Wispy/sparse foliage

Originally Posted by carolyn137

I don't think anyone has mentioned Prue but I know it very well,as the link below shows as to who got seeds from me.

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Prue

I was one of the first,if not the first to get it from Tom Galluci and spread it around in seed offers and SSE listings and sending to some vendors.

I like it very much,but again,I'm having trouble understanding growing so called wispy varieties to have better access to fruits, as I wrote in my post above.

Carolyn

Carolyn,

I think you once mentioned that you always grew with your plants sprawled on the ground. I never have. My plants have always seemed more susceptible to disease if any of the branches are touching the soil, so I grow up. I completely understand folks doing it in an attempt to see the tomatoes better and it probably helps protect the tomatoes from sunburn. I also don't like sticking my hands where I don't have a really clear view of any critters which may be lurking.

Prue is a great tomato and I can't imagine any plant more wispy and sparse.

Ted

[carolyn137]

Fact is,that you folks in most parts of Texas have far more critters,both 4 footed and slithering,than do the folks in the northern climes,which includes me.

Carolyn

Yep, I've been in upstate New York and I agree. You folks are practically critter less. Do you want me to share some with you? I do remember a little hill near Painted Post, New York totally surrounded by a chain link fence to protect a population of rattlesnakes from people. The hill was just above the playground of an elementary school.

Excerpt from a web page concerning rattlesnakes in New York state.

"Painted Post has so many they have to close down the rest area on I-86 in the summer and they have signs up telling stupid people to not handle the Rattlesnakes."

Rochester's original name was "rattle snake point".



Ted

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by tedln

Yep, I've been in upstate New York and I agree. You folks are practically critter less. Do you want me to share some with you? I do remember a little hill near Painted Post, New York totally surrounded by a chain link fence to protect a population of rattlesnakes from people. The hill was just above the playground of an elementary school.

Excerpt from a web page concerning rattlesnakes in New York state.

"Painted Post has so many they have to close down the rest area on I-86 in the summer and they have signs up telling stupid people to not handle the Rattlesnakes."

Rochester's original name was "rattle snake point".



Ted

Fact is that I do know where Painted Post is, near Corning, and no doubt there were and are rattle snakes there.

Fact is that when I was on the hill above Cayuga's waters at the university, there was a wonderful man who taught kind of outdoor life, and one of the places he took us to was called Snake Hill.He assured us that there were no poisonous snakes left,but then we got points,being competitive,for bringing him snakes we found,and nope,no poisonous ones at all.

I was a Microbiology major and we had field trips to many of the wineries in the Finger Lakes region and that's how I remembered Painted Post

I live near Lake Geroge which is reknowned for its rattlers,they actually swim very well,and they are slowly moving south towards where I live, and there have been some sightings N of me,but none here yet.

All I've seen here are garter snakes,usually hanging out in the stone walls that serve as boundries here, and milk snakes,huge,but not poisonous.

What other critters do we have here?

Skunks
Woodchucks
Wolves
Deer
Ermine
Mink
Fox
Coy dogs,but controversy on that
Moose
Elk
Red and grey squirrels and reds always win at the bird feeders,which are down now b/c of the Black Bear concerns.Their cubs are cute,but don't mess with the moms,that I can tell you.


I live only a couple of miles from the VT border so there's lots of traffic on my road which ends at the VT border, 2 legged at hunting season,and 4 legged as well,since borders mean nada to either,now that I think of it re the 2 legged ones always looking to hunt on my 30 acres.

It's posted,but that means nada either.

When I look out the 4 low windows where I'm typing right now,I can see two doe moms,each had but one fawn that I know of,the bigger fawn I call Bouncy and the smaller one Hoppy, and they appear in my backyard almost every day,eating the berries on the honeysuckle bushes,now the rose hip berries and munching grass.Freda was putting out my blackoil seed for the deer,I stopped her from doing that,she and her son are the only ones who have permission to hunt here as you know from that long thread I put up a few months ago.

Yesterday neither of the moms or fawns came down to stare at me but that's b/c the folks were cuttng,then tedding the grass in my open fields and then loading the round bales and the sounds of all those tractors and trucks I'm sure spooked my deer families.

Carolyn

Carolyn,

I have some great memories of New York state. Not so much the city, but the state. I was a little confused when I first made some trips around the state. I couldn't find any of those rude, curt, unfriendly yankees people talk about. I suppose I was surprised in the same way some people are when they first arrive in Texas and find out we don't all wear big hats and ride horses to work in a dust storm.

