Tomatoes . . . and More Tomatoes!

I guess you know what I will be doing today! Yes, I will have to process these tomatoes--I ignored them as long as I could! I am grateful that I have these tomatoes, and I will be grateful for the sauce I make when I prepare spaghetti and pizzas later on--it's so good!

My Apologies . . .

I can't believe it's been over two months since I last posted! Life got busy, I forgot to post, and then I was out of the habit of posting--I will do better this time. My veggies are growing like weeds, and the harvest is going on like crazy. I have had a lot of tomatoes (made into chunks, and sauce, and then canned), a big mess of green beans (also canned), and lots of chard. The chard had volunteered the last few generations, growing willie-nillie, and I finally cleared it out. Now I have a box that I will plant my Summerfelt beans in. I found the Summerfelts several years ago in the Seed Saver's catalog; they are a dry bean, great for soups, and a little sweeter than Navy beans. My grandmother's maiden name was Summerfelt, so when I found the beans, I just had to have some! They originated from a man with the last name of Summerfelt, in Germany, in 1810--he could be an ancestor of mine!
This is a picture of my husband's tomato plant (I sure wish I could remember the name of it!)---it's about 6' tall. It has produced a lot of tomatoes, more than I expected, and has kept growing and producing (it's indeterminate, which means it keeps growing until a killing frost). The tomatoes are kind of mealy and don't have a lot of juice, so they are making some good sauce! My Roma tomatoes are producing well (they are determinate, they stop growing at about 3').

These are my green beans, with cucumbers on the trellis behind them. I have made dill pickles this year--it's been years since I made them. I love dill pickles, and they are so easy to make! I will have to post my recipe, so you can see how easy they are.

Tomato Flowers

If you look closely you can see some tomato flowers! They set fruit when the nighttime temperatures reach 50. This is my Sweet 100 cherry tomato, and is an indeterminate tomato, meaning that it will continue to grow all season, until a frost kills it or I pull it out. Determinate tomatoes, like my Romas, will only grow to about 3-4' high, so I have a stake that I will tie them to (when they get big enough), so they won't lay on the ground. I don't remove suckers or leaves, only tomato worms! Leaves are needed to feed the plant so that it can produce a nice, big crop. I fertilized my tomatoes about 3 weeks after I planted them, which happened to be just before our last big rain. I can't wait for the tomatoes to get ripe--I can eat a couple of pounds, or more, a day!

Enthusiastic Tomatoes!

As you can see, my tomatoes are getting out of hand! They love the heat that we have now, instead of July's 100'+ temperatures. Mid-week this week we are suppose to get back into the 104' range for a couple of days, but I don't think it will hamper the tomatoes. As long as they have enough water they should do fine. I think the cooler nighttime temperatures (65') help, too.

Squash

Here is one of my two young squash plants--it is producing very well. The other squash plant is just getting production going, which is fine with me, because I don't use a lot of squash at a time. I harvest the squash when they are small--yes, I brought in these beauties!

Since about the first of August, my garden has just exploded! The tomato plants that were just going along suddenly are over the top of their cages and reaching through the wires. Picking is still going strong, but there aren't too many tomatoes left. If I let my tomato plants continue, then I could get another crop of tomatoes before our first frost (usually around Halloween). The flowers drop off when the temperatures get over 95', which is typical June/July weather here, so in the fall we have a couple of months where there are no tomatoes to harvest.

A Good Morning . . .

This morning I went out to pick tomatoes and found that there were a lot more than I saw yesterday--many were hidden under the leaves. I had about equal amounts of Roma (a paste tomato), Juane Flamme (a medium-small golden tomato that produces through the high heat), and cherry tomatoes. The Romas will go into the freezer until I have enough to make pizza sauce (I like to use it for spaghetti, too!). When I get a lot at once, I will can diced tomatoes. The other tomatoes I will eat today and tomorrow (yes, I love tomatoes!). I also picked (but forgot to photograph) 5 yellow beets. I will roast them for my dinner tonight.

I harvested my spring peas, so I can plant them next spring. As I was picking the peas I almost grabbed a wheat colored (my pea plants are dried and wheat colored) praying mantis that was about 5 inches long. After I was finished picking, I gathered up the pea straw and the mantis and placed them on an empty garden bed that is being used as a compost bed, and will be planted next spring. That way the mantis will have her habitat, and I will recycle the plant material. I will shell the peas and keep the largest ones to replant. I gathered some lettuce seeds, too, so I will have seeds to plant next summer.

