Big Beef??

[TomatoDon]

Don't feel bad Carolyn K. Last year I planted 1,500+ plants, mostly Goliaths. I had a real late start and the weather got me. I abandoned the whole field by the first of July.

The Goliath's I planted early in my raised beds did fine. I really wasn't set up to do commercial production at normal planting time, and by the time I had it ready the plants weren't taking the heat too well. I could tell it would be a waste of time to continue. We had so many to wilt down in the heat while we got the drip irrigation system working right that it soon became an impossible situation to produce a good crop.

Clearly this was a "condition" problem, not a variety problem. I still have full faith in Goliath. The ones that were planted and tended to good, did good. I learned real fast that commercial growing, even on a small scale like I did, is a whole 'nother ball game.

Edit. If I remember correctly, in one of the articles I read about supporting tomatoes in a commercial operation it said that tomatoes grown in a CRW cage had twice the yield and a fraction of the work, as did staking or even the Florida weave. I read that last year and can't quote the source, but whatever the stats were, they were pretty amazing. With the 1,500 I had planted I knew it would not be worth it to go buy 1,500 stakes, and certainly not make 1,500 cages and spend several thousand dollars on tomato supports for plants that were just sitting there, stunting in the sun.