Tomatoes 2021

[Zeedman]

the general problem with disease pressure here is that it doesn't matter what i've tried to do before to prevent it or to make it less and of course the weather changes year to year so you're not always sure which factors are dominating any one season. i do know that in the past years we've had better resistance from other varieties, but last year and this year the resistance has been poor, disease started early. it hasn't stopped production, the plants are still putting on new fruits and have some green new leaves growing, it's just that at least half the leaves are gone already too. normally the plants don't reach this level of decrepitude until September, so three weeks earlier than "normal" for us. also note that these tomatoes were grown in a garden that hadn't had tomatoes for a long enough time that disease pressures should have been moderated.

That has been the problem this year in my rural garden. The transplants were healthy, and I was able to get them in early. They were off to a good start; but three rounds of heavy rainfall have taken their toll. Nothing is dead, but disease has caused a lot of leaf drop, and production is maybe 10-20% of what it should be. I'll be able to renew my seed stocks, but not much beyond that. By a quirk of fate, all of the tomatoes in the rural garden this year are paste types; the 2 slicers, in the home garden, are doing much better.

 

[flowerbug]

That has been the problem this year in my rural garden. The transplants were healthy, and I was able to get them in early. They were off to a good start; but three rounds of heavy rainfall have taken their toll. Nothing is dead, but disease has caused a lot of leaf drop, and production is maybe 10-20% of what it should be. I'll be able to renew my seed stocks, but not much beyond that. By a quirk of fate, all of the tomatoes in the rural garden this year are paste types; the 2 slicers, in the home garden, are doing much better.

we're not taking a major hit in production. the plants look so horrible i won't post a picture but they are full of fruits. we'll be well within the normal average for us in terms of lbs of fruit per plant. we picked about 26lbs yesterday and that was the first picking and didn't include much from the half the garden which is coming along a little later than the rest.

we didn't plant many plants this year either at 12 is a small crop for us. we'll see how it turns out.

 

[Dirtmechanic]

I think the potassium salts of phosphorous acid I gave perked them up. But the spray had fertilizer and spinosad too. Same wet conditions, but leaching nutrients and fighting fungi tires out everybody. Then I read how tomatoes use more potassium than anything. I am learning how to aqua garden. If its not a big bug year already it will be, everything I move has grubs under it. Maybe I should poison more but if a cat gets sick it could cost me a grand.

 

[flowerbug]

I think the potassium salts of phosphorous acid I gave perked them up. Same wet conditions, but leaching nutrients and fighting fungi tires out everybody. Then I read how tomatoes use more potassium than anything. I am learning how to aqua garden.

i used about 40lbs of worms/worm compost for 12 plants in that garden and the worm compost has a lot of banana peels in it so i'm not worried about potassium or any other nutrients for that matter. this soil has always been very good for production and flavor of our tomatoes. i think that is why i'm so surprised this season...

 

[Dirtmechanic]

i used about 40lbs of worms/worm compost for 12 plants in that garden and the worm compost has a lot of banana peels in it so i'm not worried about potassium or any other nutrients for that matter. this soil has always been very good for production and flavor of our tomatoes. i think that is why i'm so surprised this season...

Have you seen the youtube vid where the chemistry teacher actually extracts potassium metal from bananas? Really geeky but he has this home lab setup. Turns out by his weights there is more K in the peels.

 

[flowerbug]

Have you seen the youtube vid where the chemistry teacher actually extracts potassium metal from bananas? Really geeky but he has this home lab setup. Turns out by his weights there is more K in the peels.

no, i've not seen that one, but i'll check it out sometime thanks! i always enjoy those sorts of things when i end up going down the youtube rabbit hole.

 

[Zeedman]

Just an update. All of the tomatoes are ripening. Those in the rural garden just happened to all be paste/sauce types this year - and are severely stunted. This was supposed to be the year for sauce & ketchup experimentation. The tomatoes below were processed for seed, so I was at least able to replenish my aging seed stocks.


Willie's Garden (left) and Cipolla's Pride (right). Willie's Garden is a new trial, which I first observed at SSE's farm doing very well in a bad year. Not surprisingly, in an equally bad year here, it is the best performer in the rural garden. Very good eaten out of hand, DW loves them, and a reliable producer... so it's a "keeper". Cipolla's Pride is a very dense 8-oz. high-quality red paste tomato; but in the lowest spot in the garden, it is sadly the most stunted. Poor planning on my part.


Italian Giant Pear (left), Japanese Plum (right). I obtained Italian Giant Pear from the late Remy Orlowski (Sample Seeds), it is normally a highly productive red paste... but is severely stunted. Japanese Plum looks more like a pink 'pear' type to me; but it handled the poor conditions better than most. The mice really took a liking to this one, an equal amount was discarded due to rodent damage.


Gilbert Italian (left), Salus (right). Gilbert Italian normally has a heavy yield of large 8-12 oz. red tomatoes with few seeds, and is one of those I use for canned salsa... but not this year. Salus is a very firm, meaty paste with a very short DTM. It was transplanted late as an afterthought, because I had started them for my family & had 3 plants left over. Glad I did so, because it still produced a decent crop, is nearly blemish free, and stores well.

 

[flowerbug]

i don't mind some blemishes on a tomato, it's just life, like us and our wrinkles, moles, scars, etc. just cut around 'em if they're bad enough and process as usual. to me BER is much worse as then you may not get much at all from a fruit that looked so promising from the distance when you first started to pick it.

 

[Zeedman]

i don't mind some blemishes on a tomato, it's just life, like us and our wrinkles, moles, scars, etc. just cut around 'em if they're bad enough and process as usual. to me BER is much worse as then you may not get much at all from a fruit that looked so promising from the distance when you first started to pick it.

Oh, the gruesome image that came to mind while reading this... Nightmare on Easy Street.

 

[ninnymary]

Well my Early Girls have done terrible this year. I've only gotten 2 and they were red and hard. They also started producing way after some of my heirlooms. Guess I should call them Late Girls. But in either case they only produced a couple which is fine since they were terrible. I've always planted them as extra insurance but I may not next year.

I think I'm giving up on St. Pierre, France leading tomato. It's supposed to be a beautiful perfect size red tomato. But it only produced a couple tomatoes so after 2 years of growing it I won't be planting it anymore.

My Black Krim's are huge this year! I've never grown them that big. What was supposed to be Woodle Orange turned out to be Tigerella. But I love that little tomato. It's not very big but it's pretty with it's orange/reddish stripes and coloring. It also produces like crazy. It's definitely a keeper.

German strip gave me some huge tomatoes but being a beef steak they took forever to ripen. I don't have the patience for that and I'm not really a big fan of big meaty tomatoes so I probably won't grow it again.

Disappointed in Pink Boar. Terrible production and tiny tomatoes.

I gave up on Sungold because of splitting and I didn't think they were as sweet as many say. So I planted instead a yellow pear. I've never planted them but I like them! They are sweet and very productive so I'll be growing them again.

This year I went from 6 to 13 tomato plants. Not sure if I went overboard. I've canned my salsa for the year and am freezing tomato sauce. We'll see how many pints I'll get. That will determine if I will plant less next year. I have a feeling that I will. Thirteen plants is just too many for us.

Mary