Very early in June my garden

[b54red]

Originally Posted by mikej

Yes they all do look great. I also like the idea of the conduit to hold up the beans. I grow conk peas and am planning on planting some pink-eye purple hull in mid-August. I think I will brace them up like that. What do you use on the ends of the conduit that you can raise them as they grow?

I just use a single zip tie and pull it slightly tight but still loose enough that I can slide it up if I need to. The weight of the bars it is supporting pull it tight enough that it doesn't slip if you get it right. If I ever get one that is too tight and I can't slide it then I just clip it off and replace it. You'll figure it out as you do it I'm sure.

Bill

[mikej]

Oh OK! I see now. You have a crossbar horizontally that is attached to a pipe in the ground. Those 2 pieces are rusted. Is it pipe? Thanks Bill

[b54red]

Yes they are just some old pieces of conduit that I used to use as stakes and diagonal support on trellises. I have been using conduit for over 20 years so I have a lot of rusty pieces. Some of them have just rusted away. Once you drive them into the ground they start rusting.

Bill

[mikej]

Thanks Bill! I have some old conduit laying around. I will gather up some and use it when I plant in August.

[attml]

Looks Great Bill!

[b54red]

Here are some pics I took this morning. I'm starting to see more fusarium symptoms every week on some plants but not much by my standards and so far only one has died from it. The grafting has been a big plus for me this year.

First is a Virginia Sweet grafted onto Floralina rootstock. I love the way this plant looks and the fruit are really nice and big. I haven't eaten one yet but several are on the counter waiting.
Second is my T-6 grafted onto a Floralina rootstock. This plant has already given me more ripe tomatoes than all the others I grew in the past couple of years put together. Not dying early of fusarium really helps production.
Third is a Barlow Jap on a Floralina rootstock that looks like it is going to give me the first tomatoes from this variety. I have been trying to get some since Camo kindly gave me some seed a couple of years ago. I can't wait to taste it.
Fourth is a shot down my first tomato bed I planted this year in mid March and some of the plants are well above the 7 ft top bar of the trellis. The gap in plants is where one fell to TSWV a few weeks back and just in front of that space is a very low growing determinate called Bella Rosa which is grafted onto a Floralina rootstock. Even though Bella Rosa is a hybrid with resistance to two races of fusarium I have had a hard time keeping them alive long enough to get any fruit.
The last two photos are of some of the fruit set on the lower part of a few plants in my second tomato bed which was planted the first day of April. Many of the plants in this bed are also getting above the top bar on the trellis.

Bill

[raindrops27]

What a beautiful garden, those tomatoes are huge! I love how neat and in order everything is, you must love to sit out there and relax.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by raindrops27

What a beautiful garden, those tomatoes are huge! I love how neat and in order everything is, you must love to sit out there and relax.

Thank you for the compliment; but if my youngest son wasn't home from college it would be a lot messier. I just can't keep it neat in this heat by myself. If I sat out there for long with a heat index of 110 I would probably have a heat stroke or heart attack and if you sit out there when it is cooler at dawn or sundown the mosquitoes will carry you away. It's days like this that make us southerners want to go way up north for a while just to cool off.

Bill

[b54red]

I thought I would post a few more pics. The tomatoes are having far more disease issues now and fusarium wilt is starting to take a toll; but the grafting sure has delayed and lessened the damage it does. The first two pictures show fusarium moving up the plants. The third picture shows a plant that all the diseased leaves have been removed from and I have a lot of plants that now look like this. The last two pictures taken last night are of tomatoes sitting on my ripening table til they need to be moved inside.

Bill

[jerryinfla]

Bill - I failed to comment on your earlier post about Bella Rosa - so I'll do that now. For my no spray, no pruning trials this season I planted two Bella Rosas and both are disappointments. The first has already succumbed to disease and pests including RKN. The second plant is looking quite sad and something is nibbling on the tops of fruits -- more so than any other of my trials. Also, I finally ate one at lunch today and IMO it was nothing special. So, I'd say for our conditions it's not a very good candidate for root stock.