I also harvested my garlic. Some of the bulbs are small and others are large. I suppose it depends on the size of clove I started out with. I used a bulb of garlic from the market last spring, and now I have my own garlic to cook with, and some to plant next spring. I will keep the largest cloves to replant, and eat the rest.

Lastly, I topped my apricot trees. Apricots need to be pruned about now, instead of winter. This will lessen the chance of the trees becoming diseased. Also, these trees are semi-dwarf and I want to keep them low enough so that I can pick the apricots without a ladder. Apricots can get out of hand in a year or two if not pruned back. I had a semi-dwarf apricot before that went 12 feet high and spread out all over the place! I learned that lesson well! According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, now through August 3rd is the time to prune trees and shrubs that you want to keep their shape. August 10-16 is the time to prune trees and shrubs that you want to encourage growth, such as for increased height or filling in thin spots. Yes, there are a lot of weeds in this bed, very happy weeds! You might be able to see one of my many pecan trees in the left bottom corner. I will be going after the pecans next. The blue jays plant them in my yard every year, so it's an ongoing battle. I have seen other yards in my area that have pecan trees, too, so I'm not the only one!

Tomatoes

Yesterday, my husband and I went to Bakersfield to help celebrate our grandson, Christion's, birthday. My son, Bryce, has been starting vegetable and herb plants with the seeds from his huge collection. He plans to sell most of them as his garden is quite small for what he really wants to plant! I always get re-energized when we talk plants, and I got to thinking about tomatoes.

I was looking at a seed catalog this morning and saw these pink tomatoes (they were REALLY pink in the catalog). Maybe I'm too old-fashioned, or in a rut, but these pink tomatoes didn't look very enticing. These are called "Big Pink" tomato.

These are "Razzle Dazzle Hybrid" tomatoes, they are a deeper pink (the catalog tomatoes were pinker), but they still didn't tempt me.

These "Italian Ice Hybrid" tomatoes look anemic and flavorless (to me). Although, I do try tomatoes of other colors, I generally go back to my more favorite reds.

I grew some "Black Krim" tomatoes (above), an heirloom from Russia. I found the taste to be OK, but the looks aren't too appetizing. I've grown the famous "Brandywine" tomatoes and wasn't impressed with the taste.

A few years ago I was working at the Garden of the Sun (the Master Gardener's demonstration garden) and they had extra tomato plants left over from their tomato festival and sale, so I took home a couple of them. I was quite surprised by this heirloom tomato, "Juane Flamme". Of course, this picture doesn't capture the real color of those I grew, which was a deep golden color, but I was impressed that this one flowered and produced all through our hot summers (average high 110' f. that could go for weeks. Tomatoes generally stop blooming when the temperatures reach 90' or higher). Besides that, it tastes really good! So, I was hooked and have been growing them ever since.

I generally don't grow hybrids because I prefer the heirloom (grown for at least 50 years) and open pollinated varieties--from these plants you can save seeds and they will grow to reproduce tomatoes like the parent plants. Saving seeds from your hybrid plants will grow plants like the grandparent plants, not like the parent plants, which is not what you are wanting.

I suppose if you were to take a mix of these unusual-color tomatoes (red, white, yellow, pink, but not the brown colored called black) that would make an interesting colored salsa. Put some peppers and onions in it and the whole thing would taste good! Can you imagine having red, white, yellow and pink tomatoes, along with red, green, purple, and yellow peppers?! It might be too pretty to eat!

Now is a good time to start your tomatoes and peppers indoors; or outside using the Winter Sown method. Planting time will be around April, earlier if you cover them. They do better when the soil warms up a bit.

If you are interested, there is a class at the Garden of the Sun, March 17, that will tell you all about tomatoes and how to grow them. The cost is $15, and runs from 9:30 to 12:00.

Garden Chaos!

OK, I'm telling on myself today. This is a picture of my original garden, one that has been growing vegetables for the last 22 years, mostly non-stop, year-round (this was the only vegetable garden I had). It has been a good raised bed garden. This is what happens when things don't go according to plan! Last mid-spring I started planning for my new raised beds (where the lawn used to be), thinking that we would get the wood, build the boxes, and get it all installed in a week or two. Didn't happen, but in my enthusiasm I bought 18 Roma tomato plants. I figured that since they were determinant (they grow to a certain height and stop) that they wouldn't get too tall. As spring was becoming summer and the new beds were not in, I had to stick the tomato plants in the ground and they all went into this bed. I had forgotten how tall they really can get (about 3', maybe a bit more) so the tomatoes have sprawled all over, including the 1' path at the back and sides of the bed--which means I can't go there unless I walk on tomatoes! This makes harvesting more difficult. I also had trellised cucumbers and the Amish melon in there, and a squash--all of which are almost completely dead from old age, but not removed yet! ALSO, there is a row of Little Brown Cat beans (for dry beans) along the front that have grown out of the box and onto the pathway. The Painted Lady Beans are still blooming, trellised on the left-hand top of the picture, in front of 2 caged regular tomatoes and a volunteer cherry tomato. So, with no pre-planning and everything planted way too close, and tomatoes not caged, chaos ensues! This is one time that you don't do as I do!

