mid season mess

[b54red]

I just finished a grueling weekend of pruning and removing diseased stems, leaves and some whole plants. It is that time of the season when the first bed of very productive tomato plants are now looking really bad. I had some with TSWV that needed removal, lots and lots of Early Blight and even a couple of grafted plants that were showing the advanced signs of fusarium wilt despite the highly resistant root stock and worst of all the ravages of spider mites that I think I have stopped or at least slowed down to a manageable level.

From that one bed that had thirty tomato plants I have now got six large black trash bags ready to go to the street. The remaining plants have been lowered and given a large dose of Urban Farms Vegetable formula to see if I can spark some renewed vigor back into some of them. Some look pretty hopeless and will probably soon join their brethren in the black trash bags if they don't perk up quickly.

I am not complaining because if I don't get another tomato out of that bed then it will have been a major success. All single stem plants that produced between 300 and 400 tomatoes but best of all at least 100 of them were well over a pound and wonderful tasting. They were for the most part the large fruited pink beefsteak varieties that don't do as well in the intense heat of mid summer down here so we were thrilled to get the quantity and quality that we did.

The biggest reason for cleaning up that bed is that the beds with younger plants on each side of it were starting to get some of the diseases and spider mites so I did a strong bleach spray to slow the early blight and gray mold that was spreading and sprayed every tomato in the garden for spider mites. Hopefully I did it before they spread too much. The only good thing about spraying for spider mites is the spray gets rid of a lot of leaf footed bugs and stink bugs which have not shown up in any numbers yet in my garden. I expect they will be making themselves known soon though I am thankful for their absence the early part of the season.

Now that the near 100 degree daily highs are here and the humidity is matching the temps it will be much less pleasant to work in the garden and the tomatoes will suffer in both size a health. Large fruits will be much rarer now and diseases and pests will occur with much more frequency and with greater severity. Under these conditions any fairly sickly or pest infected plant will just be removed to protect the others as fighting them is much easier on fairly healthy plants and the results are much better usually.

I am hoping to keep some moderate to light production going with the tomatoes as long as I can keep the plants relatively healthy. We almost have enough sauce put up and will soon be putting up some salsa now that we are starting to get jalapenos in fair numbers.

By 10 this morning I had changed shirts twice and the heat was too much to keep working. Sometimes if there is a good breeze the late afternoon will cool down enough to work and hour or so but lately it has been nearly dark before it was tolerable to go out there for me. So the pattern for the next two to three months is set so you get up and get slathered in sun screen and bug repellent and head out as early as possible because some days it is too hot by 8 am.

Bill