How big is your garden and how many tomato plants?

[jinman]

Barry, here is a link to a post with a couple of photos in another thread. I used netting as tomato trellises and strung it between t-posts. Covering the top was a snap. I bought 6-1/2' by 75' of 40% shade cloth for $0.15 per square foot. This stuff is terrific and very easy to work with.

 

[dragoneggs]

10 total tomato plants this year. Two in the garden, 8 on deck and 4 upside down! Ate our first one on July 4th... not bad for the PNW! If you look hard enough you will even see a hummingbird on the feeder

 

[Barry 1]

Thanks,that looks simple enough.I've had trouble with them wilting in the sun the last few years,but watering fixed that.This is the first time they got cooked,and they are cooked dead,so I'm going to have to shade them and the green beans.

 

[RandyBell]

I hate to ***** but this rain has to let up, had another inch last night, and stormed again tonight! The garden is really looking bad, water standing over most of it and it is on a hill side! Was going to plant some more beans to replace what the deer and ground hogs got, but with so much water I'm afraid they won't take. I know what will happen when it quits raining it will do just that quit raining and everything will have to be watered again, but at this point I am ready for it!

 

[hunterridgefarm]

We have had 18 days straight of rain. Several places water is standing but most of the standing water is at one end of the field about 1/4 of my rows are affected. It has actually slowed the growth due to the standing water.

Everything was planted late this year due to late frost and now heavy rains are hurting crops. I have not had much of a problem with blossom end rot even though around 50 tomato plants have had standing water for several days. The other 225 seem to be doing good. Picked a couple of bushels between showers and around a bushel of cucumbers.

The heavy rain has beat most of my squash plants down and killed about 10-15 of them..

Pumpkins are growing great, around 8-10 inches high. I am trying to hoe the weeds around the pumpkins and spray some roundup on the other weeds. It has been so wet for so long I can't get the tractor or tiller in the garden. I will side dress the pumpkins this weekend.

The day I put the irrigation system out is the day it started raining...not had to use it yet

 

[troutsqueezer]

You must be light eaters. There is obviously only enough for one person in your photo. :laughing: I'd post a photo of all my tomatoes, but it would just be a similar photo with different colors cabinets and counter-tops in the background. How do those big yellow tomatoes taste? I'm fond of the cherry tomatoes with lots of acid and sugar. My yellow pear cherry tomatoes are very mild and remind me of the flavor of improved Porter tomatoes with low acid. How would you compare the flavor to the red varieties?

The larger yellow tomatoes (and the one on the sandwich) are Lemon Boy. They are producing exceptionally well this year, coming in at over a pound each. The flavor is mild with a slight tangy edge, maybe that's how it gets its lemon-ish name. There are so many red varieties of tomatoes it would be hard to compare to those. There are certainly reds with more flavor than these, but a different type of flavor.

Sungold cherry tomatoes are very popular now (yellow) and continue to be my favorite. The other colored cherries I have in the pic are heirloom varieties - red, yellow, white, green - and while the plants produce well, the flavor is nothing special. My favorite new cherry this year and one I will continue to grow for some years to come is a brand new hybrid called Nature's Bites. It is a red, heavy yielder, with clumps of 20 that weigh about 3/4 oz each and contain a lot of sugar. They may be the sweetest red cherry I have ever tasted. A good blend of sweet and acidic.

http://www.totallytomato.com/dp.asp?pID=00510&c=51&p=Natures+Bites+Hybrid+Tomato

 

[Barry 1]

Has anyone ever found anything to stop the blight that gets my plants every year? They start with yellow leaves,brown spots,the whole branch dies,and it works it's way up.I've tried copper spray,fungus spray,growing in a different area,and it happens again.

 

[sixdogs]

Has anyone ever found anything to stop the blight that gets my plants every year? They start with yellow leaves,brown spots,the whole branch dies,and it works it's way up.I've tried copper spray,fungus spray,growing in a different area,and it happens again.

Well, a lot of these things are hard to diagnose but after enough years we settled on a plan. First, all plant vines and tomatoes are picked from the garden in the fall and dumped away from the garden. Actually burned or plowed under away from the garden.

Equally important, we heavily prune our plants when they first start growing and make sure that no leaves touch the ground to pick up the soil-borne bacteria that I think was our problem. Here's a photo of a pruned plant that has started to fill out again.




As well, we don't really fertilize much until the fruit sets and is as big as a quarter. Well, maybe a few grains when the plant is first in the ground but almost all of it later so the growth will then go into the fruit as opposed to just more foliage. We also rarely water unless it's desperate and then we water in the morning and flood from the ground rather than raining water over the top of the plant.

Other point is no mulch for us ever. It might work for some but I figure we were picking up bacteria issues from moldy hay. Also, we plant varieties that are resistant to diseases (our list is earlier in the thread) and we don't plant all the plants on one place but rather 3 separated groupings just in case a disease does start we can confine it.

We also rotation plant so as to not use the same ground every year. For whatever reasons, the above works for us and we seem to have, knock on wood, beaten the disease game--for now.

 

[DFB]

Blight can be tough! We have it a lot too early blight and septoria then of course then there is late blight which isn't so prevalent around here. The most effective solutions are to use fungicide applications as part of pre-emptive control so its recommended to start use BEFORE the disease is established. Disease is exaggerated by wet weather (rains) and high humidity level. There is really no one simple solution. Sounds like you know the routine...planting rotation, good air flow around and thru the plants cover, control soil splash, plus alternate appropriate fungicides. The healthier the plant is the less susceptible to disease it is so establish strong plants before hand with a good fertilizer and soil building program.

I like to follow the procedures outlined in the NEVMG

Disease Control | UMass Amherst New England Vegetable Guide


http://extension.umass.edu/vegetable/sites/vegetable/files/pdf-doc-ppt/Pest_ID_Guide.pdf (pg 43 has tomato disease photos)

 

[DFB]

Honestly been raining here in some form almost every day for weeks now. We had a gullywasher of T-Storm let loose yesterday afternoon. There was so much water being carried off my yard swales that the culverts were backing up. They were at max capacity for 8" and 10 " pipe. At one point I thought it was going to flow up and over my driveway

All and all most everything looks good this morning AND tomatoes are doing awesome. Need to tie them today