Tomatoes

I planted a lot of tomatoes this year, mostly Roma tomatoes. I also planted one Ace and one Early Girl. Because I got all of my tomatoes in late they are not ripe yet (just a couple here and there), but will be soon. I let 3 cherry tomato volunteers grow and one is finally giving me tasty fruits! In a couple of weeks I will probably be drowning in tomatoes and having nightmares about trying to can them all! I love it!

This picture shows one cherry tomato volunteer, which is climbing all over my zucchini plant and one of my little new pear trees, even though I have it staked!

Late Blight

This post is from Skippy's Vegetable Garden blog. Skippy's garden is located near Boston, Massachusetts. Late blight has struck the area and is spreading, so I wanted to keep you informed. We may not see much of it here, but you never know. They had a long, wet spring, where we have been drier.

"Late blight seems to be the only conversation topic I hear this week at our community gardens. I hear yelling from across the way about newly discovered dead tomato plants. I hear long technical discussions among groups of gardeners.

And everyone spends a fair amount of time walking around and looking at tomato and potato plants in other plots. People come by my plot to chat and they know whose plants look good and whose are dead. They remind me that I should be bagging and destroying the foliage so it doesn't infect everyone else's plants, which, of course are all already infected or dead or coated with fungicide.

And there are stories circulating about who has pulled everything, who won't pull anything, who's bagging and disposing, and probably one about me just throwing my dead plants into my compost bin.

I heard someone dug up a whole row of potatoes that were just mush from blight.

I emailed the extension school yesterday to see if there were any experts who could come talk to us. With so much interest, I think it would be a good way to get the gardeners together, though we can be an unruly bunch. We could have a nice relaxing coffee and donuts gathering, in a freshly mowed grassy area with beautiful mid-summer flowers, singing birds, and listen to tomato gloom and doom stories....

An article on Late Blight is in yesterday's New York Times: "Outbreak of Fungus Threatens Tomato Crop": "A highly contagious fungus that destroys tomato plants has quickly spread to nearly every state in the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic, and the weather over the next week may determine ... whether tomato crops are ruined.... described as an “explosive” rate of infection.....William Fry, a professor of plant pathology at Cornell, said, “I’ve never seen this on such a wide scale.”

"The current outbreak is believed to have spread from plants in garden stores to backyard gardens and commercial fields.... Some growers are talking about $40 boxes already."
Some facts I've learned about late blight:
- Late Blight was responsible for the Irish potato famine of the mid-19th century.
- It is one of the few plant diseases that can destroy an entire crop.
- The disease can wipe out entire tomato and potato fields within a week if conditions are wet.
- Late blight spores can travel over 40 miles under the right conditions.
- Powerful synthetic fungicides like chlorothalonil (not approved for organic farming) can protect unaffected plants from disease, but can't cure infected ones.
- Copper fungicides are officially listed as synthetics but organic certified farmers are allowed to use these after they have used all available alternative practices to manage late blight.
- Copper fungicides extend potato growing period by between 2-4 weeks.... estimated to result in 10 - 40% higher yields.
- Potato varieties with moderate levels of resistance include: Kennebec, Sebago, Allegany, and Rosa. Elba is currently the most resistant potato variety available.
- Few late blight resistant tomato varieties are available. The cultivar 'Legend' has some resistance, though not under high disease pressure. Some cherry tomato cultivars ('Red Cherry' and 'Sweetie') are more tolerant to late blight. 'Matt's Wild Cherry' is considered resistant.
- If late blight occurs when potatoes tubers have already 'sized up', harvest crop as soon as possible to avoid post-harvest tuber rot.
- Tubers become infected when spores wash down through the soil and come into contact with the potatoes. Tubers are not infected via their connection to plants with blighted foliage.
- Occasionally peppers and eggplants and mildly infected, as are a few nightshade weeds."

