Lostin76

Ah, once they are planted just let the dirt be. All you have to do is water them, fertilize if you decide to, and watch them grow HUGE.

I fertilize my tomato plants about every 3 weeks or so. Not sure what you mean by break up the dirt? Are you repotting them? If so, I always loosen up the roots a bit with my fingers before repotting.

Our rescue dog Greta has been with us for about a year and a half. She was found in a rail yard in the Bronx and was riddled with health problems - including a large mammary tumor. She's blind in one eye, deaf, was bald on her ears and tail, AND had to have 19 teeth removed. The tumor was malignant, so we've been doing chemo off and on for the last year or so to try to keep the tumors from spreading to her lungs. Last Friday, we found out she has two masses in her lungs. She had been a bit slower and her breathing was kind of labored, so we got some more scans and received the lung tumor news. Our oncologist says she could live another six months if all goes well and we are doing everything in our power to make sure that the months she has are good ones. It's funny, when we first got her I thought to myself, "Man, this dog is a total wreck. How on earth am I going to love her and cuddle with her like I do with our other dog?" Funny thing, Greta became my little shadow and followed me around everywhere. Like sitting outside the bathroom door whining if I didn't let her in everywhere. We are sure she was abandoned by her owners b/c of her significant health problems, but she definitely knows love and needs to be near her owner. She's at my feet as I type these words. I'm really going to miss her when she's gone, but we are making the most of the days we have with her. Our motto everyday is "living her best day." It's crazy how attached we can get in such a short time. Another funny thing is that my wife always sees us snuggled up together and she says, "Aww, it's the dog that Daddy didn't want..."

Another tip for tomato plants is to plant marigolds near them. Marigolds keep a lot of the normal pests away. Since I'm stuck with containers, I always plant one marigold in the big container with the tomato. Has always worked for me.

Man, Brazil and Russia are coming on strong in the race to have the second most cases and deaths*. No shocker there. *The number of deaths in Russia? 😂

THAT is a nice-sized garden! I would be over the moon watching the progress on that. Is that one peony plant or two together? And our one measly peony plant is just passing peak bloom. It was GORGEOUS though while it was blooming.

Well, I certainly don't think there will be less COVID-19 deaths after all of these protests. I would expect more positive cases and more deaths due to any kind of activity that brings people together in large groups. I hope that doesn't happen, but we shall see. It would be nice if people did not feel they needed to be out there protesting, but alas, cops keep killing unarmed black people. So to the street it is, pandemic or no. I will say this though, people in Brooklyn that I've seen are mostly wearing masks during protests. I took this short video on our street as protestors moved from Grand Army Plaza to the Barclays Center. I haven't studied every single face, but it looks like mostly everyone in wearing a mask - even the old couple cheering from their stoop. IMG_3207-1.mov

That guy's numbers are the numbers I quoted. They were from last night. Looks like they are trying to update/clarify now. I'll admit that the data is noisy, the numbers can be confusing, and finally that I am not an epidemiologist or a biostatistician - just a lowly administrator. With everything going on in FL around their numbers and data person leaving, it's really difficult to know who to trust.

<sarcasm>Boy, FL is having a really rough flu season.</sarcasm> For the last five years they were hovering between 3,722 (low) and 3,938 (high) flu deaths. This year for the same period, they ALREADY have 5063 flu deaths.

That's my understanding as well. The cops seemed to have escalated this.

Aeropress coffee is really good. You should definitely try.

We are both coffee drinkers. Every morning we grind beans and do a big french press, so lots of coffee grounds each day!

Yeah, your wife has good taste in plants, judging from your photos! Good to know about feeding them. I did not do that this year. I did trim them back in late fall. My mother had peonies on basically the whole side of our house growing up in Southern Indiana. I remember the intoxicating smell of those big blooms and all the ants on the tight buds right before they bloomed. Great memories!

Nothing weak about doing something simple to help protect the members of your community. I can't tell you how many couples we see here where the woman is wearing a mask and the man is not. No bandanna around the neck, no mask off to the side. No face coverings of any kind. It boggles the mind how insecure these people must be to feel like wearing a mask makes them look weak. Or maybe they just don't care about the people in their community/neighborhood. Lots of European tourists seem to not get the memo either - and honestly I can't see why you would want to fly to NYC right now when most places are closed or only doing carryout/delivery.

