Susan

I have one tomato plant. The insects have given me fits this year. I started with 22 tomatoes, they all did very well till the heat and insects came. I pulled 17 plants and burned them. Then about 2 or three weeks later I pulled 4 more and burned them. I even found some pin worms on my okra so I pulled the okra and burned it.

The south garden where I had the 17 tomatoes and other plants has been tilled and is waiting for organic matter to be added before the cover crop of rye will be planted.

The okra bed is clean and ready to add organic matter, I will till in the organic matter and plant rye in a few days.

The last area where I had the 4 tomato plants was replanted in rye on the 16 and i saw that it was up today.

My fall garden is doing well, I picked the first Purple Hulls and mustard last week.

The one lone tomato that I have left( a Better Boy) may get the ax any day now. It looks pretty good and is blooming, but is covered in insects, along with some blight.

To sum it up, I had a very good year before the heat and insects hit, but it was the pitts from then on.

And, yes I am making plans for next year.

Larry

I planted 22 tomato plants and only lost one. They are blooming like crazy, but I think only the cherries have fruit on them. My plants look really pretty and green. They've gotten so huge, the cages are falling over.

Susan, I still have lots of green tomatoes and am unsure if they'll have time to ripen. It just depends on the weather, which so far has remained beastly hot with heat indices some days last week exceeding 100 degrees. Ugh. I am so sick of summer and hoping for a long, mild fall although right now we're having unseasonably hot weather.

In the garden, in addition to tomatoes, I still have huge amounts of peppers of all kinds, lots of okra, and a huge sweet potato patch. The larger issue is that the foot of rain (12.3", to be exact) that fell here the first few days of Sept. sent many snakes, mostly venomous ones, into our lily pond, yard area and both vegetable gardens, so I have been very skittish about venturing into the garden myself.

As much as I'd rather be gardening, right now I'm pretty busy with fire dept. business....first lots of fires and other emergency activity in August and early Sept. and now with fundraisers (an open house/bar-b-q dinner/pie auction this coming Saturday) and charity events later this fall, so I hardly have time to think/talk about gardening, much less the time to actually do it. Other than harvesting, I likely won't do any gardening 'things' until after the first frost because we're just too snakey here. A couple of days ago, Tim shot the largest water moccasin I've ever seen....it was in the lily pond eating frogs and it was very, very large and very, very aggressive. This is the worst snake year in ages and it sure interferes with our ability to roam freely through the yard and garden.

My tomato list for next year is sort of formed in my head, but I haven't put it down on paper yet.

Dawn

Susan, the only tomato I have producing now is the SunGold - and it's one of my family's favorites - but it has pinworm problems that I have not been able to completely stop - I kill them out for awhile then they are back in force, and we still have an abundance of hornworms.

I only found 3 hornworms among my 8 plants, and moved them to the Datura. As adults they are great pollinators.

Y'all I'm gonna have to look up pinworms. I do have some sort of little worm, besides the fruitworms that I fight with to get a tomato! - and it folds the leaf over and hides out there in the daytime. I just squish the leaf and the caterpillar along with it, but I miss a lot, too.

My Cherry is full of flowers, but no tomatoes. Don't know what the deal is with that.

Thanks for your reports.

Susan

Susan,
I imagine you might of seen my report. I should continue to get tomatoes till frost. The first big wave is over and not sure all of the second wave will make it before frost. I have a list started. I need to do some additions and subtracting now that the season is about finished. I have 2-4 more new to me that I should get to taste before the season ends. A couple more could be iffy.

If you start your own seeds let me know and I'll send you a few. I found a few new favorites.

I'm taking my step dad to Wichita, KS this morning to have a stint put in tomorrow. So my garden has been neglected lately. And will be making at least 2 more trips with him before the year ends. Hopefully soon I'll have a break to get back to gardening. Jay

Jay, my thoughts and prayers go out to you and your dad.

Would love some seed, Jay, but I won't need many. The ones I definitely want to plant include Black Cherry and Sun Gold for the 2 cherries. Then, I'd like to plant Big Dwarf and maybe another dwarf of some kind. I think I'm gonna steer away from the really big varieties because I have to grow in containers, and they probably would do as well, nor be as prolific. So, a couple of mediums would be fantastic. Among those two, I may grow Rutgers again. It did so well for me this year in the heat, when it was truly tested. Also, a couple of blacks/purples. Eight (8) will be the maximum because I just don't have space for any more right now. Wish I could do more, but with the butterfly/native plant garden, I don't have it available right now. I think I will also do grow bags, since Craig seems to think they are wonderful, but they will be the larger ones than the ones Dawn uses. I think she may have mentioned going to the larger ones next year, too.

