Dry Farming Tomatoes

[greenthumbomaha]

UPDATE: UNEXPECTED GOOD NEWS! One route is open to the garden. It will be a busy one, so I will not visit as frequently, but it is a "go" and still need to adapt to the situation. But it can be done!





If you caught the TV coverage of the flooding, that is where my main garden is. I live in Omaha proper and have a small acreage near the area that was shown on TV. The cities of Fremont, Valley and Waterloo are completely cut off because of the collapse of the three low lying road bridges that cross the Elkhorn River.


As a result, I need to change my growing strategy. I can't be taking a two hour detour each way just to water. I don't feel comfortable hooking a timer up to the house bib to water when I won't be there.


In my city backyard, I'll be growing mostly ind and basket cherries, summer squash, cabbage and cucumber. I already picked up frosting buckets for 8 dwarf tomatoes tbd. I have a few spots in the sun for indet tomatoes or peppers and a mini op watermelon. Thankful for that, but would like to attempt a proper garden if another road is available a month from now.


I have clay soil so dry farming with plastic mulch is my only option.
I was not planning to sauce tomatoes this year as I have a good stock remaining in the freezer.

I'm nixing onions. Won't be there to weed or water.
Don't have high expectations for the strawberries planted last fall.

Would winter squash grow with only rain, if we get any?
I read about a df technique to heavily water intentional leggy tomatoes 3 times and discontinue watering thereafter to avoid BER. Early Girl was suggested, wispy leaf type is not. Not sure what else to grow for this -
Any suggestions for pepper types and pepper management? I watered the heck out of my bells last year and they were huge for the first time in a long while. I have lots ready for this year.


Artichokes need a home too.


Any other sage advice?


- Lisa

[saltmarsh]

Lisa, a couple of suggestions.

Let your tomato transplants get leggy and plant them in a furrow instead of a hole. The tomato will sprout roots where the stem is buried providing access to more water. Just leave 3 or 4 inches sticking out of the ground.

Prune the tomatoes to 2 stems at the natural fork.

If it is typically dry later in the year, when each of the stems have set 4 clusters of tomatoes top the plants one leaf above the fourth cluster. This causes the plant to put all its energy into developing the existing clusters and the tomatoes will ripen about 2 weeks sooner. Continue to remove any suckers the plant puts out.

For Winter Squash grow Trombocini. It keeps - I still have a half dozen from last year.
Use the immaturre squash (12 - 18 inches) for anything you would use summer squash for stuffed, fried, stewed, as a substitute for the pasta in no boil lasagna, casseroles and breads. The only difference is it taste better and doesn't have the seed. The trick is to grow it on a trellis, prune to one stem and keep the squash picked.

Plant the squash 4 seeds per hill with hills 3' apart. When the plants have their first true leaves thin each hill to the strongest 2 plants. When the plants start running remove any suckers and train the main stem in line with the row for 2 or 3 feet before allowing the vine to climb the trellis. The plant will put down roots at each node. The goal is to have only one stem per vine and a vine every foot apart on the trellis. As long as you keep the squash picked the vine will keep producing. If you let a squash mature that vine will quit producing (same as summer squash)

[oldman]

I'd hold off making plans until you actually get a chance to inspect things after the waters have retreated. The one time I was flooded out the biggest problem was all the mud left behind. It was thick, heavy, and dried into a cracked semiflexible sheet of clay in the yard. It had to be scraped off or worked back in the soil. Or pumped, shoveled, and hauled out of the basement. Cleanup will cut into the time you need to get the garden ready. If your garden is just acerage and you have no cleanup responsibilities I'd plant lots of peas, lettice and cool weather crops like spinach. Direct sow and poke into the mud as required. Don't worry about watering. That way when you're ready to plant the main crop the soil has roots in it to make it more manageable. You can pull you spring crop or do a final harvest and till it all under to make room for your tomatoes. Or if you're a real optimist and have extra seed you can sow some seed for your summer crop early and hope April and May are frost-free.

