Return to the Growing Tomatoes Forum
| Post a Follow-Up
Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
Posted by yardenman z7 MD (My Page) on Mon, Oct 12, 09 at 20:05
| This was probably the worst tomato season I have ever had and I really don't know why!
1. The Brandywines died earlier than usual (July this year).
2. The other heirlooms were astonishingly unproductive (except the the ever-reliable Cherokee Purple).
3. All the tomatoes failed to produce after August (and it wasn't a hot Summer).
4. Most of the tomatoes were in soil untouched by any nightshade family plants for 5 years.
5. I had early chills in October, so the Cherokee Purple fruits that grew in September won't ripen.
6. The cherry tomato lost all its leaves in July and I never found a hornworm on it anywhere (and it is in a hanging basket). I am just starting to get fruits again.
7. The weather was less humid than usual this year (it is normally high here in MD).
Did others of you in this area (or other locales) have similar problems this year? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
| In Fairfax, VA Brandywines were not productive the exception was Brandy Boy which is still trying to produce. Ind8an Stripe, Cherokee Purple, Cherokee Green, KBX, Goose Creek are still producing with fruit size smaller, Neves Azorean Red still trying to go and set more tomatoes. Toms Yellow Wonder just finished. Sun Gold is going strong and Juliet still producing. So DW is happy and I'm look forward to working on some new one's in 2010 to try out. Jeff's Pink Mystery Oxheart, Applause, Biltmore, Momotaro, Spears Tenn Green, Golden Queen, Kelloggs Breakfast, Limbaugh Legacy Potato Top, Emma Pink and Tommy Toes will take a break next year and give their spots to Summer Cider, Cowlick Brandywine, Cuostralee, Chapman, Dr. Lyle, Lucky Cross, Manyel, Mule Team, VA Sweet, Northern Lights. Will also try the Dwarfs ... New Big Dwarf, Lucky Leprechaun, German Extreme Dwarf Bush, Golden Dwarf Champion and Citron Compact. Several more are to be added as I acquire seeds... So many thanks to all for your help and great information shared this season and looking forward to posting more pictures next year. George |
RE: Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
| Here's my final 2009 Report. I took advantage of the nice weather the other day to tear down my tomatoes and peppers because we will be getting cold starting tomorrow. I have a ton of green tomatoes indoors now and history has told me about half will ripen, a quarter will rot and the rest dry out. There were 7 tomato plants still looking very good including all 4 of the KBX. The rest were pretty much diseased up. Here's my Report: Tomato Season 2009
Cold rainy spring followed by a cooler than normal rainy summer. Weather finally nice in September! I'm giving this year a 7 out of 10. A few plants were hit by V-Wilt I think. Most others hit by EB, specs and spots. I dodged the East Coast Late Blight scourge. 27 plants this year. PL's do better for me than RL's. I grow organic and spray nothing.
Big Beef 64 Days Old Reliable
Juliet 65 Plenty for Batting Practice
Jetstar 66 Second year failure here. Disease Magnet.
Mountain Spring 87 Perfect looking. Why area farmers all grow them.
Momotaro 93 Sweetest in Garden and great looking but I'm already married to a girl named Sudduth.
Brandywine Sudduth 94 Good Production and a BLT Must Have.
Brandy Boy 94 Almost as good as Sudduth.
Marianna's Peace 94 Just a nice all around tomato.
Big Zac 95 Two pounders only this year.
Gary' O Sena 98 Man I love this one!
Earl's Faux 98 Average in every way.
NAR 100 Some years great others not. 2009 NOT.
Chapman 101 See Marianna's Peace
KBX 101 Late but GREAT!
KBX (Winter Sown) 103
Brandywine/NAR cross F3 103 Disappointing. Way too much disease. Saved seed but don't know if I'll go F4. What I learned this year: Gary'O Sena is a great tasting treat!
Be prepared to wait forever if we ever have this cool a summer again. (Man, I was finally used to the HOT ones!)
