How are everyones tomato's doing?

[Pappy]

My garden is doing very well this year as far as plants growing and not dying off. I haven't lost a single plant this year which is very unusual. My tomato plants are growing great the only problem is they hardly have any tomato's on them. I have some plants that are taller than me growing and they seem to be cherry tomato's. Problem is I did not buy any cherry tomato's. I believe the place I bought them from mislabeled them.

Now my pepper plants are doing excellent. I have lots of peppers already but no darn tomato's to make sauce. Looks like we might have to buy tomato's again this year. I posted a few pics of them. I seem to like the camera I bought my wife and am constantly using it. I may have to buy me one so she can use hers.

[lavender]

OK, I'm impressed. Mine is slowly recovering from all that rain. I've got some huge tomatoes but we need some warmer weather to ripen them. I think the peppers will recover but a lot of the other stuff is not going to give me much of a crop. Beans, corn, cucumbers and squash are looking good although I had to resort to extreme measures to keep the chipmunks from eating the seeds. 

[Pompeii]

Beautiful Garden!

 

I wish I had the time & patience to do something like that 

[Pappy]

I plant them and let them grow and that's it. I till the garden up which is only an hour or so. This year I used a weed barrier. I usually just put newspapers down and then mushroom compost on top. This year it was weed barrier and mushroom compost. The hardest part was cutting all the holes for the plants. With newspaper you just push the bulb planter tool through it with the cloth I had to cut the hole first. Next year wont be so bad as all I have to do is use the bulb tool. I guess it does take a bit of time to plant everything but once they are all planted. I just leave them go. My wife will spray an environmental soap on some of the plants like the cauliflower but other than that. I just leave it go. The best part is I do not have to weed. The extra work when planting is well worth it.

 

The only problem with chipmunks I have had lavender is they ate all my strawberries the little buggers.  The garden has come a long way considering it looked like this when I first started.  It's not very big either. I believe 18 foot wide and 40 feet long.

[lavender]

I had to put netting over the corn seed to keep it from being eaten. Ditto with the cucumbers, peas and melons. The squash seed I wrapped in little balls of sphagnum moss and placed netting around it. I used to use creosote but I can't get it anymore and the chippies have developed an immunity to garlic. 

I've seen several gardens this year that were thriving under plastic. It actually seems to have protected them from the rain. I've used plastic on parts of the garden with good results but it is just too large to cover the entire thing. We till between the rows and hand weed the rest. 

[Ickywood]

I do my gardening at the Farmer's Market!!

[sunny]

We have a ton of tomatoes but our plants appear to be dying off. We have one plant without a leaf on it anymore but the tomatoes are growing and ripening.

[fadedgenes]

My tomato plants look awful.  They are tall, but did not bush out.  The Amish paste plants have only one or two clusters of tomatoes on each plant and what was supposed to be Beef Stake are more like Duck Egg.      Other than that everything has done well. 

[geezerwriter]

Our tomatoes taste fine but, aside from the cherry ones, we don't have a lot per plant -- but we have 50 plants, so we have plenty. I think I need to pay attention to lime and fertilizer in the fall and spring.

[AJ04]

Mine regular tomatoes are terrible, the cherry ones are doing great. 

[Petee]

With all of the rain this year it has washed a lot of nutrients out of the soil regularly so be sure to fertilize with TOMATO food (I use Espoma Tomato Tone) and Epsom Salts.  Some Worm Wonder (Hanzeleys or Alvetros) will pep them up in a few days but it's a general greening plant food, not fruit support.  Did you do a Penn State Soil Test?  You could do one now and it might solve the lack of tomatoes problem.  If something is obviously low then you might correct it quickly and get more tomatoes if we don't get an early frost.

 

Did you have lots of blossoms?  Unless you had no bees then you should be getting tomatoes. Did all of your blossoms develop into tomatoes?  With so much rain this year it was difficult for them to even get out to the plants to do a good job.  If you didn't get blossoms clusters then that's a totally different problem, either the variety or fertilization.

 

Tall stringy plants usually result from lack of sunlight hours or too much nitrogen which is what you would find in blue Miracle Grow General Plant Food.  They do sell a tomato food but I've not had such good luck with it either.

 

The plant without leaves may have had Early Blight which would cause the bottom leaves to yellow and drop, then work it's way up the plant, but the tomatoes would still ripen.  They would not be as nice, but they would turn red.

 

If your tomatoes produced and stopped then you probably bought Determinate tomatoes which are designed to do that.  They are generally used for canning because they produce a lot at one time.  Indeterminate tomatoes will ripen week by week till they freeze or run out of sunlight.

