishes,
Now, the radishes finished
a long time ago, and we ate those.
The beauty of radishes is,
they tell you when they're ready.
Ha, ha, ha. They just grow,
push right out of the ground,
and say, "Hey! Look at me!"
This is an heirloom, French Breakfast.
(soft guitar music)
This is one of the
more spectacular ones.
I decided to take them out
and just leave some marigolds here,
so these two GreenStalks
will be in the same boat,
so to speak.
Now, it's time to harvest the kale,
and, uh, some of the kale got
eaten by cabbage worms
on the first tier, and
I didn't notice till it was too late.
You can either fill it full
of flowers or veggies on the top,
or, you can leave the reservoir
on there and fill it up to water.
(birds singing)
(energetic Spanish guitar)
And it will drain through these
little holes here,
into each section,
corresponding underneath,
and, also this hole will go into...
each layer has its own reservoir.
And that's the internal drip system.
I just drilled several holes
in the bottom, so,
when the water comes out
of the bottom tier, it just
drains on down through the deck.
Um, so, as you can see, it rained
yesterday and it's completely dry.
And look at these lovely beets!
If I didn't have...
ten pounds of beets
in the refrigerator,
I'd pull those out.
(soft guitar)
People are always coming up
with ways to make gardening easier.
And, the tomato ring...
Ah, ha, is one such product.
You see how simple it is.
It's just a wire, and...
you can accommodate up to a
2 by 2 inch stake, wooden stake,
or, a metal stake, through here,
and you raise them up
as the plant grows, and the
limbs, the branches,
just lay on this.
But, I will say,
that you do have to
prune the suckers.
Because if you don't,
it can become top heavy.
And that's what happened
to me last year, ha, ha.
I won't be making that mistake
this year.
If you watched my, uh,
tomato episodes in 2014,
I really struggled to
keep them under control.
And, I discovered the
tomato ring online, and wrote to them
and they sent me
tomato rings to use for last year.
Okay, here's an update on July the 2nd
about my...
two,... three,
four,... five
plants that I've determined
to keep under control,
by using the tomato rings,
and,...
removing the suckers.
I've got tomatoes on all the plants.
I've got some gorgeous
tomatoes down there...
I just thought, in case
you don't know what a sucker is,
this is a sucker, and
it came out of...
right here.
It was already pushing this one
that way,
into a V like that,
and, equal energy would go
both directions and pretty soon
I would this way up here
and have to support it.
Now, it's a shame to take that off
because a lot of production
could come off that,
but, you have to counter
can you manage,
can you manage the crowding
and the structure
if you let the plant split.
(Spanish guitar solo)
By mid-August,
I'd spent so much time
battling powdery mildew,
things had gotten out of control
with the tomatoes.
Most of the lower leaves
on the plants had been removed.
But the top vines
spread out.
Obviously, I did not,
ha, ha,
take off all the suckers
in the plateau.
Oops!
Tomatoes are just a wild vine
and they will just grow everywhere
and keep going, but if you
keep them under control
and keep all of the suckers
pruned off of the main stem,
you can keep the weight off
all of those vines, and, um,
the tomato ring, I think, is going
to work great this year.
So, I just got my
tomato rings installed yesterday.
(soft, energetic guitar picking)
And, this year, I'm using a
much sturdier 1 1/2 by 1 1/2 inch
wooden stake,
for each tomato.
And each tomato will have
three rings.
You put them on
right after you plant your
seedlings,
and, you raise them up
as the plant grows.
So, each level of big branches
rests on a ring.
But, you have to prune.
Like, that needs to come off.
Ha, ha, ha.
And I will report back
on the results
at the end of the season.
(song ends)
So, I'm leaving on a
two and a half week trip,
and I have beets in the refrigerator,
so, I'm going to leave these beets,
but, I need to harvest this
lacinato kale, which looks like
It's ready to bolt.
Ha, ha, ha.
(peppy guitar music)
(snip)
And, if I clip it, no aphids!!
That is exciting!!
And, um,
if I clip it, maybe it'll grow back.
(snip)
And I'll have more kale
when I get back.
(guitar music)
Okay.
Let's have a little salad.
I whipped up a little salad,
with kale,...
shredded coconut,...
kiwi and...
dried mulberries.
Salt and pepper,
a little Meyer lemon juice,
and massaged with olive oil.
Let's check it out!
(guitar music)
Um!
Hmm!
Ho, oh!
Alright!
(clears throat)
The lemon is a little tart...
but, what's better
than fresh harvested veggies?
Ha, ha...
Bon appetit!
(guitar music ends)
If you enjoyed this episode,
please give me a thumbs up,
and share with a friend.
I'm Kaye, I'm a late bloomer,
thanks for watching,
and I'll see you next time.
(whistle)(bloopers begin)
Which you can see over my right sho...
left shoulder. Ha!
Wait! That's my right shoulder,
ha, ha, ha.
Or, bought plants. (airplane above)
I started with seeds all around.
(airplane louder)
Ha, ha, ha.
UH!
People are always coming up
with ways to make...
what was I going to say?
(frustrated by non-stop planes)
Oh, ho, gosh, ahhh!
(REALLY LOUD PLANE)
Right.
I COULD JUST TRY
TO TALK OVER IT!
Ha, ha, ha.
(whistle logo)
(high-pitched duck quack)
(energetic guitar picking)