Don't wait too long to rebar stake your homemade CRW cages before they are flat on the ground and your power is out but you can still keep your drink cool with the hail ice on your deck while you're sawing the tree limbs the 70MPH winds just tore down. (My Texas cages held up just fine BTW)
Yes Virginia, (and Delaware too) you CAN Winter Sow tomato plants in this zone 7 region and it’s a lot less fuss than indoor babying.
Savor every season for what it is. |
RE: Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
| I still have almost 100 tomatoes on the vine. 25 Cherokee purples just set in the last week or so - don't think they'll make it before the first frost. So sad because I've only eaten about 4 all season. Enchantment, carmello, cp and yellow submarine all set up till a few weeks ago but carmello very disappointing with only a few fruit the entire season. I'll have my tallies next month or whenever we get our first frost. Better than expected but still with no June sun most of the tomatoes were super late. I also only get 4 hours of sun a day in the summer so missing the month really put me back in time. |
RE: Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
| I have at least a dozen CP fruits developing. None of which will ripen. You aren't going to have much luck with 4 hours of sun per day, BTW... |
RE: Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
| yardenman I had great luck with my 4 hours of sun. Almost all produced nicely 2 sets of fruits. Beefy boy, applause, enchantment and yellow submarine had really nice fruit set. Maybe because I get afternoon sun which was quite strong in the summer but not too strong to cause sun scald. Now I'm getting less than 4 and the weather stinks so no sun. The tomatoes are still growing though. |
RE: Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
| This was my worst year for tomatoes in Zone 5/6. My basement seedlings did not do well, although I should have cleaned better. I relied on the volunteer plants, which came up late as they always do. Nine cherry and one large fruit plant. A total of less than five hundred cherry tomatoes; I can remember three years ago when a two inch rain caused 200-300 toms to split on one SINGLE plant in one day. |
RE: Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
| I think it was horrible for all. I only grew 6 mater plants this year (2 cherry, 2 EG & 2 SMarzano). Every single tomato that gew on the Marzano's I had to pull with BER. I pulled close to 100 over about 2 months before I got fed up & tossed the plants. :-\ I think, mainly, the crazy weather (about a month straight of rain in Sping, etc..) is what caused most of the issues this year. |
RE: Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
| The season started late with frosts right till the 4th week of may. Then the rains came that lasted till end of july, August and September was nice though. Surprisingly my maters didn't suffer from too many diseases and most of them were relatively healthy and productive right till the frosts came this past week. The odd spots and grey mould were the only diseases suffered. All in all a good enough season. |
RE: Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
It was a great tomato year for some and for others not so well in production. As I did the year before I started them again this year using the winter-sow method on 4/18:
'Manitoba'
'Black Plum'
'Purple Prince'? (tho marked 'Purple Russian')
'Russian Persimmon'
'Black Cherry'
'Cherokee Green'
This spring was exceptionally cool and I still hadn't had any germination by 5/5. Up until that date we had rec'd just one day time high of 70F and a few days at 60F but for the most part it was stuck around 40-50F with lows between 36-40F. Starting the night of the 5th I began bringing my containers indoors near a radiant space heater and setting them back outdoors in the a.m.; full sun. Within 3 nights of doing this each variety had at least 1-2+ germinated and then remained outdoors to continue germination. The seedlings were between the 1st and 2nd set of true-leaves when I transplanted then into the prepared tomato bed on May 25th. I prepared the bed by mixing in compost and then covering with black plastic garbage bags 2 weeks prior. Clear plastic warms faster, but black plastic prevents light from hitting any unwanted seed from sprouting while still warming the soil well enough. Eventually (no later than June 10th) the plastic was removed and replaced with thick layers of straw/dried grass clippings.
All the tomatoes did well the entire season as far as disease or pest issues were concerned. The 2 'Black Plum' Tomatoes were completely loaded and the first to begin maturing, followed by 'Cherokee Green' which was hardly a big producer at all. The 2 plants produced a total of about 12-15 fruits....very yummy and were the favorite of both my DH and I. I have several freezer bags full of 'Black Plum' which will be turned into sauce I hope this week. I also have another 4 dozen or so lining a long box that was the last of the mature to get harvested; they keep very well. The 2 indeterminate types 'Manitoba' and 'Russian Persimmon' slowed down in the hottest part of the season, but quickly made up for it later. The 'Manitoba' however didn't have enough time to mature too many before the record low temps arrived (12-15F consecutively), but we were able to harvest a good many from the 'Russian Persimmon' starting around September 8th-10th. We really liked the flavor of this one, but can't say they are the best for sandwiches as they are much too soft/juicy. We didn't have any problems with cracking or BER...no blemishes at all really to speak of.
