How late into the fall do you let your tomatoes grow?

[Gardeneer]

Originally Posted by venturabananas

Wow, I wish mine were that fast. Mine averaged 8 weeks from the first opened flowers (which did set fruit) to the first ripe fruit. That was for several different varieties this year.

That (40 days ) was just a ball park number. Some small fruiting/cherries might take about 40 days and larger tomatoes will take upward of 55 day. But It also depends on the temperature , amount of sun exposure etc.

[gorbelly]

I would normally let cherry plants go until frost but I may pull them early this year because flavor is just not there with the latest pickings. They are in a spot this year that is getting very little sun now. The unripe coyotes should make cute pickles. I bet they'd be a nice substitute for olives in martinis.

I pulled Cherokee Purple back in August because of bacterial wilt (I'm fairly sure it was BW).

Last week Black Beauty was loaded with mature-sized fruit but collapsed suddenly from, of all things, southern blight (!), so I pulled it and had to console myself over the fact that I have southern blight of all things (@#$&%$*^!!) in my garden. Big Beef was next to it and unaffected, also loaded with fruit, but I pulled it for obvious reasons.

It's been a bizarre season disease-wise. Foliage diseases were not a problem except for the usual slow crud creep of early blight late in the season, but to get two unusual soil diseases and in new beds--something very weird going on.

Malakhitovaya Shkatulka is still very healthy, still ripening fruit at a good clip. Picked this one yesterday:

Not bad for such a late-season fruit. I may leave it until frost, or I may decide to harvest the unripe tomatoes, as I think unripe MS, in particular, will make excellent green tomato jam.

Franchi red pear is also healthy and loaded but not ripening very quickly. I want to plant some cover crops to help improve the soil in that bed so will pull it tomorrow. The green tomatoes should make good chutney.

Although temps are OK, my big problem is that I live in an area with a lot of old trees, and the lower sun angle just produces too much shade in my yard.

[slugworth]

I had plants in virgin soil,usual garden spot, and containers.
The virgin area only got hit with airborne diseases,same with the container plants.
The usual garden spot had both soil borne and air borne diseases.
I took cuttings yesterday from plants still alive and resistant, to clone.

[LK2016]

Wow, Gorbelly, that Malakhitovaya Shkatulka is magnificent!

Well, I had to murder the garden yesterday. So I harvested what I could, picking green Cherokee Purples, Brandywines, Celebrities, and Rutgers tomatoes, and just cutting off big ribbons of cherry tomatoes, Sun Gold, Sun Sugar, Super Sweet 100, and Black Cherry. I'll see what ripens over the next little while, otherwise may explore some green tomato recipes.

It is so annoying because the powers-that-be are insisting that we pick up everything, including the newspapers and cardboard I laid down to control weeds. There were so many worms enjoying that environment, that were unhappy when we picked it all up yesterday. The area where the community plots are laid out is really just in the middle of a field, and there has always been a HUGE problem with weeds. We had finally gotten our plot to a really good place over the past few years by keeping weed cloth or newspaper down over the winter/spring, and declining the annual rototiller or other form of dig-up that they offer. Stirring things up just seemed to stimulate the weeds. We just dug in some compost this year too that was fabulous. If we have to leave the plot uncovered through the winter/spring, it will be a big mess. We aren't even allowed to plant any ground cover that might amend the soil. Ugh.

Oh, well, so it goes.

[gorbelly]

Originally Posted by LK2016

Wow, Gorbelly, that Malakhitovaya Shkatulka is magnificent!

I was very happy with this variety this year. It coped well with cooler temps in spring and seems very happy right now--later-set fruit has not been puny or poor tasting. It got the same touch of EB as everything else, but the disease has been progressing incredibly slowly on it, even though I stopped spraying last month.

Like other GWRs, it's great in that critters are not at all interested in it.

My only complaint is that, for a beefsteak shaped tomato, it was unusually prone to the mushy, nasty form stealth BER--the kind that liquefies the bottoms of the tomatoes under the skin and completely ruins the entire fruit right as they're starting to turn ripe. But unlike most plants, which get BER early and then grow out of it, MS got it during the peak of summer. Of course, this summer was unusually brutal and those plants were in a new bed in heavy soil that just hadn't had time for much improvement, so I don't think this is the usual behavior and chalk it up to bad moisture control due to poor soil tilth + hot, dry conditions. And the variety is productive enough that some BER didn't leave me wanting for more tomatoes.

[LK2016]

Originally Posted by gorbelly

I was very happy with this variety this year. It coped well with cooler temps in spring and seems very happy right now--later-set fruit has not been puny or poor tasting. It got the same touch of EB as everything else, but the disease has been progressing incredibly slowly on it, even though I stopped spraying last month.

Like other GWRs, it's great in that critters are not at all interested in it ...

Very interesting, Gorbelly, I may have to try it. I've never grown the green tomatoes. I did taste a Green Zebra this year, and it was lovely.

I didn't know that critters were not interested in GWR tomatoes. My critters actually ate my tomatoes green this year for the first time, so I don't know. NJ groundhogs are truly voracious.

What did you spray to control EB?

[gorbelly]

Originally Posted by LK2016

Very interesting, Gorbelly, I may have to try it. I've never grown the green tomatoes. I did taste a Green Zebra this year, and it was lovely.

GWRs tend to taste very good, in my experience. Malakhitovaya Shkatulka is very intense and has that typical GWR herbal/spicy character but is less sweet and has more acid than many other GWRs I've tasted, though not quite to the tartness of the GZs I have tasted. MS also has a very buttery texture, unlike GZs I've had. It's a texture that does not keep well, but when you eat it at the right point of ripeness, it's truly luscious.

I didn't know that critters were not interested in GWR tomatoes. My critters actually ate my tomatoes green this year for the first time, so I don't know. NJ groundhogs are truly voracious.

Oh, I guess if you have denizens that are that aggressive, the being green thing won't deter them much. I'm fortunate in that, despite chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits, a groundhog and a vole all visiting my yard regularly, my tomatoes don't get harassed until they start blushing. MS eventually develops a pronounced amber/orange blush all over, but the critters around here still don't raid those plants.

What did you spray to control EB?

This year, I alternated Serenade and an organic copper soap (Bonide), and I sprayed preventatively from plant-out (in the past, I used only copper or a neem-based ready-to-use spray after fungal symptoms appeared). It has worked very well. I think Serenade has been very good against bacterial speck, which is usually a reliable plague on tomatoes around me and not particularly responsive to organic copper in the past. The EB has not been very destructive this year. It started pretty late, and it moved slowly. Hard to say whether I can definitively attribute plants' resistance to the spraying, though. Even though i got lazy and stopped spraying last month, MS and Franchi red pear (also a variety that I've been very pleased with) kept trucking.