? For Fl. , GA. , AL. Growers

[fredx]

Any one out there have any first hand/ personal success growing full size tomatoes all the way through the entire summer down here in the extreme southeast? My past exp is that after about the mid point when its scary hot and raining frequently my past plants never produced. I know there are some varieties that SAY they are good in hot humid climates & resist cracking , but all the folks I know never have had success either. So any first hand accounts with helpful tips will be most welcomed. I want to grow thru the entire length of the summer and late into the fall

Thanx
fred

[ScottinAtlanta]

Indian Stripe.

[awsumth]

Get some Heatwave tomatoes; they're supposed to stand heat up to 100°F. Also make sure you mulch and remove the lower leaves, and set up some type of watering system.

Right now my San Marzano tomatoes are holding up. I've already had to ditch my Moneymakers. Georgia peach is also going along pretty well as long as it doesn't get dry. Most of the fruit is pretty small starting this time.

[b54red]

Fred I try to do just that every summer and usually with some success. Of course the region we live in can throw a lot of roadblocks up to a successful midsummer to fall tomato crop.

I can give you a few tips that I learned the old fashioned way. By trial and error: mostly error.

Some varieties do much better in the heat than others. My most consistent producers during the summer heat are Indian Stripe, Big Beef, Neves Azorean Red, Cherokee Purple, Spudakee, Black Krim, Eva Purple Ball, Dana's Dusky Rose, Lumpy Red, JD's Special C Tex, Gary O' Sena, Zogola, Frank's Large Red, Andrew Rahart's Jumbo Red, Carbon, Kosovo, Dr. Wyches Yellow, Limbaugh's Legacy, Terhune, and Stump of the World. As you can see from the above list a lot of the tomatoes are blacks and the best for me has been Indian Stripe. The large pinks seem to have the most difficulty with the heat and humidity but some of them do fairly well. Neves Azorean Red, Big Beef, Zogola and Lumpy Red are reds that usually do well. None of them will produce as many fruit nor will the fruits be as large as in the cooler spring and early summer; but they more than make up for it in taste.

Mulch very heavily to keep the soil moisture in and the ground a bit cooler. I have found the best mulch is cyprus mulch but it will cost you to mulch a lot of plants. I have found it keeps the moisture in better than any other mulch I have tried and it reflects some of the suns heat back keeping the soil cooler.

Water and fertilize much more than earlier in the year unless you are getting a lot of rain. I have found that the plants benefit greatly in setting fruit if they are really watered heavily during the blooming stage. Don't do this when the fruits are larger or they will split or taste bland.

Keep the plants pruned to allow air flow to lower incidences of disease and to make it easier to spray. Keep them sprayed with Daconil and if you do get foliage diseases don't delay, spray them with a dilute bleach spray to stop it or at least slow it down then resume spraying with Daconil. If you get one of those Dog Day times where it rains every day and the humidity stays around 100% then it is a good idea to use the bleach spray once in a while even if you don't see any disease. During those times the diseases can multiply so fast and be so devastating that the plants can't recover when it finally dries out. We just went through one of those times where it rained nearly every day and so Daconil would just be washed off. I treated all of my plants with the bleach spray twice and now that the rain is forecast to be gone for a few days I will be applying Daconil this afternoon.

Watch closely for spider mites. They will destroy your summer crop by sapping all of the energy from the plant. As soon as you see them start spraying to control them. Whiteflies can also be a hard pest to control in the heat of summer.

If you can put up a bit of shade so that the plants don't get the full sun all day it will help during the hottest part of the summer.

Keep replanting so that you have newer plants coming into the fruiting stage all summer. I usually keep setting out plants right up into August.

Bill

[fredx]

Thanks Bill- lot of info there and most I had no clue of.

The diluted bleach mixture-- what is the ratio?? 10 to 1??


Also- what do you/use do to control the spider mites??

Thanks
fred

[riceke]

Originally Posted by fredx

Any one out there have any first hand/ personal success growing full size tomatoes all the way through the entire summer down here in the extreme southeast? My past exp is that after about the mid point when its scary hot and raining frequently my past plants never produced. I know there are some varieties that SAY they are good in hot humid climates & resist cracking , but all the folks I know never have had success either. So any first hand accounts with helpful tips will be most welcomed. I want to grow thru the entire length of the summer and late into the fall

Thanx
fred

Fredx...when the night temps get above 75 the plants don't pollinate well. I don't thionk it's the day temps as much as the night temps. I've had Mule Team, Arkansas Taveler and Big Beef Hyb. make it through the summer with diminished yield and small fruit and then perk up in late September. I even tried planteing cuttings taken in Spring and planting in late June and even they succumbed to the heat. If the bugs, disease don't get them the heat does. Don't feel alone in this area. There are more that has your problem than not. I'm still searching for one that will last and am trying Black Zebra and JD'd Special CTex this year as mentioned in the previous messages but don't have my hopes up.

