Stop! Please!
After 34 pints of sauce canned and in the pantry, and many, many dinners based on home-grown tomatoes, both I and the tomato plants are pretty well worn out. I'm pulling and tossing now. It was a great harvest.
I am not the sort of gardener who leaves the tomato plants for months and months, proudly picking a tomato or two at Christmas. Once they are mostly done, they are out of ground and gone. It may be that the soil is less prone to the nematodes, root blights, and viruses that flock to tomato root systems that way--or it may not matter at all. They may not be quite done, but I am.
Even the puppies got into the tomatoes. One day they counter-surfed when I wasn't looking and ate a large pile of 'Sweet 100's, leaving just the stems for me to clean up. That was fine. There were plenty more waiting to be picked.
Is that a 'Mortgage Lifter' or a 'Black Krim'?
Yummm...
After 34 pints of sauce canned and in the pantry, and many, many dinners based on home-grown tomatoes, both I and the tomato plants are pretty well worn out. I'm pulling and tossing now. It was a great harvest.
I am not the sort of gardener who leaves the tomato plants for months and months, proudly picking a tomato or two at Christmas. Once they are mostly done, they are out of ground and gone. It may be that the soil is less prone to the nematodes, root blights, and viruses that flock to tomato root systems that way--or it may not matter at all. They may not be quite done, but I am.
Even the puppies got into the tomatoes. One day they counter-surfed when I wasn't looking and ate a large pile of 'Sweet 100's, leaving just the stems for me to clean up. That was fine. There were plenty more waiting to be picked.
Is that a 'Mortgage Lifter' or a 'Black Krim'?
Yummm...
Wow. I'm super-jealous. What were your conditions this summer? What were the high temps, and for how long? I had no tomato harvest to speak of (although there are some fruits growing again now), and I'm not sure if I need to blame the heat, soil issues (it was a new raised bed), lack of water, or something else. So I'm collecting data from those who had bumper tomato crops.
ReplyDeleteIt really wasn't that hot (70s) until the second week of August, when we had 88F for 10 days, and by then the tomatoes were already on the downward slope. I was told to give them just enough water to stay alive, that the stress makes them fruit better and gives better flavor. Today when I was tearing out plants, I saw one bed had no drip system pipe---so they were producing and producing well without any water at all. That was quite a shock. They did get a good amount of water until they were about 12" tall, then they were supposedly only getting drip irrigation, but I forgot to connect this one bed.
DeleteI know they will not set fruit with nights above about 65F, so maybe that was a big problem with your terrible summer heat?
My raised beds and soil were all new this year too. No problems there.
I'd love to have had enough tomatoes already to get fatigued. We are impatiently waiting for the first (and only, plant-wise) Big Boy. Next year, at least one other variety, too.
ReplyDeleteThe puppies look impeccable, even after scarfing the seedy, wet Sweet 100s - how very tidy they are!
Yes I did drop a tomato at one point (splat!), and they did me the courtesy of polishing the floor clean...or should I say "clean"? They are tidy about food. Everything else is a different story.
DeleteNow that is too funny! I've never heard of dogs eating tomatoes... We only grow a couple plants here so I don't have enough to get tired of them but the frost always gets them before they run out of steam anyway...
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of it either. Baseboard was also a new one.
DeleteJust composted a tray of tomatoes that sat on the counter for two weeks -- we're tomatoe'd out too.
ReplyDelete