When I had a free weekend, I loved to rent a car, and drive up and around the finger lakes. They usually had a lot of little produce stands near the farms where the produce was grown. Everything seemed to be family run. That was back in the days when the kids were used as forced labor to help plant and harvest the crops as well as sell it in the roadside stands. Now I suppose they don't want to get off their smart phones long enough to actually do that. I stopped at many farm stands just to see what they were growing. I couldn't really use most of it because I couldn't cook in my hotel rooms.

Lots of little things and nice people add up to a good store of memories.

Ted

Originally Posted by carolyn137

I don't think anyone has mentioned Prue but I know it very well,as the link below shows as to who got seeds from me.

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Prue

I was one of the first,if not the first to get it from Tom Galluci and spread it around in seed offers and SSE listings and sending to some vendors.

I like it very much,but again,I'm having trouble understanding growing so called wispy varieties to have better access to fruits, as I wrote in my post above.

Carolyn

Sunscald is an interesting thing. It seems kind of random as to which plants it affects to me (rather than the ones most exposed to sun, but the sun could just be going in interesting places at the right times of the day). Even some fairly shaded peppers of mine got sunscald. It was a big problem with peppers this year, but I don't recall any tomatoes off-hand that had it (although there may have been a few). Most of the tomato fruits have been well-covered, however (but the peppers have been, too, although they are peppers; so, they weren't covered as much).

The rationale behind the sparse and/or smaller foliage making it easier to find fruits is that there should be a lower foliage to fruit ratio. Golden King of Siberia was definitely like that last year, anyway. It's a cool tomato with sizeable fruit, but I felt like it contained the wrong set of nutrients for me to want to eat it a lot (like the opposite of Pruden's Purple, which I felt like I could have eaten loads and loads of). It did have good taste, though.

I should note that last year, after they got settled in a while, I pretty much dry farmed my tomatoes (and they had more potassium and more alkaline soil than was ideal). So, they were pretty slow-growing, and most plants didn't get that big. Nevertheless, Golden King of Siberia was even less obtrusive than my Galapagos Island tomato was, although it did grow much longer vines; it didn't branch out, bushy-like, though (just long vines and large fruit). It didn't cover the dirt around the plant enough to grow upward at all, as the other tomatoes covered their own dirt. None of its fruit had sunscald.

It's possible that if I had grown it this year, where I watered a lot (with a sprinkler), Golden King of Siberia could have grown foliage all over the place (and had sunscald galore)—but I don't know. I wonder if getting fruit wet increases the odds of sunscald (I don't know that I ever got any fruit wet last year, but this year, I do it regularly, on purpose). Or, maybe dry farming and/or extra potassium decreases the odds of sunscald, somehow.

The critters we get around here are mostly birds, insects, spiders, mice, our neighbor's cats and such but we have had a fair amount of toads most years (not as many this year). Occasionally squirrels show up. We had a raccoon in our sour cherry tree once. Our neighbors up the street had free range rabbits, once (that was pretty interesting). But guess, what! It's interesting you mentioned snakes, because I saw a snake in our yard for the first time since I was a child, today. It was a garter snake, slithering amongst a thicket of Giant Cape Gooseberries, various ground cherries, okra, and cucumbers. I think maybe all the tall, thick plants attracted it—either that, or the squash bugs (which today decided to start feasting on my Ginger's Pride cantaloupe plants for some odd reason—those cantaloupes are doing quite well, with loads of huge melons; so, I was pretty upset about that, and took some measures to protect my cantaloupes from them. I saw a couple groups of squash bugs on the sidewalk; they seemed to be having a meeting (maybe they were deciding what to do now that the squash appeared to be finished).

Many people "top" their pepper plants to induce extra branching and more peppers. I don't, but I've always wondered if the denser foliage might also protect the peppers better from sun scald.

Ted

I went out to feed the cow a couple days ago. It was well after sunup but still early. I could hear the chickens squawking and raising a racket. When I checked on them, they were still on their roost and wouldn't come down. Normally when they do that, a snake is in the hen house. I checked it out, but couldn't find a snake. I threw some scratch in the coop and they came down from the roost and they stopped complaining. I guess the snake must have come and gone in the night.

Ted

[Ricky Shaw]

An excellent thread, good info and reasoning shule, we're all just looking for answers. I enjoy learning how people adapt their tomato gardening to surroundings and conditions. With healthy admiration for those who can actually grow these things in the ground. Right-on, my western brother.