Tomato disasters of 2008

[nctomatoman]

Now that we are beyond Tomatopalooza, I am taking stock of this very weird growing season. The five consecutive 100 degree days in May did us no favors....and the occasional rain, combined with the pretty consistent heat of 90 degrees or more all added up to a bizarre, only sporadically successful year. I am not done yet, but it is clear from my results, the tomatoes tasted at Tomatopalooza, and the remote farm that grows my plants for a restaurant that if the 2008 pattern becomes a rule rather than an exception, we are going to have to reevaluate how to best grow tomatoes around here!

Indeterminates lost to Bacterial Wilt with little to no fruit: Ashleigh (will get a few fruit for seed, but none to get a representative taste), Linnie's Oxheart (ditto), Tom's Yellow Wonder (got a few large green fruit, shelf ripened for seed, no flavor), Grub's Mystery Green (no fruit at all), Lincoln Adams (one fruit ripened off the vine for seed - it is a pink, not a red).

Indeterminates that got hit by Bacterial Wilt a bit later on - got some fruit, but now plants are gone: Five of the new Dwarf F1 crosses (Grizzly, Nosey, Loopy, Sneaky, Plucky)

Indeterminates with Fusarium wilt - hanging in there, but not thriving: Hillbilly, Regina's Yellow, Lucky Cross, Sungold, Mexico Midget

For some good news, these plants are in the midst of those above and continue to thrive: Black Cherry, Casey's Pure Yellow, Little Lucky, Blue fruited oddball, Spears TN Green, Cherokee Chocolate, Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, and quite a few of the new F1 Dwarf crosses.

I found that many of the dwarf project advanced generation dwarfs came down with this or that wilt - only two with Tomato Spotted Wilt (Summer Sunrise, Chocolate Champion)...as did New Big Dwarf. Bacterial Wilt seemed to take those that are in the Happy family, which has Paul Robeson as a parent. The Sneezies, Sleepies and Witties all look very good, as do the Cheekies. Fusarium wilt seems to most affect the Dopey offspring.

So, late fruit, few fruit, less highly flavored fruit, endless watering, diseases...and the deer have been visiting lately. Interestingly, very, very few stink bugs, fruit worms or tomato hornworms (the silver lining in the clouds!).

What's up with your seasons???

[montanamato]

First year in five I have not lost any plants to curly top....I guess planting out 6/25 had a few advantages...
Only a few days over 90 and the the nights have just begun to get out of the low 50's...Plants are much lusher than normal, but fruit set is way behind...
Surprised that Cuban Black and Matt D'Imperio set first...Also the PL plants are really flowering and huge...Olive Hill and Amish Old Red are the the most impressive of the PL...
My containers are behind too...Only Ditmarsher has been producing , but Bushy Charbonovsky is starting to turn...Japanese Dwarf is loaded...The variety Red Bob's is loaded also, and a first time grow. All the dwarf project plants were put in cold frames as I feared for grasshoppers...They are huge and healthy, but just setting fruit now...
Even my peppers are just starting to set...Only eating Velarde and a few Fresno...
Still hoping for a record late frost...

Jeanne

[carolyn137]

Nothing to report yet, plants blossoming, setting fruit, and nada to be known for many weeks hence.

But I'm posting b'c Craig, you said that your Lincoln-Adams is pink yet the fruit sent to me in the mail from the originator was red.

I have a plant out there in the tomato cemetery and time will tell what color it will be.

I call it my tomato cemetery b'c most of the plants out in the back are in white grow bags and they're all lined up 4 to the row with several rows and I can't help it, but they do look like small tombstones to me.

I've only lost one plant so far, a new green when ripe, and I don't know what happened to it. Freda is leaving the one stem left with practically no leaves on it out there so we shall see. All the others are lush and so far no foliage diseases.

This has been, so far, the hottest most humid summer I've experienced in a long time and this past week we were just deluged with rain. Saturday night there was about 6 hours of continuous thunder and frequent lightning and torrential downpours. I suppose better now re the rain when the fruits are small and growing rather than later when it could have been splitsville.

[TZ-OH6]

What is blue fruited oddball?


So far so good here. Spring nights were a bit chilly until June, but good weather so far. Marianas Peace, AGG, and Lucky Cross getting hit by foliage fungus for some reason, but RL plants are not.

[Ruth_10]

I have pretty good fruit set on most of my plants (25+ on one of the BWS), but the entire tomato patch has been slow to ripen. Stink bugs have been a problem early, as have corn borers--lots of greenies with damage. Bug pressure has been very, very high throughout the garden this year. Then there's the turtle. I have been blaming other critters for eating the low hanging fruits, but I've seen our resident box turtle sniffing out the tomatoes and I think he's the culprit. He's sampling the cantaloupe and watermelons as well.

