this is a PM.

drtomato did mojavebob ask you to reply to the post i left
for him ??,as this post was meant for mojavebob to answer !!!.

LES MATZEK

Yeah I missed it. I was on a short vacation last week and just got back yesterday. Will check it out, thanks. Oh and I've never received a pm here and wouldn't know where to look if I had. :)

hi bob,
i hope you enjoyed your vacation,i left a post for you on
your cherokee purple black krim post that you posted the
other day.
where in the desert do you live??, it seems that you have
better luck with your plants than i do so i though may you
give me a few pointers on how to grow in the desert,regards.

les matzek

WHY DON'T YOU TWO GET A ROOM!!!!!!!!!!

Long reply below.

I don't think that thread was appropriate for the question. Consider this my 09 journal at Gardenweb.

A thread with the word 'Mojave' in the title works for the topic. I ramble, sorry. Hopefully something will be helpful to some with like conditions.

In that thread you said:

• "hi bob,

i live in the desert like you 25 miles west of the 29 palm,s marine base it appear's that you are doing better than i am doing with my plants ( tomatoe's,sweet pepper's, pole bean's ).
i have read many time's that tomatoe's can not get enough sun, so this year i took the shade cloth tarp of my greenhouse and i have never had such poor,poor plants.

can you tell me how you grow your plant's fertilizer,
water, shade,or full sun ??, regard's"

Sounds like you're very near Yucca Valley. I'm Here.

I'm happy to share my efforts with you, but surprised by the request. I feel like all I do is whine about my maters on this forum. ;)

I can't imagine using a greenhouse in the desert this time of year. I have a friend who grows commercially in them and he shuts down July 1, the latest. Too expensive to consider cooling.

This is just my second year growing in these conditions. Phoenix and Vegas are almost identical. Tucson and points south of you get hot sooner, stay hot longer, have less extreme heat and enjoy humidity and rain we don't get. Plants I put outside in March have never felt a single drop of rain. So contrary to what many believe is wise, I rain on them with the hose all the time. They seem to love it. A firm spray to the blossoms reportedly aids high temperature heat set as does misting them in the morning. I can't verify either technique's success, but advise giving them a try. It doesn't hurt the plants to get wet in our hot dry climate.

I think ours, Sunset zone 11, is the worst of it; highest temps, lowest humidity, shortened season - though that may change in any given year and parts of Texas and NM are possibly just as nasty. But I doubt it.

This was a good year for us to get heavy fruit sets during the mild June, so expect worse in the future. Advice is always welcome, but few get our unique, brutal conditions unless they go out and pull weeds at 8pm when it finally dips below 110.

I disagree with some of what Tom advised in the other thread, and I don't think I'm right, I know it. Sorry if that sounds a little arrogant. It isn't meant that way. He gave good advice with the bad. I live these conditions every day. I'm still learning, humble about what I do and don't know, looking to learn more all the time, but some of his advice to you needs correcting or you'll be set back a season.

There's a handful of contributors here who are a few steps ahead of me getting better yields in the desert. My success this year is mostly because I put in 50 plus plants, improved my soil with a couple tons of compost, experimented with plant varieties, containers, fertilization, shade, pruning and watering; and I spent a lot of time paying attention to what the other desert growers here and elsewhere do and say. I also blocked out a lot of the generic text book tomato growing advice that doesn't makes sense out here. The kind Tom was offerring.

Common sense:

Really, it is what it is, these conditions, and they are sort of manageable if you're a junkie, but don't expect miracles.

With 50 plants I'm getting production similar to what I would get from 10 happy plants in Los Angeles. Sigh. I can improve that quite a bit from what I've learned this year. The quality of the fruit is much lower out here. Ugh. I'm not sure if I can improve it much, but it will be the focus of my project next year. No doubt, it's tough. Half my plants barely produced; some didn't. My best sure fire advice is plant lots of plants!

