Can't leave for the weekend away much less a summer vacation..tomatoes need picking and processing, plants need weekly staking and tying up and supplemental waterings from the rainbuckets.
Who'd have thought three darn plants could rule my whole
summer?
I thought buying indeterminate varieties would give me a small but steady couple of tomatoes for salads and sandwiches.

Last storm, preceded by shooter marble-sized hail, blew down all the tomatoes,peppers and eggplant.
So I left them where they tipped over and the darn things just turn their stalks up and grow toward the sun with more blossoms, more baby veggies.

I swear, the only thing I fed the soil with was a light dose of 10-10-10 and about a half-gallon of pulverized peanut shells tilled into one 8' row.

Maybe I overdid the peanutshell thing.
Last time I used them, I got dinnerplate sized spinach leaves.

Beware of turtles!
One year I watched the ripening of a gorgeous eggplant and
when I fought through the garden to pick it, it was just the skin of the eggplant.
Turtle(s) ate almost the entire inside from the bottom up.
Now I see a turtle eaten half tomato in the garden close to the ground.
You can recognize their bite marks in the skin.
Now, the tomato plants (at least two of them) are overall speckled leaves. Not mildew but similar in appearance.
Getting plenty of rains and the area drains really well.
Not seeing any but a couple of small spiders on the plants.
Wondering if it's acid rain.
Plants still seem vigorous and producing new and ripening gobs.
Should I be worried?
There's powdery mildew down the opposite end of the garden but the cukes there seem to throw it off and keep producing and vine growing.

Are you not getting the rains we've been getting here in Charlotte? Seems possible that what we get off the mountains is angling down to SC and missing your area.

I counted 34 cluster tomatoes like the fancy imported ones you buy by the cluster in the market.
There's 42 on the counter(again), 17 bigger ones..yellows and reds in a basket, 30 in a plastic bin and 9 yellows in the fridge.
Enough already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And, another wrinkle..tomato fruitworms. If a tomato suddenly turns red, chances are it's either attacked by a fruitworm or chomped on by a turtle.
Finding hornworms now of all different sizes (instars?) but the plants were so leafy before the ozone attack that they went unnoticed.
I'm still tired of tomatoes. It's time to rip 'em out, weed,cover for a couple weeks and then plant the spinach and fall stuff.

Where are these turtles coming from? I want some! I guess you have a lovely creek on your property- jealous!

As for tomatoes, sick to death of em! I toss handfuls that have rotted in the trash daily because I can't keep up. And, due to the rain, I'm losing about 1/2 of the cherries to splitting. I'm just leaving those on the ground for whomever- not turtles... I'm getting ready to start ripping too!

Oh, and my eggplant leaves have tons of speckles too but little bugs are on the undersides. I sprayed to no avail- I think they liked it- EEK!

Memories of showing my FIL ,an old truck farmer, the lush growth of my first efforts with eggplant.
He immediately stepped in and practically denuded my plants of all but the topmost leaves. Needless to say I was furious but that year there were few flea beetles and the eggplant developed above the reach of bugs and turtles.

I am convinced that wood turtles will travel great distances in response to the scent of ripened,nearly over ripe fruit like melons and tomatoes.
One year they got up under an eggplant and only left the skin. Their bites leave distinctive marks that identify the culprit and although I have caught them lurking in the daytime I decided to leave them alone rather than relocate them.

I wish I lived near you (I'm in Raleigh). My tomatoes were an epic fail this year for some unknown reason. I would gladly take some of your harvest!

loveto..one Rudgers,one low-acid orange(yellow orange) and one I forget ..maybe that German variety.

Blossom end rot..use powdered lime worked into the soil next year ..not a heavy dose. You can always dust a little around the plant root area mid season.

The peanut shells need to be pulverized in a highspeed blender and you want to work them into the second 6" layer of soil below the topsoil. That unexpected boost of nitrogen really boosts plant growth to the main roots especially if you plant your tomatoes deeply.
Away from air and sun, the peanut shell pieces work for up to 3 years before needing replenishing.

Trim off those lower leaf stalks the day you notice them discoloring/spotting and keep the regrowth from the trimmed area pinched off. Ground splash in watering/rainfall combined with shade and poor air circulation kills off those lower leaf sets(not to mention they are the oldest of the plant growth).

I'm just glad the commercial growers that provide us with young tomato plants are tagging which are indeterminate/determinate.
Someday, they'll realize the need to de-mystify the terms so people can better choose the type that best serves their needs.
Not everyone likes to can or preserve one heavy crop of tomatoes. Some of us like a half dozen or so tomatoes a week during a longer season.

As I believe it, determinate varieties put out one main heavy crop then intermittent production afterwards. Popular with truckfarmers in areas where rainfall is more dependable earlier in the season.