The Northeast Monsoon Commiseration and Sympathy Thread

[Eric02476]

Up here in New England we are once again in a nightmare weather cycle for tomato growers. After a stretch of nice sunny weather with decent temperatures, we are now suddenly plunged into days on end of cool, humid, stormy, very wet weather. And no end in sight. Can anyone say "Blight" or "Blossom end rot" or "Delayed fruit production"?

I'm glad I did a thorough Daconil spraying right before this weather pattern hit a few days ago, but it's so rainy now I can't even get out there and do another one. Ugh.

To quote the gang from the Peanuts comic stip: AUUUUUUGH! Just as my plants were starting to thrive, we get hit with the worst weather change imaginable, short of a hurricane I suppose.

So, on the theory that misery loves company, here I am, complaining about it in the one place where I know people will understand the depth of my grief .

Sympathy and commiseration -- and any practical tomato survival tips for this weather fiasco -- are most welcome.

Eric

[carolyn137]

Eric, I need sympathy and commerseration myself.

Now I live in NY on the other side of Egg Mt from Manchester Vt, just 2 miles from the border and if you look at your friendly weather sites and radars you'll see that this stuff is just streaming north and moving slowly and it's to the East of New England as well. Sitting over the Hudson Valley and a bit East from there. And yesterday there was a huge problem in northern NY that then went East into NE.

There's not a darn thing that any of us can do for our tomatoes or anything else we're growing right now. I haven't asked Freda to spray with anything b'c there have been absolutely no indications of foliage diseases.

But often the pathogens for the foliage diseases are embedded in rain and so fingers crossed that when this stops, and it will stop, I don't end up with a big problem.

The heavy rains have flattened my beautiful lilies including the Orientals, my faves, that have just started blooming, and the brook that runs past my deck is roaring as it goes along and then over the 30 ft waterfall next to my home.

And of course when any of those embedded T-storms act up I get very nervous since my home was hit by lightning on June 24th and I lost phone and TV and probably my Microwave and also my Verizon DSL modem got fried.

[tjg911]

i watch (pay attention) to the weather all the time partly cuz i'm interested in such things and due to gardening. all i can say is i'd hate to live in
1. the catskills
2. immediately west of the ct border with ny
3. along the line of ct and mass east to enfield ct
4. albany area (a bit west of carloyn's general vicinity)
the bad weather from mid spring to early autumn is brutal. like hail, severe thunder storms, near tornadic events, severe winds, crop destroying weather, flooding? i know 4 great places for you to live.

i'm just far enough south that i see a ton of really violent weather passing about 10 miles to the north of me in torrington and winchester and then circling southeast into new hartford that barely misses me.

i've really had it with the rain. as if june wasn't bad enough now this crap.

tom

[Hilde]

Sympathy and commiseration here as well. I am just wondering when all of these thunderstorms and heavy rain will end.

Yesterday we had another thunderstorm, and with that came some very heavy rainfalls and we even had some hail AGAIN, although not the nickle or golf ball size that we had in June. I had the start of some blight, but now I have pruned the bottom leaves of the plants to improve air circulation, so everything is green. I have had to remove 10-15 tomatoes because of BER. The area around my raised beds is constantly wet and muddy. It is almost August and I can count on one hand the times I have had to water so far this season. The last few days of rainfall have caused a lot of blossom drop. Ironically my pink Brandywine have set 20 or so fruit so far, so it must like this weather. Of course I have this cute little bee flying around the patch and I shake the Brandywine blossoms, so that might have something to do with that.

Hilde

[bbb123]

I'm in area 2 I havn't checked the gardens yet. My driveway looks like a river ran down it last night. The electric was out from 9-11 last night and blinked 5 times this morning. I had a little early blight on my PL plants before the rain. At least that what it looked like.

[Eric02476]

So far I've been keeping Early Blight well controlled w/ daily inspections, pruning leaves at the first sign of trouble, and spraying. But this weather is like an incubator for the stuff. True story: Yesterday I went out in the morning and found a few leaves of advanced Early Blight on a plant -- complete with dark brown target spots -- that had literally appeared and quickly advanced almost overnight. I suppose I might have missed that branch when spraying, but I was shocked at the speed. Needless to say, I quickly and carefully pruned off that branch...so far, so good.

At least it's nice to hear from others similarly afflicted.

[Zana]

The only good thing to say about all this dang rain is that we won't need to water anything for awhile. Between the pilferers and the hail and the rain last weekend my community patch was pretty much decimated. Sighhhh....it was a "noble experiment". However all was not lost as I have about 45 plants in pots/containers at the house. (Ya didn't think I'd totally do without at home, did ya? Granted its not the 125-130 pots/containers and over 200 plants I had last year, though.