As for what to plant I'd recommend the cherries and dwarfs in town and paste, beefsteak, and the larger tomatoes in the less frequently watered location. Avoid stuffer or other dry tomatoes there since you don't want them drying out on the vine before they're ripe. Anything prone to splitting is also good at storing water and can probably survive, possibly thrive, in your remote garden. .

Your peppers should be fine with less water, especially seasoning peppers or Paprika. Last year mine got watered only once a week. The bells were smaller, nut everything else looked the same. If you're not going to water at all I imagine that there will still be peppers, just not as many. If that's the case you can remove some of the less desirable peppers to benefit the larger or better located fruit when you do visit the garden.

If you have additional space melons or pumpkin are good options. They don't need much once they get their roots down. And their needs won't interfere too much with tomato harvest and seed saving.

The thing I'd worry most about is pests. If you aren't there you can't be on guard for tomato worms and Japanese beetles. Given how much they can eat, and how fast, you need to figure out how to guard against them. If you don't want to overdo chemicals you can plant extra veggies to make up for expected losses. Or you might be able to hire a high school kid to check things for you a few times a week. One who lives on the far bank. It's not an ideal solution, but it's cheaper than gas. (or at least not more expensive and less time consuming).

[zipcode]

I don't think all soils are good for dry farming. If it doesn't have high amount of organic matter it will not have good enough water retention. If it's the kind that becomes a crusty rock when dry, it's probably not that great. Also depends on the climate, how dry or wet exactly it is, and how hot.

I have done sort of the same thing many years ago in someone's field, any water source was too far to think of automation (not even sure they were cheap and easily available). I could visit the plants every two weeks, but it was in an elevated area where it rained quite a bit. But not always, there were dry periods, and the soil was poor, whitish. The plants survived fine, but taste was poor compared to better watered plants in same soil. Ber was never a problem, there are many varieties which are very resistant to ber.

Bell peppers love water, but other types can still be ok (although the bigger pointy ones are usually very ber prone).

[Worth1]

I have found the hose bib timers to be very reliable but I understand the worry of them or any other automated device.
A person could always put in backup redundancy if they wanted to.

[greenthumbomaha]

Cleanup will cut into the time you need to get the garden ready.
That's for sure! After record snowfall this winter, everything is saturated! I was planning to lay new weed block down. Existing is getting lots of weed break-thoughs and disease build up.



I now have another factor to consider, the climate predictions for spring indicate lower temps for April-June.



Interesting, I have never pruned before, and I am an avid trencher. Those contradict each other, don't they?
Around here it helps to get plants in the ground before or close to last frost date of May 15 so they can set roots before the intense heat sets in, if a drought year. This may be a normal rainfall year. no way to tell so far.



The soil holds water very well. I've made the trip finding very little to water, or caught it in time when I was delayed. I always watered, at least lightly, to even things out. I don't think my growing area was flooded, just the surrounding roads and areas near the river were submerged. There is a well, and due to the flooding I am listening for opportunities to have well water tested.



- Lisa

[Dewayne mater]

I don't get this comment:
"I have clay soil so dry farming with plastic mulch is my only option."

I have clay soils. Thick, unrelenting, high plasticity clay soil for the entire growing zone. I've not found it to be all that hospitable for tomatoes. I've tried 3 approaches, all of which are working. Raised beds, containers and I literally replaced the soil in one bed. When my foundation was being worked on, I had them dig out a bed 3 feet deep. It was still clay below that. I replaced that soil with a load of composted soil from a local company. I also mulch heavily every year, usually with cotton burr. Even with this, clay has worked its way back into the soil, but, at least it isn't 100% clay. As a part of soil, as opposed to 100% of the soil, it is a nice component as it holds water well in hot temps. That said, it still has to be watered or the plants will not withstand 100 plus temps with some additional watering. Good luck with whatever you decide.

[saltmarsh]

"I have clay soil so dry farming with plastic mulch is my only option."