[tlintx]

I look specifically for "kept producing in the heat" in the description on vendor sites. Don't think many tomato growers have heat and humidity like ours, though.

I have high hopes for Homestead. Mine has odd, droopy branches that overlap, and the fruit is all close to the center stem. Maybe this will provide extra sun protection. Certainly not the crazy vining mess Cherokee Purple is!


Tl

[tomatoguy]

Well, I'm not quite in the area you are talking about. I am 50 miles, as the crow flies, from Alabama and 70 miles from Georgia. We have some brutal summers, too, but probably a few degrees cooler that what you have. There are some varieties that have produced well for me, in extreme heat, though. Here are the ones I can recommend, based on heat tolerance, production and taste.

1. Jeff Davis
2. Mark Twain
3. Tropic VFT (not a hybrid)
4. Anahu
5. Neves Azorean Red
6. Tennessee Heirloom
7. Big Red
8. Black Krim
9. Delicious
10. Eva Purple Ball

mater

[Dewayne mater]

I've mostly followed the lead of folks like Bill. One thing not mentioned so far, shake your plants that are blossoming...twice a day, a good 10-15 second shaking seems to work. Especially as the heat and/or humidity gets higher, the pollen starts to clump and the shaking seems to improve fruit set some. I really want to echo the shade idea. About June 1 (sooner in a hot summer) I put out 50% sun shade cloth so my plants are in shade from noon on. Shade lowers the temps and improves plant health greatly. Its hard to say by how much, but there is no doubt this extends the season for me.

Eventually, even if I keep the plants alive, they shut down in the heat. Once it is over 100 daily, night time temps are in the low to mid 80s, nothing but a few cherry varieties will set in DFW, at least for me. Even those cherries are questionably worth eating as they are very small and thick skinned. I've tried setting out new plants in July and keeping them alive through the heat to wait for cooler weather. Either way, we get second and shorter season in the fall. That may be an option for you too. Good luck.

Dewayne Mater

[b54red]

I haven't used the new formulation of Clorox but a friend of mine who was a professional chemist has used it and he went to using 3/4 of a cup or 6 ounces added to a full gallon of water. Make sure to add just a couple of drops of dish washing soap and spray very early or very late in the day.

I have had many plants produce tomatoes close to a pound even in July, August and September; but that is the exception to the rule. Most varieties that can withstand the heat will produce fruit that is considerable smaller than what would be produced in the cooler months of spring. Neves Azorean Red, Zogola, Gary O' Sena, and JDs Special C Tex are ones that I have gotten some large tomatoes off of during the hottest weather. One reason I believe that it is hard to get really large fruit in the summer is that the heat caused the tomatoes to start ripening earlier than would be the case further north.

The reason I emphasized continuing to set out plants is that tomatoes tend to produce their largest fruits on the first few trusses. If you keep setting plants out continually during the season you raise the chance of getting some larger fruit because every few weeks you have new plants setting fruit on the lower trusses. The problem with this is the difficulty of keeping the plant alive for the first week or two after setting it out in the garden inferno.

Bill

[fredx]

Thanks for the tips folks , will be doing those things

Anything on the spider mite controll????

[riceke]

Originally Posted by fredx

Thanks for the tips folks , will be doing those things

Anything on the spider mite controll????

Burn the plant!
They are almost impossible to get rid of in the heat of summer. Oh sure you can spray with spider mite spray (can't remember the name) but you have to apply it in temps below 80 degree or it will burn your plant. When is it below 80 ain mid-summer? They don't like a wet environment so high pressure spraying in the evening with the garden hose may give some relief. Contrary to belief, never plant marigolds among your tomatoes. They are a spider mite magnet that will eventually cause the mite to go to the more luscious tomato leaves.

[tlintx]

Bill, I'm sorry you've had such tribulations with your plants over the years, but, man, is your experience helpful to us beginners!

Thank you especially for the post above, I am taking notes.


Tl

[b54red]

The only thing I have found that works on spider mites is using an insect growth regulator. I mix up a gallon of very soapy water with a strong dose of Permethrin in it and then add one ounce of Martin's Insect Growth Regulator. Late in the day I spray with a high pressure sprayer set to a fine mist and make sure to get the under sides of all the leaves I can. A week or so later I repeat the process. This will usually get rid of most of the spider mites. If they are really bad then I will use Malathion instead of Permethrin; but I have only had to resort to that one year.

The only other way I have had any success with controlling them is to spray the plants every 3 days with alternating sprays of neem oil, soapy water, essential oils and poisons. If you give them any break in doing this the population will explode again. This just isn't practical for me since I usually have over 50 plants to deal with and they are usually quite large by the time the spider mites get bad.

Another note on the bleach spray. Until you are sure how your plants react to it you might want to start off with a slightly weaker solution. With the new Clorox I am going to try 5 ounces first to make sure I don't get any leaf burn. If you get leaf burn on new growth then the solution is too strong.

Bill