currently gazing at my pitiful garden, tearful and forlorn

[dipchip2000]

While I am certain this is not a post that will interest everyone, it has been a help to me.
I have a very good quality two gallon sprayer that you pump up to spray and it works very well,
however it is not easy to pump up and especially out in the heat and humidity.
I installed a schrader valve(short truck valve stem with a nut on the inside) and then pumped up the sprayer with the 25 strokes of the hand pump. I then took my tire gauge and measured the air pressure at the valve stem. 30psi
Now I just set my air compressor to 30 pounds and air up the sprayer through the valve stem. No more pumping in brutal heat for me.
Anyone even a little handy with tools can do this easily but as I said I know not everyone will even like this solution.
It works great for me

ron

[Master_Gardener]

Originally Posted by dipchip2000

While I am certain this is not a post that will interest everyone, it has been a help to me.
I have a very good quality two gallon sprayer that you pump up to spray and it works very well,
however it is not easy to pump up and especially out in the heat and humidity.
I installed a schrader valve(short truck valve stem with a nut on the inside) and then pumped up the sprayer with the 25 strokes of the hand pump. I then took my tire gauge and measured the air pressure at the valve stem. 30psi
Now I just set my air compressor to 30 pounds and air up the sprayer through the valve stem. No more pumping in brutal heat for me.
Anyone even a little handy with tools can do this easily but as I said I know not everyone will even like this solution.
It works great for me

ron

Awesome idea!

[z_willus_d]

Originally Posted by unless

thanks y'all for the condolences.
oh, forgot to mention the vacuum cleaner. that's another organic pest control measure i've implemented (besides the aforementioned netting and such). passersby stop and stare at the crazed guy in his backyard covered in sweat and maniacally wielding a vacuum cleaner!!! i do actually enjoy this attention, i must admit. i feel like a nerdy garden superhero when i take out a family of baby squash bugs.

If ever there was a case for LOL, this was it. Hilarious!

[b54red]

Originally Posted by feldon30

As far as the mockingbirds, are you picking the tomatoes as soon as they show a blush?

Vine-ripened tomatoes are a myth. Tomatoes you pick with just a little bit of color and finish ripening indoors will taste as good as ones left on the vine for the birds to eat, except you get to eat them.


In 4 years of gardening in S.E. Texas, I never tried to keep plants alive. It seemed like Maximum Effort, Minimum Result to me. I did used to grow tomatoes for a fall crop, starting seeds the 2nd week of June, planting in August, and nursing them along until first frost. Only cherries, Momotaro, and Black and Brown Boar did well.

In Houston, I plant the first week of March, and the plants are dead by the end of July. Tomatoes in South, Central, and South East Texas are a short season crop.

Feldon, I used to do the same thing for about 25 years here in south Alabama. It was easier to get a good crop using determinate hybrids because they made a lot of fruit in a short time. When I tired of them and fell for the heirlooms I just wasn't satisfied with getting just the tomatoes off the first few trusses before the diseases wiped them out so I started experimenting with all sorts of things trying to get them to last longer and set in the heat.

Bill

[bigbubbacain]

Mockingbirds have also been thick this year because of our mild winter. I think this is my last full week of harvest because the birds have found everything in plain view. They're even mean enough to gouge out solid green fruits!

[b54red]

We have a ton of Mockingbirds this year but so far I have only had one fruit damaged. Of course it was the biggest ripening tomato in the garden.

I have a dog that kills Mockingbirds if they pester him too much. If they think he is threatening their nest and they start dive bombing him, he just stretches out and pretends to ignore them til one gets too near and then snap, no more Mockingbird. I have seen him do it several times and it is amazing how fast he will strike. One second there is a screaming bird and the next a cloud of feathers floating down.

Bill

[unless]

thanks all for the advice. it's comforting to know i'm not alone in this plight. the frustrations i've endured this year mean i probably won't be checking in to tomato addict rehab any time soon. i am growing only a few tomato plants of each of seven varieties, and i have spent more time coddling those few plants than the entire rest of the garden combined (no joke!).

i have a dog, but it seems her only mortal enemy is the squirrel. i may need to borrow my sister's mean cat for decent bird control. as for the scourge of the mockingbirds, all i can do is laugh. i can either be angry, or laugh about it. sometimes i get so frustrated that all i can do is laugh to keep me from totally losing my mind over these petty things.

i will probably look into determinates for next season, as well as procure a copper spray as an adjunct to actinovate. i did a thorough soil drench and a couple foliar sprays with it early in the season, but i should have kept it up throughout april and may even though the plants showed no signs of distress. at the time i was hesitant to spend lots of money on preventive treatments for the tomatoes when i had no idea what the future held (it being my first season, i did not foresee a plague of the magnitude that has now befallen them).

beyond looking for more heat-tolerant and/or determinate varieties, my other option is to grow a more tropical-friendly garden next year. the way the climate has heated up here over the past decades (and it's only likely to get hotter still) is pointing me in that direction. last year we had only a dozen light frosts! currently daily highs are in the 90-95 degree range with 60-70% humidity in the daytime (read: off-the-charts heat indices). this has lent itself to the development of frequent afternoon thunderstorms (which, to me, bear a monsoonal quality).

yes, i will definitely be looking into tropical-rain-forest-friendly tomato varieties.

[unless]

forgot to add that i started picking the tomatoes at first blush, but now the birds have resorted to demolishing the FULLY GREEN fruits. all the red christmas ornaments and shiny mylar and hanging cd's in the world won't drive them away . and they always find a way to peck through my netting somehow.

