What kind of tomato harvest are you having this year?

   / What kind of tomato harvest are you having this year? #11  
Yes, it was an extremely tough year because of the drought and excessive heat. Yet, tomatoes like that kind of weather, I guess, if you irrigate and water we surely did, until we were bone tired. Yet, the crop is bumper, absolutely bumper.

Two ladies are picking up two bushels each this morning, so I'm off to pick. Daylight is dawning.

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   / What kind of tomato harvest are you having this year?
  • Thread Starter
#12  
I also had a bunch of hornworms punching holes in my tomatoes. I used a hand sprayer with Sevin. You have to make sure you spray thouroughly under the leaves etc. Did the trick...

I have always wondered just HOW one is to spray under the leaves...one time I tried making a spray wand tip that was U-shaped but it didn't work well. Currently my pumpkin plants cover an area about 30 feet square and there is no way I can possibly spray the undersides of the leaves without trampling the vines, even if a U-shaped spray nozzle did work.

Troutsqueezer, fantastic crop...makes me envious.
 
   / What kind of tomato harvest are you having this year? #13  
We had a bumper crop this year. I planted 115 plants and set up a irrigation system this year. My wife canned tomatoes, salsa, and spaghetti sauce. We gave away tomatoes and sold 15-20 bushels. When the rains came I had to pick early to keep them form splitting. No problem with end rot since I used calcium chloride around the plants.

We were going to set up at the farmers market but sold by word-of-mouth and had a waiting list for tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, greenbeans, peppers, peas, watermellon, and cantaloupe. We made several hundred dollars on produce. However working 9+ hours a day and taking care of a large garden is tough. I pulled everything up a couple of weeks ago except the peppers. I left the greenbeans drying on the vines and will save the seed. I decided to do this every 2 years until I can retire. Next year is a SMALL garden and starting, blueberries, and black berries.
 
   / What kind of tomato harvest are you having this year? #14  
The mountains of Virginia have had a good year generally relative to water. But that windstorm in late June knocked over all my tomato plants. They were in cone supports and the supports were wired to small metal fence posts... But the plants were already substantial - due to early spring - and the sustained strong winds knocked them flat. I re-errected them quickly but they never rebounded and produced about 10 percent of normal. Watermelons, tho, did quite well... As did peppers. Cucumbers produced abundantly, but were killed by some fungus suddenly. So it's been an up and down year.

But there's always next year.
 

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