It's always something

[User 636]

Originally Posted by DRT0MAT0

Not to make fun of you- but, i think it's halarious to think of people out in the fields with elec tooth brushes trying to polinate their tomatoes.
Can you imagine in Toleado, Oh in the farm fields that supply Heinz ketchup factory, all these little migrant workers with there elec tooth brushes trying to get tomatoes to polinate.
love it!
I got the same weather you get. Toms are getting curled leaves and a little yellow from all the rain, but little tomatoes are starting to form.
Going to add copper spray, along with the Daconal. Saw in my great grandmas cook book that she had a newspaper clipping from 1948 about useing fixed copper. So if it worked back then, I'm going to try it.

It is amusing. I go out every day with a paintbrush to pollinate my squash, melons, and cucumbers. Being up on a deck in the heavily pesticide sprayed suburbs I have very few pollinators to help me out. I shake my tomato plants every day too!

[Kikaida]

I do this to some extent...when my wife doesn't give me grief. I noticed that when the anthers begin to open at the end, the flower is primed. What else I noticed in my oppressive heat is that the anthers are not opening. They stay closed shut around the style. Is this why they don't set so well in the heat? I've buzzed them a few times using the petals as indicators instead and have managed to get some fruit set despite the heat. Not sure if it was me or the plant doing what it would have done.

[bigpinks]

Originally Posted by Timomac

I've had different issues over the last couple years that have caused me grief in the garden. The primary culprit has been early blight. I have a small area to garden and am stuck with it. Plastic mulch has been a godsend. It does the job for me. No signs of the crud. Such a relief.

One season, after getting the soil tested, I think an attempt to lower the pH of the garden caused a little trouble as well.

But, this year though, I had things pretty well dialed in and was primed for my best year since contracting blight...

And it has rained for three weeks straight. Things are not pollinating well at all. I'm trying to pollinate with an electric toothbrush aid... not sold yet but am hopeful.

So, I'll keep trying regardless, because my tomato OCD runs deep.

Blight has made its appearance on the bottom of my most of my plants. I felt bad until I read someone's story about deer eating theirs lock stock and barrel. I have fruit from cherry size to 2 lbs. so I will def harvest a lot of tomatoes from my 67 plants but its defeating to know that all the blooms I see at the top are doomed.