Bush Early Girl

I’m not much of a fan of Early Girl Tomatoes, but the owner of the fertile garden loves them, so I grew some bush Early Girls. I chose to grow Bush Early Girl because I have no inclination to grow in any very large home-made tomato cages. The 5 foot tomato cages are generally my standard cage size and I prefer determinate varieties due to generally less disease issues and reduced need to clean up the vines post-harvest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The plant was quite productive. The owner seemed to enjoy them and the couple that I tried tasted pretty good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rise and Fall of Tomatoes

2021 was not a very good tomato year for me. To date, that would make over half of my years as a gardener now. Honestly – some people have a gift for growing tomatoes while others, like myself, experience every kind of pest, pathogen and persistent pressure that promotes pitiful production. This year it was leaf curl, courtesy of some menacing whiteflies. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I had some some beautiful Taxi tomatoes that got taken out by the whiteflies, but I had some Ace 55 plants that took over. The Ace 55s were okay, but something kept making holes in them just as they would begin to ripen. My daughter also brought by a hybrid cherry tomato plant, which kind of did its own thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We gardeners tend to be an optimistic lot, so – here’s to next season!

Sweet Potatoes and Yellow Tomatoes

While 2020 was a good year for growing throughout the United States, I had a little trouble growing out in the keyhole garden I call the “chicken garden”. It is not that it didn’t produce. It is mainly that there was so many plants competing for water and other resources that their production was somewhat small.While we did have a good crop of Taxi tomatoes, they seemed to grow smaller at the Chicken garden, then they did at my home.

 

The sweet potatoes I planted seemed to be very similar. They did not produce as well as I would have anticipated. That being said, given the density of the plants in the spring, I was happy to get much by the late fall. 

The sweet potatoes were picked late and harvested sometime in November/December. Unfortunately, the pictures I took do not give justice to the harvest.

Finally there was the fire. As you can see in some of the pictures, the light is yellow. This is because of all of the smoke that was present in the air from late July through the majority of August due to a local fire.

 

 

 

 

 

Serenade – Reversing the effects of Rot & Disease

So – in several other posts I have brought up the incredible benefits I have seen this last year by spraying some Serenade (Bacillus subtilis strain QST 713) on my plants. Though it is not a miracle cure for every plant problem that a gardener will encounter, Serenade did a fantastic job of helping my garden to thrive.

 

First of all, let me say that Serenade is no longer in production. Bayer purchased the company that made this product and has been distributing it on an extremely limited basis by a trade name that includes many other chemical pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. So trusting in Bayer to continue producing this product may not be a gardener’s best bet.

The exact same product, in larger quantities (starting at 1 gallon) and at a higher price is available by the name of CEASE by BioWorks. The main retail website to purchase this product is through Arbico Organics, who pays me nothing to say any of this.

So – what are the benefits of Bacillus subtilis strain QST 713? Especially before the fruiting stage of plant growth, this bacteria helps both the leaves and roots of the plant to flourish. Exactly how they promote healthy plant growth is unknown to myself, through I believe that they must, in some way, outcompete other “bad” bacteria to provide the plant with greater access to nutrient and more efficient use of sunlight than the plant would otherwise be able to experience. I don’t believe that there is a direct impact on the leaf, like is the case with many fungicides. Instead, the plant is provided the ability and opportunity to heal itself.

What are my experiences with this product? Increased growth in my cucumbers and tomatoes. Healing my cucumber, tomato and banana plants from environmental, bacterial and fungus conditions that would otherwise have killed the plants. What more can I say? Like I said, it is no miracle product, but – when applied every other week – it can make a huge difference in ensuring that plants continue to grow in a steady productive manner until the crop has matured.

Finally, I will try to make sure to link you to both the video I made along with the webpages where you can find this product.

The Amazing Taxi Tomatoes in a 10 inch hydroponic basket (in a 5 gallon bucket)

Of all the fool-proof tomato plants that I have grown, I don’t believe that I have ever grown anything that compares with the Taxi tomato. This tomato variety is, by far, the most dummy-resistant variety. It can suffer multiple stress-related injuries to the plant and its roots and still live to produce a decent crop of tomatoes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The tomato plant that I have pictured is in a 10 inch hydroponic basket within a 5-gallon bucket. The plant did extremely well and, given the conditions, produced very nicely. The tomatoes of this variety are ripe when they turn from bright yellow to a more golden-yellow color.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Would I recommend this variety for a container? Yes. There are very few tomato varieties that I believe would truly thrive in a container, but this is definitely one of them.

 

2019 Tomato Issues

Given that I now live in a city holds a tomato festival in August each year, one would believe that I would have an easy time growing tomatoes. Unfortunately, my intermittent success (or lack of success) continues to follow me from Tucson. Though I started with what should otherwise be a very disease-resistant variety, here are a few of the problems that befell me:

1. I forgot to harden off a dozen plants, which got sunburned – which then became diseased from being weakened. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who forgets this very simple rule – because store-bought transplants are supposed to have come from outside – right?

2. I put the plants in a plastic container to keep the roots from getting dried out, but the wet roots weakened the plants and they died.

3. I planted a few living plants into a good plot with lots of afternoon sun. Then they got splashed with chlorinated water from the pool. This burned the leaves and chlorinated the soil. Then the plants became diseased. The disease slowed their growth until I finally decided to pull the poor plants out. I transplanted new plants one of which survived. However, the majority of the last transplants experienced the same fate.

Cutting off stem for re-rooting.

dipping in the rooting hormone (which did very little)

Put it in water

Repeat

Repotting the plant for additional transplants

Tomato hornworm moth egg

Tomato Hornworm found on plants at night

The chlorinated pool

The thriving tomato plants near the pool.

After being splashed with chlorinated water

White spotting on the leaves

After the plants had grown for a little while

The leaves began to curl

Growth was stunted

 I also grew out a few transplants from some suckers, or offshoots, of one tomato plant. The majority of my 2019 tomato plants were store-purchased Celebrity tomato plants. Though I used to think that Celebrity tomatoes were the very best tomato variety to grow, I’m beginning to believe that in purchasing tomato plants I am unnecessarily introducing foliar and other diseases into my neighborhood. Based on what I have read and heard concerning the centralized way in which many of these tomato plants are grown, I believe that the diseases that they are presenting with are already in the soil or on the plant in the transplant packet.

 

Time for the plants to go.

Taking out the roots

Put in more compost & try again

I believe this was either the first or second try - in any case - more chlorine.

Additionally, I grew some tomato plants in baskets that were on 5-gallon buckets inside of my wine barrel. They grew a few tomatoes before the plants died off. I did end up harvesting a meager crop of 3-4 tomatoes from one of these pots.

So now what? If transplanting an incredibly disease-resistant cultivar is not working, what should I do? Perhaps direct-seeding some tomato plants would be a better approach. I believe I will try direct-seeding in some pots and perhaps I can find some place in my yard where a tomato plant might do well.