I'm always most excited about tomatoes on our terrace, but this is the second year for a peony bush that I had planted for last year. Last year, it had three blooms. This year, we have 17 flowers and my wife has been over the moon. It's her favorite flower and they are kind of tricky to grow sometimes. Everyone told me that they don't do well in containers, but on our terrace, containers are my only option. Huge success for this year! If we had the room, I would plant a dozen of them.

Wait until you stumble on to the "remove the suckers or let them stay" debate for your tomatoes!

I know why Russian trolls want to divide us, I just have a hard time with US citizens seeking to divide us. I also don't see it as either opening/not opening. Opening is happening. I just would like it to be measured, safe, and in accordance with the local/regional situations. As someone who works in leadership at a fairly large university School of Medicine, I definitely fall on the side of caution. I can't help it. But I also understand that people want to get back to work and I believe that they should be able to do if they can do so safely. Even here in NYC, we are cautiously reopening things. I'll also offer two anecdotes from our MDW. Yesterday, we had to go pick up a box of produce in Manhattan. I drove us in, instead of taking the sub. We wore our masks when we got out of the car, of course. We must have passed within 6 feet of over 350-400 people during our walk and the sidewalks are not very wide in Lower Manhattan. Our of the 350-400, probably 15-20% of them were not wearing any type of mask or bandana. Totally oblivious and I worry about that type of cavalier attitude. We also live close to Prospect Park and during an early morning run yesterday, noticed that every single trash can was overflowing from parties in the park over the weekend. Have never seen so much trash in the park, even after the 4th of July. Maybe everyone was celebrating AND social distancing? I don't know, I wasn't there. Was drinking on my terrace! We are wildly optimistic inside as we watch the numbers of deaths and new infections going down here and most other places. But I do worry that people are going to get overconfident and careless, since the news is getting better.

I did not say that. I was responding to the article @Reacher posted. It shows that many of the Twitter accounts pushing for reopening are simply bots trying to divide us. It's a common Russian strategy online - make us argue with and tear each other down. I think the country should have a safe, flexible reopening policy that takes geographic locations, population factors, infection factors, and is based on science not emotions or "freedom."

So many Twitter bots pushing for reopening and trying to divide the country. Russia wants us on our knees or too keep us too busy arguing with each other.

The wife and I had to pick something up in Manhattan yesterday - drove in. Was walking by a liquor store in Soho and the window display was Cardinal Spirits from Bloomington, IN. Cardinal Spirits Has anyone tried their stuff? I like the clean, simple labeling.

Yep, just like @mrflynn03 says, plant it deep with bottom leaves submerged. Another thing to watch for is to keep trimming the leaves that are close to the soil as it grows. I always try to make sure none of the bottom leaves are close to the soil when I water the plant, the water/soil splashing onto the leaves can cause infections. I like to keep a clean stem as it nears the soil. You are going to love tending to these guys as they grow, flower, and fruit! It's such a satisfying feeling when you start seeing results. One summer my wife came out on the terrace when I was manually pollinating some tomato flowers on some heirloom tomatoes with an electric toothbrush. That was kind of hard to explain. 😅 You can totally use mulch on top of soil. I don't, but many people do and it helps retain moisture a bit

I always try to stake/cage when I plant them, b/c I'm worried about disturbing the root system later by adding. I think with peppers though you will be fine, just adding a stake when you can get them. One of my Biker Billy hot peppers already has a tiny little pepper that's showed up this weekend. The peppers, tomatoes, and flowers are all loving this heat.

I don't know if people have seen the NYT cover from yesterday, but it was pretty powerful and I'm not ashamed to say it, moved me to tears. They basically scoured local papers across the US (and gave them full credit in print) for obituaries and published the name, age, hometown, and just one single detail about the person from the obituary. It was 3 full pages of the paper, including the entire front page. I love the guy from Iowa, who was an "expert builder of bonfires." Was also a Smellermaker fan on the front page - Don Whan, 67, Indiana, (no town listed for some reason) sports fan, who loved Purdue University." Also, Robert L. Crahen, 87, Waunakee, WI, nicknamed 'Boxcar Bob,' for his luck in shaking dice." I don't read obituaries as a practice, but found this incredibly sobering. All along I've been fixated on the lives behind these horrible numbers and this really hit me hard. Every person had a story, every person had something that set them a part form others. And hopefully every person was loved and missed by someone.

Ha, fair enough. I do like an orange in my Oberon though.

Oberon is always a mark of summer for me. Love when I start seeing it in bars and stores. Big question is orange slice or no in your Oberon.