Too dry then too wet

[b54red]

I don't know how much rain we got this evening but my guess is it will be over an inch when I check in the morning. We got over an inch and a half the last two days and with what we got last night I fear a lot of split tomatoes coming up. For the past few weeks it has been very dry requiring watering at least twice a week just to maintain healthy plants and now all of a sudden too much water at once. Thirsty plants tend to take up too much water when this happens and it can lead to a lot of ruined tomatoes along with some with less than ideal flavor intensity. Up until yesterday I didn't have a single tomato that had split skin and when I checked yesterday most of the blushing fruit were splitting badly and even some of the larger green ones had splits forming. You just know when things are looking too good in the tomato patch that something is about to happen to change that. I guess pests and diseases will follow shortly.

Bill

[RayR]

Bill, how often do we all get weather that is just right all season? Not very often.
So far no problems up here, weather has been decent, not too hot and not too cold, got some rain this month which has helped since May was pretty dry. The ground soaks it up gladly. I'm not even thinking about fruit splitting issues since I'm just seeing some fruit set this week.

[b54red]

Ray I am at that point with many of my plants where they are starting to ripen and in the next three weeks will yield the most tomatoes of the season. After several dry hot weeks with relatively low humidity down here my plants and fruit on them were looking as good as I have ever seen. The sudden heavy rains cause a lot of problems. I don't mind a good rain but last night I got just under 2 inches so that is almost 4 inches in 3 days hitting fairly dry soil so the splitting becomes a real issue. This is the point in the tomato growing where I like to let the soil get a bit dry for flavor enhancement at the cost of fruit set. They are forecasting a 100% chance of rain today with a drop off in rain the rest of the week.

I was just doing a little of that old gardener grousing because I'm always hoping for near perfect conditions despite the odds.

Bill

[brooksville]

We had 2.5 inches last week, .5 on Tuesday, and I will know tomorrow how much we got yesterday and today. We picked the patch clean on tuesday, and found a 28oz Rozovyi Myod(Pink Honey). The rain has been killing the blueberry flavor too....

John

[Tracydr]

I haven't looked this week. We were pretty dry, with a rain about a week ago on sandy soil. This week,though, we have two big rains, one was over 2 inches I'm sure.
My tomatoes are days to a couple of weeks from lots being ripe. I will be a committing a lot of stink bug murder and some spraying this weekend!

[Dewayne mater]

Bill it looks like either you or I get rain this year. We haven't had a drop in over 2 weeks and I think it all moved over your way! They say it's coming back here next week, so, maybe you'll get a break. I've definitely had new issues this year and a fair number of tomatoes with mealy texture and bland taste, but this last hot dry spell is helping us out with that. Unfortunately, it has brought out the red spider mites early, so I've got to start warring against them now!

Dewayne