Its now the beginning of October and most of my tomato plants are gone

[Elliot]

Starting later is not the answer if you are planting indeterminate tomato plants. This year I got a late start because of rainy weather in the NY area in May. I lost two weeks. It did not help and may have hurt us.

I just think there is a national change in weather patterns and this is accounting for an early Fall .

[Direct Sunlight]

I've got a riesentraube in a 1 gallon pot still in the house. The seed was one of the fall tomatoes and started late & I just kept watering it. Now its October and it's about 6 inches tall. Planting outside is out of the question. I guess I'll have a very tall houseplant that I have to stake. I've got some bamboo that might work. A 5 gallon pot might be in order by November. I can't do any worse to it in the pot than the frost can do to it in the garden.

[tam91]

Mine are pretty sad, but still sitting there. Just picked a couple yesterday, and there are always cherries (so many cherries, that I am now bored with cherries). It's so nice this week, I'm letting them sit there and hoping a few more ripen. Wasn't a great year for me.

[BigBrownDogHouse]

Originally Posted by Elliot

Starting later is not the answer if you are planting indeterminate tomato plants. This year I got a late start because of rainy weather in the NY area in May.

Every year is so different. I do believe it was two years ago and it seemed we had no sun during the Summer, so much cloud cover.....and the temps were down. I had tomatoes into November. Last year tomatoes until November. This year most plants are already pulled out.

One thing with starting early is that I had about 100 babies to take care of until Memorial Day. It was hard to get to my beer fridge in the screen room.

Most of my plants were in the 24-30 inch range by the time I planted them. I thought that was a bit big but it was a very cold and rainy spring.
With my wife as my witness, we had about 1000 tomatoes in a 3, 3 1/2 week span. Then it dried up almost immediately.

However, I forgot I still have a Bush Beefsteak in front that has a good amount of tennis ball size green tomatoes on it. That's a determinate and it produced a ton in August and now has all these tennis balls on it. Hopefully a few more turn on that one.

Hi Tam91!
What a week! I was working outside yesterday and couldn't believe how nice it was, actually hot. NWS is saying 81 right now!

[ebennett]

Think I'm picking anything that's starting to color up today, and covering plants tonight. It's a shame - been a weird late season here in Denver and harvest is just peaking now. BTW, the Cherokee Chocolate have been sweet and gorgeous this year, just too late for the tasting party so no one got to vote for them! Black Cherry was also a favorite, just now starting to yield at my house though. Who has good green tomato recipes? I'm not one to fry things usually.

[tam91]

Hi Brian - isn't it gorgeous?

I still have tomatoes on the vines, trying to figure out how to get them to ripen. I'm hoping this warm weather will help.

[hardwaterbob]

Hi from Bob. I live in north central Il, Elgin. I planted some early types and some late types so I have tomatoes that are finished and some that are in there prime. Plus I planted some early varieties later in the season that are just setting fruit ( new tomatoes ). This seems to work, plus I have been covering them with plastic at night to keep them warmer and protected.

HWB-BOB

[hardwaterbob]

I'VE GOT A GOOD GREEN CASSEROLE RECIPE THAT I WILL SEND TO YOU. IT'S SOOOO GOOD YOU CAN EAT IT AS A MAIN COURSE.

I'LL SEND IT SOON

HWB/ BOB

[tam91]

That's great that yours are still going. I've made a green tomato soup that is nice, a casserole sounds interesting too.

[peppero]

i have about 20 plants left out of about 60. some are blooming, some fruiting and ripening, and some doing nothing. all in all, it has been a poor gardening year but i am already planning for next year. maybe, just maybe......... jon

[Alpinejs]

I don't know what blight my maters got but all the lower leaves started dying and, ultimately, the vines looked like palm trees with foliage way at the top and then just
vine below. They still produced tomatoes, but somewhat smaller than I expected.
We just got here to Powell, Wyo. and I saw four plants I gave away last spring. They
were loaded with huge tomatoes!! Beautiful foliage. Two Stumps, one CP and one
Kellogg's breakfast. They all put mine to shame. Gotta figure out the problem over the
winter.

[RayR]

What a difference 1 week makes, it appears that Late Blight has in fact made a very late arrival to my garden.
Getting lots of infected fruit (that's the worse part), stem and leaf lesions, time to call it quits on the Tomato season. I'll have to send a sample to the USDA for confirmation, but I'm pretty confident that it is.
After the most disease free season I've ever had in a long time, I get hit by the worst of the worst at the end.

[cottonpicker]

Same here with me......... my tomato plants bit the dirt the earliest I ever remember.
Pulled them all out about 10 days ago. Still have my Fall planted garden but NO maters.

LD

[tjg911]

took out all mine except for the sun gold. the fruits were all rotting at the stem end back in september, it was hard to get one to be rot free. season ended early based upon that. i had lots of green fruits but with frost for thursday and friday mornings last week i just took them all out. it's too cold, lack of sun they just don't taste right by late september and forget october. even sun gold are off in their taste. i covered the sun gold each night and friday morning the top of the plant was burned from frost thru 2 sheets. there are very few tomatoes left on it anyway.

i saved about 2 dozen assorted tomatoes on the table but i'll bet at least half get rot at the stem end and those that don't will be sour. it really was not a good year. the 100+ july heat just ruined things just as it should have been starting to produce tomatoes. between sun scald, stem end rot, hollow fruits, tasteless fruits it's been a rather terrible season.

tom

[Direct Sunlight]

Originally Posted by Direct Sunlight

I've got a riesentraube in a 1 gallon pot still in the house. The seed was one of the fall tomatoes and started late & I just kept watering it. Now its October and it's about 6 inches tall. Planting outside is out of the question. I guess I'll have a very tall houseplant that I have to stake. I've got some bamboo that might work. A 5 gallon pot might be in order by November. I can't do any worse to it in the pot than the frost can do to it in the garden.

It's still kicking! It's only about 9 inches tall now.