Lisa I don't understand. How does plastic mulch add humus to the soil?

claud

[nancyruhl]

I don't know if this is helpful, but I had a garden for years that I only visited every 2 weeks. I installed drip tape, which is easy to do. Then I hook up a timer to it to water 2 times a week. I also bought a fertilizer injector to attach to the hose. Worked very well.

I know up north where the huge farms are, the last crop they put in is beans. If they have them in by July 1, that will be long enough to get a crop.

[zeuspaul]

Water deep with a drip system. With clay soil the slower the better. I water about once a week with drip in a hot dry climate. My soil is more sandy than yours. However clay soil retains water better than sandy. It is easier to get deep penetration with sandy soil, that's why you want to water slowly for a longer period of time. If you encourage a deep root system with drip you should be able to get two weeks or more between watering depending on how hot it gets.

If possible provide a little shade with some shade cloth.

[DonDuck]

Originally Posted by Dewayne mater

I don't get this comment:
"I have clay soil so dry farming with plastic mulch is my only option."

I have clay soils. Thick, unrelenting, high plasticity clay soil for the entire growing zone. I've not found it to be all that hospitable for tomatoes. I've tried 3 approaches, all of which are working. Raised beds, containers and I literally replaced the soil in one bed. When my foundation was being worked on, I had them dig out a bed 3 feet deep. It was still clay below that. I replaced that soil with a load of composted soil from a local company. I also mulch heavily every year, usually with cotton burr. Even with this, clay has worked its way back into the soil, but, at least it isn't 100% clay. As a part of soil, as opposed to 100% of the soil, it is a nice component as it holds water well in hot temps. That said, it still has to be watered or the plants will not withstand 100 plus temps with some additional watering. Good luck with whatever you decide.

You and I have the same soil which is why I grow almost entirely in raised beds with highly organic soils. I found many years ago that tomato plants have roots that seem able to penetrate concrete if enough water is available. I've also found over the years the natural soil in my garden has become much more organic as the soil in my beds has migrated into the clay beneath them. Over the years some of the borders of my raised beds rotted away. The original boards provided twelve inch deep beds. I replaced them with six inch wide boards and removed about four inches of soil from each bed. I've found when the plants have access to the natural, but amended soil beneath the beds, the plants don't need as much water in the hottest part of summer and the plants are able to draw minerals from the formerly clay soil.

[Worth1]

A layer of sharp sand on top of clay soil works nicely.

[greenthumbomaha]

The organic matter in clay soil can vary greatly. I know because where I once lived you needed a pick axe to dig a hole. It took a lot of compost to get a lawn going, even with laying sod (much younger then!) I lived in an area where mushroom compost was plentiful, and a fresh trailer of that did the trick. I still think of that little garden fondly.

My current clay has 4% organic content. I add a scoop of bagged product with each planting and leaves when available it has built up and works well. I have a friend that swears by adding sand, but in on the side of my garden house where tenants dumped a sandbox, sand + clay = concrete.

The one road is open, but its a slow trip with the extra cars. To compound the problem, a short part of that route was down to one lane each way due to construction, and there was a head on accident last summer. Another road further north is open but only one lane and a pilot car escorts with a 1 hour wait. The NDOT is out clearing and patching what can be done. The bridge nearest me is completely caved in. At first I read there are 4 temporary bridges but no further word on where they may be used.

- Lisa

[jtjmartin]

Wow - the pictures from Nebraska are shocking. So glad you all are safe.

My garden is Virginia red clay. Dig deeper and its that dank, dense gray clay. Long term, hugelkulture - burying old wood, stumps, branches, leaves etc - has made a huge difference. The shifting and decomposition of the wood underground keeps the clay loose. In the middle of summer my hugel raised beds rarely need watering - the wood acts like a huge sponge.

I also use a couple hundred bags of leaves a year in my garden pathways, etc. As the leaves decompose I shovel the pathway humus into the raised beds. Amazing difference!

[bower]

Yes indeed, Lisa! I saw the pics on TV it's so severe. Sorry your garden is cut off, but glad your home wasn't affected.
Good luck with the dry farming plan.