More on Tomatoes

I need to address the first question that my friend John asked me---is it too late to plant tomatoes? Tomatoes can take a long time to fruit, sometimes 90 days. I feel that you can plant anything any time, within reason (such as summer veggies while it's warm and winter veggies while it's cold), and you might be surprised! Keep a log of what is planted and when, then what happens to the plant. These successes I call serendipity's, or wonderful surprises. You never know what the weather is going to do or how long the season will really last. Years ago my neighbor bought and planted some summer flowers in the fall. It was way past the planting time according to "the garden books." We had a longer, warmer than normal fall and the flowers grew very well before our later-than-usual first frost knocked it to the ground. Since that time I have been more willing to plant earlier or later than "they say" and chalk the results up to experience---and serendipity!

If you are interested, Tom Chester, at http://tchester.org/analysis/tomatoes/index.html, who lives in Southern CA, logged growing tomatoes and the harvests they produced over a three year period. The weather in So. CA is a little milder than ours in the Central Valley, but the information will be similar for us. He plants at two times, early spring and early summer. These are his conclusions:

1. For the maximum tomato harvest time, tomatoes should be planted in at least two crops.
2. The first crop can be planted anywhere between 1 March and ~15 May, and in most years, will result in full production between 1 August and 1 September, independent of the planting date. However, early warm nighttime temperatures might produce a small number of earlier tomatoes.
3. Don't believe in any correlation between the advertised number of days to first tomatoes with what you will observe in Southern California for the first crop.
4. If you desire early tomatoes, either hope for a hot spell in spring, grow your early tomatoes in a heated greenhouse, or plant varieties that will set fruit in nighttime temperatures below 55°.
5. The timing of the second crop is tricky. In order to have full production between 1 September and ~1 October, it is necessary to plant the second crop between ~1 and ~15 June. Although the risk of low production is quite high for plantings at that time, one can make up for that by simply planting more tomato plants.
6. Planting after ~1 July probably guarantees a very low yield of tomatoes, and is not worth the effort of planting and caring for them.
7. The number of plants required to satisfy a given demand for tomatoes can be calculated for the first crop by assuming a yield of about 50 good-sized tomatoes per plant, with essentially all of them coming uniformly over a month.

Here in the valley, it's tricky to transplant anything in July because of our high heat. You can try, but be prepared to coddle the plants! Direct seeding of corn, beans and squash, among other summer vegetables, works fine as long as they get enough water.

Growing Tomatoes in Containers

Today, my friend, John, asked me about growing tomatoes in containers. I thought others might also be interested.

This is a picture of one of my Roma tomatoes that I planted in a container that a fruit tree came in. I have found that it is too small for the tomato, although the plants (I have 4 such pots) are growing nicely, with one already to the top of our fence. I planted nasturtiums along the front of the pots so they would grow over the edge and shade it---they didn't make it!.

Tomato plants grow to different sizes and can be grown in many different kinds of containers. The smaller the tomato plant, the smaller the container. Just be sure that there are holes in the bottom of the container for drainage.

The smaller tomato plants are called patio or pixie and won't need staking. These tomatoes are made for growing in containers. They produce small to medium size fruits, depending on the plants you choose.

The medium size tomato plants are called determinant and need a larger container. Determinant plants grow to about 3-4' normally. Most of their fruit will ripen over a shorter period of time. This size may need a little support, just watch it as it grows.

The larger tomato plants are called indeterminate and can grow to 6' or more. Indeterminate means that it will keep growing and producing fruit. They defiantly need staking or a heavy wire cage; and require the largest size containers. Half of a whisky barrel would be big enough. Or, if the look of the container won't be a problem, a 5 gal. construction bucket from Lowe's or Home Depo would work.

There are also different kinds of self-watering containers that can be purchased. Google self-watering containers and it will show those that could be made at home.

Soil for tomato containers is fairly simple. You can go the MircleGro way, with the plant food and other stuff included. Or, you can go the organic route and use organic potting soil, plus a couple scoops of organic compost, and 1 tablespoon of lime (for calcium) per large container (or use egg shells). Either way, the containers will probably need to be watered every day. When the high heat of July hits, they will likely need to be watered twice a day. Drippers would take care of this chore easily. A layer of grass clippings over the top of the container soil would help keep the soil moist. Fertilizing would need to be done with light feedings every week or so. With this much watering, a lot of the nutrients are being washed away.

Make sure that the tomato plants have at least 6-8 hours of sun. The container might need shade from the sun, with either plants in front of it, or a board or something like that to keep the sun from cooking the roots. Light-colored containers won't have such a problem.

One more thing---when the daytime temperatures hit 95' the tomato blossoms will start to drop without being fertilized. The plants will begin to bloom again in August, and will produce a fall crop that might even extend until Thanksgiving (depending if we have an early frost or not).