We have had many days in the upper nineties but no 100 deg days so far. But rain, my gosh. We've had over 4 inches since Monday. (We'd had almost a year's worth of rain by the end of May this year, so we weren't really hurting for more moisture.) We got an inch of that in about 10 minutes last night. The front that came through knocked over my three dwarf plants (two Sweet Sue and one Happy vial 2039). They are in cages but weren't staked. Now they are. The plants are quite large--about 4 ft tall. Fruit set for the dwarves was late but there are a fair number now.

So far the flavor has been so-so, even before the blast of rain this past week. I think our past three years of draught gave better flavor--I mulch heavily with newspaper and straw, so the roots stay happy, and the foliage and fruits are happier with not too much rain and plenty of sunshine.

Consistent with other years, Earl's Faux has ripened earlier than Brandywine Sudduth. Slow ripeners are Winsall, Nepal (both have pretty skimpy fruit set), Tony's Italian, Lucky Cross, KBX, and Maiden's Kiss. Monomahk's Hat is giving me many one pounders. Marianna's Peace as well.

[PaulF]

The cool, wet spring has been replaced with the normal hot dry summer. My 24 plants (not including the dozen dwarfs in pots) are thriving with lots of green fruit. This week there have been a few ripe tomatoes but we are at least two weeks behind last year. Zero tomatoes for the county fair.

The ripe ones have been very tasty: Wes, Russian 117, Strawberry Red Heart, Sylvan Guame, Reif Red Heartand Yugoslavian Heart. The second and third Eagle's Beak were very good as opposed to the first which was very ordinary. I think because of the early heavy rains some are a little on the grainy side but still good.

My plants are beginning to have a wilt of some kind, starting from the bottom and rising. Two reasons for this and both are my own fault. I was so engrossed in our local 4th of July celebration planning, no mulch got applied under and around the plants. Secondly, to get a few more varieties into a limited space I planted the tomatoes a little closer together this year and it's a jungle out there. They all need more air flow.

The doggone potatoes and green beans will have less space next year and I will return to my regular spacing.

So far it is too early here to tell if it is a good year or not.

[shelleybean]

Between the TSWV, the Fusarium and the squash vine borer on the other side of the garden, it's easy to get discouraged. I think TSWV is here to stay and like Craig said, it changes the way we garden from now on. I used to devote about 75% of my garden to tomatoes. Now it's about 30% because of disease. I also used to grow several varieties each season but now I kind of feel like I should stick with what's worked in the past. I've kind of taken the "if it aint broke, don't fix it" attitude in the garden.

On the other hand, we actually had a spring here this year. We usually just go from cold to hot, but we had a nice extended period of great weather, except for that really hot stretch of days the first week of June. My plants set tons of fruit. I had to pull half my plants early on because of disease but had planned ahead and had back up plants to put in their place. These plants also have a lot of fruit set and look nice and healthy at this point. I hope they'll stay that way for a while longer and keep me in tomatoes through the end of the summer. Luckily, I have not seen any stink bug or mocking bird damage this year...knock on wood!

[jcmorse33]

In this area the week of 100+ degree weather at the end of May got combined with a severe thunderstorm that dropped 2+ inch hail here which did quite a job on the garden. Almost all of my indeterminates suffered broken branches and growing tips in the hail and were severely set back by the heat. Fortunately the dwarf tomato plants pulled through with little apparent effect (asside from some dropped blossoms and fruit scarring).

This has had the effect of my garden producing very little large fruit at this point. Except from the six dwarf plants I am growing the only non-cherries I have picked have been three red brandywine which set despite the heat.

Since then my dwarf plants have been hit pretty hard by what I assume is early blight, though some of the stem blackening seems to be targetting fruit truss stems quite specifically so I may have something else as well. Still I've gotten some good fruit from each dwarf plant and saved seed and the indeterminates are coming on strong now with good fruitset in the 80-90 degree weather the last few weeks. Hornworms have been largely absent, and deer in this area have been leaving my plants alone (except my beans). Vine borers I managed to avoid by putting my summer squash in containers up on my back deck and I seem to have beaten the squash bugs with trellising my cucumbers (those that survived the hail) and handpicking and killing the adults before they could lay eggs in the morning and the evening. Voles have not been an issue since putting in hardware cloth under all my raised beds (that was a workout!).

All in all a good year except for the torture of going through June and early July with little fruitset on my indeterminates and being forced to stare at greenies now when I would normally be feasting.


--Justin

[carolyn137]

it's red, medium size , leaf is potato

..... is what I just extracted from some info I have about Lincoln-Adams, Craig.