[halleone]

Unless, I don't have a darn thing to say that is of any value or help, but I love your sense of humor and writing style. Glad you joined the TV gang!
Lynn

[b54red]

Unless, I hate to break this to you but determinate plants don't help at all with foliage diseases. As a matter of fact their thick bushy growth pattern makes them even more susceptible to many of the foliage diseases brought on by high humidity and heat. They are actually harder to keep sprayed because it is harder to get the spray deep into the bushy plant where so many diseases first start. The big benefit to many of the determinate hybrids is their tolerance to soil borne diseases and nematodes which weaken a plant and make it more susceptible to insects and foliage diseases. If you are going to try determinate tomatoes then I highly recommend Amelia and Floralina for their disease resistance and Bella Rosa for taste. Amelia is one of the few determinate tomatoes where pruning is recommended so it might be perfect for your situation; but you are still going to have to use a good fungicide as a preventative if you want good production out of them.

Big Beef and Celebrity are disease resistant hybrid indeterminate plants that might give you more success than heirlooms and they take well to some pruning. They will also keep on making for an extended time if you keep them sprayed and pruned. The success you could have with them will slowly but surely turn into the well known tomato obsession that so many of us have and then you can venture once more into the wonderful world of heirlooms and even grafting.

I used to only grow disease resistant hybrids and they are a good way to get some tomatoes in a difficult climate but their is a sameness to them after a while. You might do well to plant some and enjoy just getting some decent tomatoes without so much frustration. I have planted nothing but tomatoes grafted onto disease resistant rootstock this year because of the frustration I have had over my fusarium wilt problems. It has really helped with the survival times of my heirlooms. Without the grafts over half of my plants would now already be in garbage bags in the landfill. I still have to battle the foliage diseases and the pests. Found worms on some of my tomatoes this morning and a tomato hornworm destroyed the top third of one of my plants last night. I searched for the bugger for nearly half an hour and could never spot him so I just dusted that plant and the nearby ones.

Good luck and don't let a few minor setbacks discourage you.

Bill

[ChrisK]

I feel your pain nearly every year in plague ridden NC!

Don't give up. You can beat it!

Originally Posted by unless

i hereby nominate south texas as the worst, most disease and pest-prone area for cultivating tomatoes.

i see all these pretty pictures out of california and places up north. meanwhile, it's swelteringly hot here and unbearably humid and the heavy air is seemingly saturated with fungus. my container garden is but a row of oversized petri dishes.

the whole gang is in: blight and stink bugs and root knot nematodes and a swarm of peckish mockingbirds. the list goes on.

actinovate and beneficial nematodes and neem and netting and decoy tomatoes (for the birds) apparently weren't enough to stop the scourge. i'm doing what i thought was the appropriate organic protocol, but there is little that hasn't gone tragically awry.

it's only my first season, but i'm already losing hope. this whole endeavor has quickly spiraled downward from rewarding hobby to unrelenting frustration.

WELL, any other nominees for the most tomato-inhospitable locale? south florida perhaps?

[unless]

Originally Posted by halleone

Unless, I don't have a darn thing to say that is of any value or help, but I love your sense of humor and writing style. Glad you joined the TV gang!
Lynn

d'aww thanks, friend!

i'm keeping my chin up, y'all! now that i know picture-perfect, magazine-ready gardens are NOT the norm, i feel better about my struggles.

if it is true that determinates aren't much easier to manage than heirlooms, i may go the variety route and just plant a combination of heirlooms and hybrids (some determinate) next year. i could start seeds now and do a september sowing, but i need a little time to recuperate...

in the meantime, i'll continue to wait for this perennial deluge to subside so that i can treat the squash for powdery mildew (sigh).

[Rockporter]

Homestead 24 is a great determinate tomato for our area.

[TightenUp]

Originally Posted by unless

if it is true that determinates aren't much easier to manage than heirlooms, i may go the variety route and just plant a combination of heirlooms and hybrids (some determinate) next year. i could start seeds now and do a september sowing, but i need a little time to recuperate...
.

this is exactly what i did this season. i have a few specialty tomato varieties sent to me by a member here. i live along the coast and have very salty wet air constantly berating my plants. last season it was tough to get fruit set and what i believe was bacterial speck was rampant. i am trying some determinate varieties such as neptune and flora-dade and then some crosses with neptune as a parent. i'm already seeing fruitset on one or two of these varieties

i however also have a hybrid indeterminate such as big beef and heirlooms like kelloggs breakfast(my fav last season) and arkansas traveler. and lets not forget to mention sungold f1 and a few other cherries. sungold also has a full truss of tomatoes set.

[unless]

hmm. i will definitely research those varieties y'all recommend when i'm finalizing my planting list for next spring.

update: today i lost four of my copia tomatoes to birds. they were 1 lb fruits, and it made me very sad because i've yet to harvest one for myself.

three of those fruits were unprotected (other than netting and the usual birdscare trinkets). but the fourth one was part of my pantyhose experiment (a time-consuming endeavor that consists of covering individual fruits in panty hose segments). see, when i walked over to the tomatoes, i smelled something rancid. i traced the smell to the pantyhose-wrapped tomato. the pantyhose itself was not torn, but there was a huge hole in the tomato somehow, and the fruit smelled awful. i think it was fermenting. i didn't see any worms inside, and so all i can surmise is that a bird managed to peck at a tomato without tearing the pantyhose.

*sigh*

remind me next year to blow a huge hole in the roof over the spare bedroom, install a massive skylight, and grow the tomatoes indoors. last time i checked, the birds haven't found a way in yet.