The thing is, I've just gone around and emptied all the saucers as the water drains, or in some cases removed the saucers from under some of the "smaller" containers, so that they drain. I did this after last weekend's rains and then again after the torrential flooding on Tuesday. (We had over an inch of rain in 15 MINUTES here in Waterloo Region! The sewer drain grates at the sides of the roads were geysering, the streets were covered with 6 inches + of rain....and that was even on the inclined torrents running down the hills....the golf course across the street was a lake for a few hours and then it drained away..)

I just came back in from checking the plants....and emptying saucers again. Now to go back downstairs and finish sucking up the flood in the basement....with the shopvac. Think we had about 3 inches on the floor over the carpet under the pool table....lol....sighhhhhh.

I don't think we got it as bad as we could've gotten it...next door still has the flood restoration people pumping out their basement. We didn't have any trees down on our property...but the arbourists are being kept busy clearing trees and the downed limbs all over the Twin Cities. I actually had to drive back from a Kiwanis picnic in that torrent on Tuesday evening...needless to say it cut the picnic short! ...but we were mostly all done eating. What should've taken me 15 minutes tops to get home took close to half an hour in the van.....it was coming down so hard in places that I could barely see.....or the water was so high it slowed down the traffic...or about 2 blocks from home, I turned onto a side street and ended up in water that covered the street, the sidewalks and most of the front lawns on both sides of the street, and brought me to a stalled stop in water deep enough that it was coming in under the doors. Luckily I was able to restart the engine and get the heck out of dodge....and get home.

As I write this, I'm looking out over the computor out the window to clear blue skies and the incessant buzz of chain saws and pump motors. Hopefully we get a reprieve for awhile. So much for the severe drought that was forecasted for this summer in our area!

[BigdaddyJ]

Well down here in Delaware we had about 4 inches of rain yesterday. The sun is out now but more rain is expected today. We lost power briefly last night. I had quite a few splitters this morning and they are now sliced up and ready to eat today. I wish i had picked yesterday. I too am fearful that disease will now overtake but like Carolyn says why worry because ain't nothing you can do about it. We had many lilies and perennial flattened last night but my Texas cages held up wonderfully as usual for my tomato plants.

[kdoble]

Many of us are experiencing the same worries. I may be singing the blues depending on what transpires over the next few days. I am in 6b and we are at the end of 2 days of severe thunderstorms and flash flood warnings. My first set of toms were just starting to blush after a string of sunnny days. I was worried before the storms hit that 2 plants were showing early signs of early blight, so needless to say the heavy rain could not have come at a worse time! The rain was hard enough that one branch with three mature green toms bent in half (but didn't snap). Guess I'll bring those indooors and put in paper bag with a green banana if my "cast" doesn't work. (I put the tomato velcro tape around the branch and the cage to support it and then I put another small piece around the injured spot like a bandaid). No, I don't think that will fix the problem and my husband chuckled at me while I was doing it...I guess I'm desperate since I only have 6 plants. Actually I have 8 if I count the 2 determinates I have in containers. Alas, we have one more potential rain to get through and keeping my fingers crossed in the meantime.

[bbb123]

Well the garden isn't to bad. Young lettuce was pounded into the ground should come back though. The few black cherry toms. I had ripening blew in half almost. Some of the corn got knocked over the rest of it must of grown 2 feet. Half the pepper plants got blown over but they should be ok. When should I spray Daconil on tomato plants after they dry out a little or ASAP?

[Eric02476]

Originally Posted by bbb123

When should I spray Daconil on tomato plants after they dry out a little or ASAP?

Others here, particularly Carolyn, know a lot more about Daconil than I do and can answer the application question.

If you are seeing any foliage disease cropping up now, my advice is to go out in between rain storms and carefully prune off infected leaves (and entire stems, if necessary) as soon as they appear. That will help slow down the spread.

But do be careful about contaminating healthy foliage with the foliage you're removing, or your hands that have touched infected leaves. It is very easy to spread disease on the plant you're working on, or from plant-to-plant. If you use pruners, frequently dip them in a bleach solution (I have heard 10% bleach solution, but others should correct me if I'm wrong) especially when moving to another plant. Discard infected leaves well away from the plants and in the trash, not the compost pile.

[where_with_all]

Aggguh- Long island is no better. My poor tomatoes. My poor experiments. Hopefully it will survive

[Rob]

Hail, rain, rain and more rain.I use CRW for cages and the hail acted like a shear to a lot of branches or suckers that were poking out the sides of the cages.I was lucky we got marble size hail here. A few miles away the hail was golfball size and damaged vehicles.Well heres hoping for a dryer August!

[velikipop]

Too bad you guys are having a poor season. We here on the left coast are experiencing some problems as well. Cool dry spring and really slow growth. Hope things improve for you. Is anyone having a good year?

Alex

[Zana]

Well I actually can't say its all bad. I've got some black krim that are the size of golf balls, some cherokee purple that are a bit smaller and allot of yellow pear that are marble sized at the moment....in the pots/containers. The question is how well they'll all do considering how over saturated they've gotten with all the rain. Ask me in a few weeks after the more rain that is forecast for the next 5 days...sheeeeeeeeeeesh!