Freda said the foliage was RL, which is what I recorded, but I'll have her check again and bring me in some leaves.

The fruit sent to me was maybe about 4-6 oz and quite oblate and ripened up red. I didn't save seeds from it knowing that the same person had sent me seeds.

I'm curious to know if you have RL or PL foliage on your plant.

[retiree]

Hi-Just checked my leaves on Lincoln Adams. They are PL and I know Craig's are as well because he told me so.

Neil G. (Canada)

[nctomatoman]

Fruit was definitely pink - oblate, ribbed/lobed - plant was kind of unusual in being the palest green colored PL I've yet seen (no hint of the bluish tint that some have).

[Patapsco Mike]

Here in Z7 Maryland I put very large, rootbound tomatoes into my raised beds extra-early, mid-April, and it proved to be a great (albeit lucky) move. I'm picking 8-10 tomatoes a day from just 8 plants. Fruits are large and mostly blemish-free. Fruits set early and often, and it may prove to be my best year ever.

I have few stinkbugs, no hornworms (though I see the moths in my primrose every evening) and no disease issues at all. My only problem is that 3 of the 8 tomatoes I grew are not the variety they were supposed to be. Luckily, all but one are pretty tasty.

[BigdaddyJ]

After reading some of your reports above I feel for those of you having problems because I know how much you all look forward to the tomato season...

I am having the earliest disease problems that I can recall in my 17 years of growing. I suspect it was the cloudy cool May and June weather. I also am organic and don;t spray anything. But despite the early disease on mostly my RL plants and later ripening my season is in full production right now. My kitchen is full of tomatoes. My report thus far:

SunGold, fabulous as usual first to ripen. Minor disease.

Momotaro, some disease but nice production and man I love the taste!

Big Beef, Old reliable. Lots of disease but new growth continues to set and ripen fruit.

Big Zac, same notes as Big Beef

Chapman, FINALLY I have a nice plant and it's a tall bushy plant with excellent production and a very good taste. Only minor disease. Last year Chapman failed. Nice big tomatoes the way I like em.

Porterhouse, 1 plant half the size of the other because it got whacked by disease but still producing. The taller plant doing well with minor disease. This variety amazes me. So many 2 plus pounders on one plant. Beats Big Zac size wise. This is the biggest variety I've ever grown. I grow this for size alone. I rate the taste OK but nothing like a NAR or Brandywine. And they look good too.

Brandywine, both plants doing great. Hardly any disease. Lots of ugly toms though this year more than usual but my all time favorite taster and my BLT first choicer...

BrandyBoy, both plants also doing great. Again, three years running, BrandyBoy ripens about a week before Brandywine and it's a little more productive and tastes almost as good as Brandywine. Best thing Burpee ever created.

NAR, a tale of 2 plants. One hit real hard with disease only a third the size of the other. The other plant also hit hard with disease but it's a monster bush that keeps growing and producing anyway. My second favorite behind Brandywine for taste. Now, can someone please make this in PL for me...LOL

Orange Heirloom, also a tale of 2 plants. One hit very hard by disease and the other just a little and twice the size of the first plant. This is a vey nice tasting tomato. I can't wait to conduct taste tests with my neighbors vs KBX. (Annual summer ritual)

KBX, Three plants all doing GREAT! They laugh at the rampant disease out there. Huge plants loaded with fruit but I still haven't tasted one yet. It will be two more days for my first ripe. Just like KB last to ripen in my garden year after year but hopefully worth the wait. If they taste like KB than I finally found the perfect orange. Bye Bye CRUD! LOL

OK, what did I learn this year? Carolyn is right. PL plants offer way better protection against disease than RL. So here's what I need for next year. PL versions of NAR, Chapman, Momo, Big Beef and Big Zac. I know you guys can do it....

[BigdaddyJ]

OK, I forgot Marianna's Peace. Two plants, both doing very well. See, it's that PL protection I tell ya!

[gssgarden]

Bugs, bugs, bugs.! All year. As soon as they got to be about 4 feet, the buffet was open!!. Hornworms took alot away from my plants. In one weekend, I took 17 of 24 plants. Ugh. Leaf footed bugs just won't go way. Tried the vacum but they just kept coming back.
Jap beetles love Eggplant too. It has come back nicely and will pick my first one this week.
Wilt took my Tom's Yellow Wonder, Italian Purple, and other just as they were loading up with fruit. Managed to save some fruit but it's just upsetting after you care so much for them.

Same here with the 100 degree days. It took soooo much life from the plants. Lost ALOT of flowers. But the second wind they had is making for a nice late summer rush of toms.

Greg