As for your new photos and comments -- that's sad. However, it shows others in better growing conditions just what we have to contend with -- and why our growing season(s) are so short. I'm still getting fair production but plants are going down hill fast. We have enough to make tomato sauce and we're planning on doing that tomorrow.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by jerryinfla

Bill - I failed to comment on your earlier post about Bella Rosa - so I'll do that now. For my no spray, no pruning trials this season I planted two Bella Rosas and both are disappointments. The first has already succumbed to disease and pests including RKN. The second plant is looking quite sad and something is nibbling on the tops of fruits -- more so than any other of my trials. Also, I finally ate one at lunch today and IMO it was nothing special. So, I'd say for our conditions it's not a very good candidate for root stock.

As for your new photos and comments -- that's sad. However, it shows others in better growing conditions just what we have to contend with -- and why our growing season(s) are so short. I'm still getting fair production but plants are going down hill fast. We have enough to make tomato sauce and we're planning on doing that tomorrow.

Jerry I would never consider Bella Rosa for a rootstock. This year both the plants I grew were grafted onto other rootstock. I have found Bella Rosa very susceptible to fusarium wilt although they say it is resistant to two races of fusarium it certainly doesn't act like it. I think for a hybrid tomato it is fairly good and it does pump them out if you can keep it alive like I did by grafting it.

For rootstock down here in fusarium hell I would use one of the varieties that has resistance to all three races of fusarium like Floralina, Amelia, Tasti-Lee or Multifort. I have used a bunch of different rootstock this year and the only ones that are really showing good resistance are the ones that are resistant to all three.

I still have some very healthy plants that are still producing quite well if I can keep the diseases at bay. We have had so much constant drizzly rain that it is a real challenge.

Bill

[Mark0820]

Great looking garden, and a very nice harvest.

[remy]

Everything looks wonderful. Sad to think it will not look so good because of disease.
Remy

[b54red]

The following pics are of the best few days of tomato gathering I have ever had. I picked all of these tomatoes starting Friday and ending Sunday afternoon. We have had some substantial rainfall since I fertilized on Saturday morning so I decided to pick most of the blushing fruit on Sunday to prevent splitting. I gathered some surprisingly large tomatoes over these last four days and there aren't too many large ones left since most of the lower trusses have been picked now.

First is an overall view of the table of toms picked over 4 days.

Second and third are the left side of the table and the right side of the table giving a little better view of the tomatoes.

Fourth is just a random picture of some of the tomatoes that I thought looked good and showed them off well.

Fifth and Sixth are pictures of the largest tomato I have ever gotten out of my garden. It is an Omar's Lebanese that I picked on Saturday morning sitting on the scale showing it weighing in at exactly 34 ounces.

Seventh is a pic of the Omar's in my hand.

The last picture is just five large toms of different varieties that I took Saturday. Starting on the left is a 19.5 ounce Stump of the World, next is a 24 ounce Olyers German, in the center is the 34 ounce Omar's Lebanese, next is a 28.6 ounce Virginia Sweet and last is a 21.2 ounce Brandywine Sudduth's.

These last four days of picking represent the peak of production of large tomatoes for me this season. I have never had so many nice tomatoes come off of my plants in such a short time before and in all likelyhood I'll never be able to top this. Using nothing but grafted plants, keeping them tied up, keeping them pruned, fertilizing every week with a little Texas Tomato Food, and spraying weekly with the bleach spray and a fungicide has certainly paid off for me this year. I guess it was a good thing that I killed so many plants during the grafting process or I would have set out more plants than I could have maintained like that.

With the heat and rainy weather causing pest and disease problems to multiply many of my plants are starting to slide downhill rather quickly. I started culling out some of them on Sunday and will be removing many more over the next couple of weeks. I am going to replace some of them where space permits with new grafted seedlings. Even though I am removing plants there is still little in the way of a place to put a new plant in these beds because of the spread of some of the large healthy ones that are still producing. I have one empty bed that was where the bulk of my onions and carrots were growing that is getting prepared for more tomatoes and when my squash die that will open up some more space for fall plants. I am going to try and give my late summer and fall plants a lot of space so they will be able to maintain more foliage as protection against the sun. This will allow me to let them have more stems to produce flowers on because the level of blossom drop is rising with the heat and disease increases.

Bill

[shelleybean]

No wonder you're binge eating tomatoes!! Even with the Fusarium, still looks great!