Next year I want to also include a Jalepeno pepper, a vining green bean and cucumber. I'll probably plant some sugar snaps in early spring and replace them with the green beans and cucumber. Also think I may plant a tub of onions.

Yesterday I checked the plants and they are producing in leaps and bounds. I have more and more greenies every day, and I am crossing my fingers that a few will ripen before frost.

Thanks for everyone's input and hope we all get a few more tomatoes before season's end.

Susan

I have 7 tomato plants of my original 18 still thriving. I'd have to go look to tell you the type, but I think 5 of them are cherry tomatoes. My Brandywine (in the ground since APRIL) just put out its first tomato. I might bronze the thing, I am so excited. Tons of flowers, for months and months, first fruit.

Other survivors:
Ground cherry plant. I bought a little half dead plant for 30 cents on clearance from Atwoods and it took over a bed. I have cups and cups of ground cherries. So much that husking them hurts me and my Carpal Tunnel is flaring. I think I will pull it, harvest the rest, and make a freezer jam.

Pole Beans: In the ground from april with NO flowers or beans. I finally see new flowers and little teeny beans!

Peppers: I don't grow hot ones,but I do have banana and bell peppers. The Bananna pepper has been a champ and has pumped out non-stop for months. I just planted the bell a month or so ago, and have tons of little baby peppers. Oklahoma must be pepper weather.

Sunchokes. Okay these are sooo easy. No bugs, no disease. I bought ONE grocery store choke and divided it, and I now have a bed FULL of sunchokes.

Herbs: Esp Basil. It's thriving and going crazy. Dunno what to do with all of my Basil. I have enough in the freezer for a year. Oregeno, chives, Tarragon, are also doing great.

Bit the dust: A mole/gopher/vole (?) keeps yoinking my sweet potatoes and squash. I was actually looking one day and saw a plant slowwwlllly being pulled into the ground. I got so mad! I took my little spading fork and forked the ground. Normally I love little critters, but seriously when they yoink the food I am growing for my family I want them dead.

So-So: blackberries. I have a bunch of shoots from 2 volunteers that a friend sent me last year. I transplanted 15, and 10 survived.

Strawberry patches seems to be thriving and I hope for a great harvest next year.

Pear and apple trees equally affected by some fungus (?)...I hope they live.

Peas and most of my bush beans were cut down at the stem. Ditto for the remainder of my squash that a critter didn't get.

Half of my garden now has a lovely crop of Elbon Rye to try to manage (eliminate) the root knot nematodes infesting the garden.

Marigolds and wild flowers are going bonkers.

And that is my fall garden report :)

Jo

My three little tomato plants have one green tomato on them with lots of flowering, however. If the weather holds out I suspect I may get A tomato before it is all said and done with.

Right now I am just looking forward to spring and planning.

Susan,

Flowers that don't set fruit tend to indicate temperatures are either too high or too low, or humidity is too high. Normally, in September, temps are back into the right range for pollination/fertilization to occur and the problem tends to be high humidity is making the pollen 'sticky' so that it doesn't move around well enough inside the flowers. Thumping the individual blossoms or gently shaking the entire plant helps but there's no guarantee at this time of year.

September tomatoes are heartbreakers, you know.....the plants flower and set fruit and get your hopes up but with the decreasing temperatures, decreasing hours/intensity of sunlight, and approaching frosty weather, they often don't ripen and it can be very frustrating. About 1 or 2 years out of ten we'll have a very late first frost and get amazing fall production, but most years your plants are racing to beat the first frost.

I do want to use larger grow bags, but filling them costs a small fortune, so I'm not sure how many new larger grow bags I'll add next year....maybe 10 or 15. I have about 80 containers currently, ranging in size from 5 to 20 gallons, and one 4' stock tank, and filled all of them with new fresh soil-less mix this year (the old soil was dumped into the new raised beds we built in Maddie's Garden) and filling them was a huge expense and isn't something I want to do again any time soon.

Jay, I hope your stepfather is doing well and y'all have been in my prayers.

Jo, Great garden report.

Ezzirah, I'm look forward to spring planting, although I'm still harvesting several kinds of veggies and looking forward to having a break from the harvesting/food preservation for a couple of months at least. Let's hope for a mild winter and an early spring!

Dawn