Sun:

Where I disagree with Tom is the best place to start explaining what's working for me. Long periods of full summer sun are bad. Out here that type of light is a nice place for determinates with an early, concentrated set, planted very first thing in the spring. I have a large spot like that (10-12 hours of sun) and will pack it with determinates as early as possible next year and remove them after the 4th of July, possibly following them with a fall crop. July and August are so rough on immature plants I'm not sure I have time for a fall crop (experiments are in progress, they live but don't grow). Our season ends mid to late October most years. I may rig a shade cover for that area to nurse the immature fall crop along.

My happiest plants are in full shade right now. In Baja commercial growers are doing fine under shade covers that allow 40% of the light through. I just visited one of their operations when others were snorkeling, so you know I have issues. At least I golfed and went fishing. Those plants (some heirlooms) NEVER see full sun and produce commercial quality yields. Much found in the tomato growing bible doesn't apply to us who grow against God's will. My shade covers diffuse 65% of the light. But my happy plants are in 100% shade until noon before the shade covers protect them for the rest of the day.

When mother nature turns off the oven, I'll remove the shade covers, but I suspect they'll remain in place through August and some of September. That's over two full months of cover, and they were covered for 75% of May. June was lovely, oddly. Point being Tom's bible-based absolute minimum of six hours of full sun can cook my fruit and stress my plants if delivered in the afternoon. Sun is good in spring, shade is good in summer, sun is good in fall. Dappled light is great. Controlling sun exposure is an issue worth addressing. Plants moving in and out of sun on an hourly basis (or so) as it passes over structures or trees are better off out here. I have planted very close to the house and trees to achieve this; it was done accidentally for lack of space. But those spots will get priority plants next year.

I even planted a full shade test garden and pick from it every day. It was 100% shade against a north facing fence until the plants reached into the sun at five feet about the time the sun finally drifted overhead. Now it gets about three hours of sun a day and the plants are very healthy and producing.

Water:

While the weather is hospitable in early spring until whenever it isn't, the tomato growing bible is okay. Mulch heavily, water deeply once or twice a week depending on soil moisture. You can water daily even then with excellent results in our dry climate. Our "drainage" includes unusual evaporation rates. When the extreme dry heat of summer kicks in throw away the bible and water water water. I am currently watering three times a day - midnight, noon and 5pm. The transplants at my Home Depot require water every two to three hours or they fall over. In LA they can miss a day or two with transplants and the plants are fine. The idea is to not let the surface dry out below two inches while keeping the soil cool. If you water very deeply this time of year you practically guarantee cracked watery tasting fruit that ripens too fast, softens before it ripens, and has unseasoned soup inside. So watering shallow and often keeps the soil moist, hopefully prevents the deep moisture from evaporating, and best imitates the deep watering advice for more hospitable conditions.

Soil, Mulch and Fertilizer:

Fertilizing is up to the individual grower and is dependent on the soil and other preferences (organic or not). Everyone advising has good intentions, but unless they have your soil test results, there's no telling if advice is helpful. My recent test says my soil is high in everything but nitrogen and potassium while being too alkaline. I'm packed with magnesium and have added so much sulfer to lower the PH that epsom salts are meaningless to me, and I suspect most desert growers, and you can remove the desert part too.

I used a soluble triple sixteen early in the season, turned up the phosphorus unnecessarily (before the test) after blooming began, and have pretty much stopped fertilizing until the remaining fruit comes in and the weather eases a bit. It's too hot to mix the stuff and apply it. :)

Plants given slow release organic fertilizers have done poorly compared to plants fed with those evil blue chemical fertilizers. I've helped them (the organic ones) along by giving them some blue stuff and they respond positively. Last year a big blast of the triple sixteen at the beginning of September helped a Celebrity form heavy new growth and a nice fall fruit set.

I suspect the weekly diluted fertilizing advice is excellent for most of us. The more you improve your soil the less you need to fertilize. Have it tested. I agree with Dr. Carolyn when she says tomatoes are not the heavy feeders many say they are.

