I'm throwing in the towel!

[efisakov]

Originally Posted by jennifer28

Ella

If you like Cherokee Purple then I recommend Indian Stripe. Incredibly prolific and extremely hard to kill.

I am growing it first time this year, and yes I like it. Thanks jennifer28. I can not recommend variety to be resistant to diseases unless I have grown them for the full season.

[efisakov]

Originally Posted by Dewayne mater

I'm astounded that black cherry holds on the longest! It is consistently the most disease laden plant I plant every year. It is amazing susceptible to mold. Other disease don't bother it as much, but year after year, molds are what eventually takes down black cherry. And, before I got more proactive on fungicides and Bill's bleach spray, it was typically done months before any other plant. I still think its worth it for the great tasting prolific fruit set, but its a weakling in my garden!

D M

Dewayne, my son had picked up in one day a small basked of Black Cherry tomatoes and we measured it's weight to be 2 pounds. That came from one plant. I have saved seeds from that plant. I used it for this year. So far it is really good.

[riceke]

Originally Posted by adkspackler

I feel your pain! What doesn't kill us makes us stronger! There's always next year

And maybe wiser as well!

[riceke]

Thanks to all of you that made me feel like I wasn't the only person on Earth going through this. I think planting late may have contributed to my problems but it was cold up until May here and couldn't get my normal early plants in. I just resigned myself to the fact that some times you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you. As I mentioned life is coming back to me and as I planted a few fall plants, I'm starting to plan next year. Thanks again to ya'lls support, it really helped me. Aside from some of our differences we on Tomatoville do come together when needed.

[Barbee]

Sorry to hear of your troubles. You guys down south sure have had some crazy weather!

[TNTiger]

Originally Posted by riceke

Thanks to all of you that made me feel like I wasn't the only person on Earth going through this. I think planting late may have contributed to my problems but it was cold up until May here and couldn't get my normal early plants in. I just resigned myself to the fact that some times you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you. As I mentioned life is coming back to me and as I planted a few fall plants, I'm starting to plan next year. Thanks again to ya'lls support, it really helped me. Aside from some of our differences we on Tomatoville do come together when needed.

I also share your pain Ken, we aren't too far from you (SE corner of TN) and have had the same type of strange weather. I also got a late start on my tomatoes and have had my share of struggles with fungus. Most of my tomatoes have survived but now they are under attack by squirrels! I'm not throwing in the towel yet!

[Tania]

Ken,

I am so sorry to hear about your miserable season. The start of 2012 season was very similar for us - so much rain, non-stop, up until mid-July. We were flooded, and everything is the garden was stunted and/or got diseased. However, the situation improved in August, and the survivors produced very good crop (about a month later than usual).

Tatiana

[riceke]

Originally Posted by TNTiger

I also share your pain Ken, we aren't too far from you (SE corner of TN) and have had the same type of strange weather. I also got a late start on my tomatoes and have had my share of struggles with fungus. Most of my tomatoes have survived but now they are under attack by squirrels! I'm not throwing in the towel yet!

I had squirrel troubles before munching on my tomatoes until I hung a bird feeder. Now they attack the bird feeder and leave the tomatoes alone. It costs you in the cost of bird feed but it may save some tom's.

[riceke]

Originally Posted by Barbee

Sorry to hear of your troubles. You guys down south sure have had some crazy weather!

It seems everyone is having strange unusual weather for their particular climate. Even though it's warm and humid here I read where it was in the mid 90's up North. Even Alaska had 94 degree temps in June.

[ScottinAtlanta]

Squirrels! Spawn of Satan.

One nice thing I learned this year is that the squirrels don't seem to click on colors other than red and, much less, bright yellow. So my Lime Green Salad have not been touched. Nor have my Jaune Flammee. Anything blushing red for two days is attacked, so I pick the red ones very early, as soon as I see a color change. Just got a 1.1 pound Dana's Dusky Rose with a nice pink on the bottom - been surveiling it for days to get it b4 the squirrels.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Barbee

Sorry to hear of your troubles. You guys down south sure have had some crazy weather!

This summer has been particularly crazy. After suffering through droughts for many years we are now having nearly constant daily rains. I've had 6 inches of rain since Friday and it has been like that for all of July. Before the heavy rain started we were having constant drizzly rain for over a month which kept the diseases in high gear. In the past two months I have only had a couple of days without rain. I can't really complain because we really have needed a good soaking for many years and this year we are getting one. Thankfully I was able to get a great crop of tomatoes picked before the heavy rains got too bad and now I just get a few along that are mostly little and splitting before they can ripen. One good thing about the deep south is you have a lot of time to try again and hopefully my fall plants will survive the diseases and do well. It's nice to be able to have multiple bites at the apple.

Bill

[TNTiger]

Originally Posted by riceke

I had squirrel troubles before munching on my tomatoes until I hung a bird feeder. Now they attack the bird feeder and leave the tomatoes alone. It costs you in the cost of bird feed but it may save some tom's.

My squirrel troubles started this year when my husband put a bird feeder up. I won't let anyone fill it right now. We can feed the birds in the fall!

[TNTiger]

Originally Posted by ScottinAtlanta

Squirrels! Spawn of Satan.

One nice thing I learned this year is that the squirrels don't seem to click on colors other than red and, much less, bright yellow. So my Lime Green Salad have not been touched. Nor have my Jaune Flammee. Anything blushing red for two days is attacked, so I pick the red ones very early, as soon as I see a color change. Just got a 1.1 pound Dana's Dusky Rose with a nice pink on the bottom - been surveiling it for days to get it b4 the squirrels.

Apparently my squirrels are color blind. They are picking and eating green tomatoes. One of them was at least a 1 pound Brandywine and they ate the top half and left the rest on the wall. They always leave it sitting in a conspicuous spot with little tomato shreds around it. A few days ago one squirrel bit into 4 or 5 green tomatoes before finding one to his liking. Fortunately these were hybrids which aren't as scarce.

I've heard that putting a sleeve of some sort over the tomato will help protect it (like strip of nylon hosiery). I've got 2 huge German Queen tomatoes that should be blushing any day now and if they haven't started turning by this afternoon I'm going to cut up some hose for them. I will pick them at the very first sign of color.

2 years ago I had trouble with squirrels during a drought and I put slit solo cups over a good many tomatoes. That worked reasonably well until they learned to pop them off. Still, I wouldn't have gotten any tomatoes that year without the cups because they rampaged through my garden.

[ScottinAtlanta]

Yes, you are right, they like green as well!

I am now just shooting them - I figure thinning out the herd will save some tomatoes. They are bold enough so that when I clap my hands at them in the garden, they just bark at me and saunter away. A few pellets will train them real quick.

[TNTiger]

Originally Posted by ScottinAtlanta

Yes, you are right, they like green as well!

I am now just shooting them - I figure thinning out the herd will save some tomatoes. They are bold enough so that when I clap my hands at them in the garden, they just bark at me and saunter away. A few pellets will train them real quick.

I don't personally shoot them . . . but that's only because I haven't had a chance! My son however has taken out quite a few! I really didn't want to go this route but one morning I had 4 squirrels on my deck and they strolled by me when I walked out the door yelling at them. They were thumbing their noses and sticking out their tongues. The shooting gallery opened that evening.