That Super Blue Dream is one that I've never been around, but sounds right up my alley. Just getting started and there are so many seeds I'd like to try. I can see how easy it can be to collect more than you can grow, if you don't show restraint or just grow more, lol. Ideally, it would be nice to land on some keepers and get to know them very well.
To be 2,800 miles apart, it seems our seasons are pretty similar. Not grasshopper damage here, but I have been trying to stay ahead of the caterpillars, too. Septoria was my biggest fail. I could have stayed ahead of that, but dropped the ball.
Are the grasshoppers something you have to deal with every year? I've seen some here, but in low numbers. Some years there are a lot. Especially a type we just call "flying grasshoppers". I've never tried to look up their real name, but they can be thick on some years.
I’ve only been in the foothills for a little over 3 years now, so I don’t know the patterns yet but the first year was hotter than mercury’s ass! I think we 110+ for days in a row several times. Anything not in the shade would soon sizzle. No grasshoppers.
The second year was the rainiest SOB possible, then it was a cold july and august and a scorching september and october. it was a wild year. It was followed by what looked like a biblical plague of grasshoppers. Fortunately, they never took to wings (Or at least very few did). The ground based plagues seemed to stay to the west of us, there is a small lake that they had to go around and that seems to have kept that group away. Being that there are so many farms and orchards in this area, I’m sure it’s a regular thing here!
This past year, good rains, not a terribly cold winter nor hot start to summer (which worries me). I’m wondering if we’re going to get our heat at the end of summer??
We seemed to have a lot of small to medium sized hoppers eating everything. I sprayed a few different things and haven’t seen them in a month or two. I don’t know if that is a seasonal thing or if I stumbled on the secret? Probably not that latter!
I too find it interesting when similar climates exist in such different areas.
One thing I’m starting to notice, I grew tomatoes in pots and in the ground this year! Ground based plants have much better flavor! Same type of tomatoes, just better from Mother Earth! That should tell us all something.
Maybe I’ll start mixing a few handfulls of local soil into my next grow mix! We have really red soil, I’m guessing tons of iron.
I should test the soil sometime, I‘ve never done it even though I bought a kit a few years ago.