 

Get that Penn State soil test done.  It pays off big time.  If you have other problems with gardening, then call a Master Gardener who will research and find answers to correct your problems.  849-7361

[WMJ77]

where do you get a soil test kit?

[legal]

I was checking out Geezerwriter's "tomato garden".  It seems to be coming up nice.

[Pappy]

I had my soil tested last year and took in a peeper plant to have tested. My soil was good and the plant had broad mites which killed off all my peppers last year. I must have got rid of that problem this year and my soil is good. WMJ77 I had mine done in Brookville they sent it to Penn State. It was $9 for the test kit. it had all the instructions and you just put the soil in the package and mail it off to them. They will send you the results. The pepper plant I took over to Brookville and she mailed for me. I do not believe that cost anything.

 

Penn State Extension

180 Main Street
Parker P Blood Block
Brookville, PA 15825-1234

[WMJ77]

ok, thx

[HJL6118]

This is our first garden this year.   Zuchini, yellow squash, and butternut - doing all very very well.   Rabbits ate all my lettuce.. and onion doing very well,  banana pepper... so so.. and tomatoes - we only have 6 plants.  3 doing very well, and the other three plants don't look so good, but they have lots of tomatoes

[Petee]

Where do you get a soil test kit?

 

You can definitely pick them up at Agway-DuBois or any Cooperative Extension, and possibly at DuBois Feeds.  They are $9.  You will never get such a good deal!

 

If you test now you will be able to amend for this year's garden and possibly salvage problem plants.  If you do it in early May 2014 then you're ready to go for next year too so just pick up a couple.  Once your tests have come back the same for two years you can generally skip a year if there are no major changes in your soil.

 

You collect samples from around the garden, sort out rocks and roots, then mail one cup of soil in the bag provided.  They ask for a list of what you want to grow and how many square feet you are dealing with for general gardening.  You get back a complicated looking form but on the back there are specific measurements of exactly what to add to the soil.

 

You can get extra testing done too for additional fees. http://www.aasl.psu.edu/ssft.htm

 

[Petee]

You can mail a plant directly to the lab also but you have to print the form from the internet.  Plants must be packed specifically for mailing so let me know first and I can give you the directions.  If anyone needs to do that I'll send you the link for the form.  If you drop it off at any Cooperative Extension they will mail it for you for free.  Otherwise you just pay the postage and mailing supplies. 

[Pappy]

You can mail a plant directly to the lab also but you have to print the form from the internet.  Plants must be packed specifically for mailing so let me know first and I can give you the directions.  If anyone needs to do that I'll send you the link for the form.  If you drop it off at any Cooperative Extension they will mail it for you for free.  Otherwise you just pay the postage and mailing supplies. 

 

 

 

That's what I did. I took mine to Brookville Cooperative Extension on Main Street.

[geezerwriter]

You need to know this is on the SECOND floor, probably 25 steps up, in that old building. Go slowly.

 

 

Penn State Extension

180 Main Street

Parker P Blood Block

Brookville, PA 15825-1234

[Petee]

Did you know they have a really nice elevator? :-)

[Dodgeman]

We have a ton of tomatoes but our plants appear to be dying off. We have one plant without a leaf on it anymore but the tomatoes are growing and ripening.

So is mine, I got 4 tomatoes off the one plant and then it turned brown.. My peppers are just getting about 2 inches long, not sure if they will mature..

[Petee]

This is a good and simple link about fertilizer.  Easy to understand.

http://www.gardensalive.com/article.asp?ai=1113

[lavender]

It's all this rain that has caused problems with veggie plants this year.  Roots need some oxygen in the soil. Saturated soil can't hold oxygen and root development is curtailed. Poor roots cause wilting, yellowing leaves, leaf drop and many other problems. I had wilting in my peppers this year and very poor root growth in the broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage. Some of the plants made a comeback as the root hairs grew back but some of them were too far gone to make a recovery. If you never had a problem with tomatoes before and are having yellowing, poor fruit development and wilting this year the problem is more likely too much rain rather than problems with the soil. 

The blossoms also have to be pollinated before they produce fruit and all the rain keeps pollinating insects from flying although I believe tomato blossoms self pollinate. They however do not pollinate if the weather is too cool. 

This may explain why some tomato plants carry few tomatoes this year:  http://gardening.wsu.edu/library/vege016/vege016.htm

[Petee]

So is mine, I got 4 tomatoes off the one plant and then it turned brown.. My peppers are just getting about 2 inches long, not sure if they will mature..

 

Did the entire plant suddenly turn brown, soggy and burned looking?