The 'Purple Russian' turned out to possibly be 'Purple Prince', however the foliage as described by many growers was as ugly as the 'Russian Purple'...the fruits were medium round and reddish/purple and not too many.
The 'Black Cherry' were by far the least favorite. The flavor was just so so and by far the least productive of any tomato I've ever seen or grown. I'm not sure if it was our low summer humidity or what but blossoms fell all season and produced maybe 3-4 to maturity. It wasn't until the first week in September that they started speeding up production but too late to ripen more than a few. Picture of 'Russian Persimmon on Sept. 15th'; notice they look yellow in picture but are really orange :)
Sept. 23rd... box with 'Russian Persimmon', 'Black Plum', 'Cherokee Green' and a 'Manitoba'. I filled it the rest of the way with 'Black Plum' by Sept. 27th
 |
RE: Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
| Ya know, this freakishly cool year was a pretty good one up here, but then, we didn't have a lot of rain like so many of the chillier places did. Everything was late, and of course, the heat and the rain came at the same time, so my early fruits were few but awesome, the main crop was less tasty and the big'uns split like crazy...and of course, when it rains it pours, my boyfriend gor critically ill just when the main crop was coming in, lost a lot of the harvest...still put up 4 dozen qts of juice and 2 of whole tomatoes. All in all, even with planting in the same spot two years and the cold, it's been the best year yet for my patch. Beautiful colors, no BER, healthy plants inito September, several varieties that i kept planting just cause i had the seeds really hit the mark, Peach, Black Sea Man(I call it Purple Sailor), Stupice and Brandywine which hadn't done well for the last 3 years were crazy tasty. Strange, ain't it? |
RE: Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
| I always wonder when people have a "bad" year if they bought plants or started from seed - many years ago when I wasa plant buyer I had good years and bad - finally came to the conclusion that many plant growers sell plants - and some seed companies that already have diseases - would it be possible to tell where/how you obtained plants - I use TGS, TomatoFEST heirloom acres Baker creek as a few suppliers - but over the years had plenty of disappointments |
RE: Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
| I bought 3 plants from Laurel - carmello, eva purple ball and yellow submarine 0 which was a substitution. Only the YS did well. The rest I started from seed- cherokee purple, beefy boy, applause, cherry sweetie and enchantment. CP didn't do well till september unfortunately so I won't get a good yield at all. The rest did pretty well that I started from seed |
RE: Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
| I grow my own seedlings, and they were in great shape this Spring. But it was late blight that struck early... On the other hand, I do have one nice Aunt Gerties Gold that ripened and some Cherokee Purples are breaking color in a week forecast to mid 60's. So maybe I will get more... (yay). |
RE: Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
I had a very good tomato season this year. They seemed to like our wet June which surprised me. I also managed to avoid late blight (I do spray regularly). My tomatoes and peppers are still bearing, although ripening much more slowly, in spite of several nights that got down to 32F and one rather significant snow. The plants didn't get bitten by frost.
John A |
RE: Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
| Great year for tomatoes here:) |
RE: Terrible Tomato Season
| | |
| Yup, my season was awful! Not much production from my main varieties (Giant beefsteak, Amish paste, and Pink Oxheart). However, my little Sub Arctic Plenties went nuts! They just kept on producing too, unlike most determinates! I was shocked. I got 4 full harvests out of them, despite everything they went through this summer! They are smaller than I usually prefer, but given the weak crop from my other tomatoes, who was I to complain!!! |
Post a Follow-Up
Please Note: Only registered members are able to post messages to this forum. If you are a member, please log in. If you aren't yet a member, join now!
Return to the Growing Tomatoes Forum
|
|
|