I have a wild horse and burro rescue a couple miles from my house. They have been piling manure in the adjacent desert for 35 years. Imagine several 15 foot rises of old composted horse manure each over an acre in size free for the taking. The compost I dig out is about ten years old, solarized, 99.99% weed free and mixed with our mineral rich desert sands. The tomatoes love it. I toss a three gallon bucket of the fresh manure in my compost pile every couple of weeks, and about a gallon of finished material goes into the gardens then. But the old stuff is like gold to me considering the way my SS100s look after several weeks at 110 degrees. They are 10 feet tall, lush, little yellowing, still growing, still blooming and still setting an occasional little trooper. I anticipate an excellent fall from them. No other plants got such a heavy dose of the old compost. I recently covered my withering Arkansas Traveler in about four inches of it, because it's my tastiest fruit, and it's making a comeback.

Four to six inches of mulch is needed out here and I pull it closer to the plants than generally advised. I have alfalfa fields north of town and use cheap alfalfa straw for my mulch, topped with grass clippings after I mow. I am lucky to have the supply. Seek these types of sources for big cheap doses of mulch and amendments. All soil needs organic matter, but desert dirt is desperate for it.

Varieties and Other Tips:

I planted along the foundation of my house in two places and completely enclosed my patio in tomatoes. I set the plants close to the slabs anticipating the roots would run under them and find a cool moist place. It worked. This fall I'll dig out under the slabs and amend that soil.

Away from existing concrete next year, I am going to bury cinder blocks in two layers, think partially buried steps, to mimic the concrete slabs, then plant where the roots can access the overhang under the soil. Make sense?

I'm doing the lasagna thing this fall and have been saving for the process for months. You can search 'lasagna' for information in the soil forum.

I built 3 Earthtainers (google if unfamiliar) for a $100 a piece and while I agree watering issues are mostly solved, I cannot report results that make me want to build a bunch more. The plants in tainers are doing better than some and worse than others. I'm cheap and enjoy improving the soil. I have a friend who thinks his soil is poisoned from years of Orkin spraying and he is going to build a dozen or so tainers for next season, so I'll check in on his results frequently. Azruss also grows in our conditions and loves how the tainers performed for him. They certainly conserve and regulate water and are worth looking into for anyone, but they require insulation and protection from the sun in the desert.

As far as varieties are concerned, I think reading about them daily for months has given me a little different perspective. Sure there's varieties that do better out here, and sure there's some that don't, but rather than seek the ones that do, I think a list of those that don't is more helpful. It is what it is out here. I think most tomatoes will do okay (poorly compared to other places) if given our best efforts and reasonable expectations, so seeking the holy grail of heat tolerance or high temperature fruit setting ability is limiting and subject to hype and misinformation (see Super Sioux). Jet Stars are supposed to do well in cool climates and were bred for northern growers according to what I've read. Arkansas Traveler is supposed to be heat tolerant, have strong heat set ability and was bred for southern growers. My Jet Star is a lush green sun loving freak. My Traveler is struggling and on life support. Moskvich, a cold weather early determinate, is thriving and dark green in the shade with no yellowing, while heat loving vigorous hybrids Ace and Celebrity are going to seed in the sun.

So while I definitely see the utility in cultivars like Heatwave, and I understand finicky late season giant fruits probably won't do well here, I think an open mind to the thousands of varieties out there is better than narrowing the field to advertised or reported heat friendly varieties. The qualities I seek are heavy yields, good taste, and crack resistance. All of them trump the slightly mythical heat tolerance trait for me. If a plant yields heavily in great conditions, it's probably going to perform okay for us. If a tomato tastes good in great conditions, then it should taste pretty good in ours. The high heat causes exhorbitant cracking and anything to minimize that is welcome.

Thanks for asking and reading if you made it this far. ;)

Here is a link that might be useful: search forum for 'desert'