Hey Susan,

It is so good to see you here. I'm missed you on this forum this year. I hope all is well with your family.

Congrats on your great tomato year! I think you absolutely could have done it without me, but thank you for sharing the credit with me. (grin) This weather has been pretty wonderful for tomato production, at least for whatever plants survived the 900 rounds of flooding. It isn't my best year ever, but it is a pretty good one. I've been complaining that we are "drowning in tomatoes" and you know that's always a sign that it is a good year down here.

I hope you're having as good of a butterfly year up there as we are having down here.

Dawn

Yes, it's been fair to middlin' for butterflies. Lots of Black Swallowtails and Red Admirals. I'm raising a batch of Sleepy Oranges right now - most have made their chrysalises. My big thrill was sight of a beautiful Wood Nymph in the yard this week. Didn't ever think I'd see one in the city as they pretty much hang out in the countryside. I'm sure you've spotted a few.

Keep hoping for some giants, but so far Nada. Have lots of Painted and American Ladies, even a cute little Snout today.

For as much rain as we've had I'm surprised not much disease nor many pests have shown up, knock on wood! My only issue has been climbing cutworms....grrrrr. I got some BT to take care of them, little buggers...... I mean there's always going to be something in nature but I try to leave as much as I can to my own little ecosystem to take care of as I can without my need to intervene.

Susan

Susan, It has been a super butterfly year here. I'm actually surprised how many have made it through the endless rain and flooding. I'm seeing a lot of the same ones you're seeing, and tons of Red Admirals and Sulphurs.

There's at least as many of the icky little moths that have damaging cutworm-type larvae, lots of tomato fruitworms/corn earworms, etc., but I just treat for them. The last couple of years I have grown tons of fennel, bronze fennel, parsley and dill for the swallowtails, so we have had them in great profusion. We've even had a few monarchs, which is good, because their population the last few years hasn't been nearly as large as usual. The eastern tent caterpillars have been awful this year and I really had to fight them on the fruit trees.

There's lots of the usual sphinx moths, and a few of the snowberry clearwings, so I can't complain. Day or night, we have all sorts of little flying creatures around, and that makes it a great summer.

Dawn

Congrats, Susan! Best year for me, too, but that's only because it's my second successful year. Still not many tomatoes. LOL Eat up for hard work!! Woot!

bn

I donot know one. Utterly from another, but I have a lot of butterflies. I just can't tell you which ones they are.

Susan, I raised 69 pipevine swallowtails this year! Stockergal, if you can take pictures, we can help you. Susan is the reason I butterfly garden now!

What tomatoes we have been getting are sooo good! I hope the impending heat wave doesn't shut down production. I'm looking for something to use as a shade cloth. Lots of pvc pipe and some muslin, maybe?

Since you brought up butterflies, I'm going to post a not-so-good pic I took yesterday evening. I understand it's probably a Comma butterfly and I couldn't get close enough to tell much (it flew off twice and came back to the flag on my arbor in the garden.) I'm getting more into the butterfly aspect of gardening after reading all of your posts. Thank you!

Carol

Carol, I think Muslin would work. Any light-colored textile should work. Just be sure to leave a foot or two between the bottom of your shade cloth and the top of the plants for good air flow. Too little open space for air flow can result in roasted, toasted plants.

I love having the butterflies around. Today in the garden we had the trifecta: hummingbirds, butterflies and dragonflies.

Dawn

Carol, that's a beautiful Question Mark. They belong to a group of butterflies that don't nectar, but rather feed on rotting fruit, tree sap, carrion, and yes....dung. I hang a suet feeder and stuff over ripe bananas in it for them.

Lisa, that's astounding! I haven't seen a pipe vine in years. I grow Aristolochia clematitus for them, but Nada!

I found a Manduca sexta on my tomatoes and am hand raising him. I've already raised and released a Virginia Creeper Sphinx (Darapsa Myron). A smaller sphinx but very pretty. I have so many grape vines, but the birds get all the fruit. I just wish we didn't have the darned Walnut trees!

I'm planting some more Asclepias incarnata 'Ice Ballet' for the Monarchs, of which I've had exactly none. But I want it available for them when they need it. They are in dire straits.

Cheers everyone, and happy heat wave. I have fall tomato plants standing by if necessary.

Susan

A friend in Texas was overwhelmed with pipevine eggs...she asked how many I could take, I said a lot, haha, wasn't exactly expecting 69!! Tiny eggs. BIG eaters! Unfortunately I had to be out of town when they were all eclosing...so I farmed three sets out to friends and I didn't have any at my house!

I'm going to tell myself that Question Mark was feeding on the banana I slipped into a clump of cypress vine I've been training up the bottom of the arbor, haha!

Question Marks always get some of our tree fruit and, in fact, I always leaves some on the trees for them. I figure we can afford the loss of a few fruit and they need it.

Carol, I love cypress vine but it will sprout and grow anywhere, and this year I've been yanking out dozens and dozens (more likely hundreds, but I'm not counting) that have sprouted and are climbing all over everything in the garden. The heavy rainfall must have made a lot of the seeds that have fallen over the years all sprout together this year and it is ridiculous. So far, I've removed cypress vines that are climbing corn, cantaloupe, watermelon, tomato and pepper plants, and my bottle tree. Oh, and pole bean plants that are trellised, and bush bean plants that aren't. The ones climbing up through the asparagus were getting away with it for a while, but once their foliage was so heavy that the asparagus was bending under the weight, I started removing those too. That's how I spend my morning yesterday. On the bright side, I was able to "feed" the compost pile lots of lovely green plant material, and none of it was seedy so I shouldn't have to worry about cypress vines taking over the compost pile.

Have there been any cypress vines sprout near the arbor or the fence that surrounds the garden? Nope. That's a shame because I'd certainly let them stay there. I do have some morning glories in those areas and will let a few, but not many, stay. If I let them all stay, they'll eventually bring down the fence and I don't want that.

Susan, The fields here are full of native milkweeds in bloom (and already gone to seed as well), so I suspect that's why I've been seeing monarchs. They are not present in big numbers, but with the way their population has fallen in recent years, I'm just happy to see any at all.

Dawn

Dawn, I had been warned about the cypress vine, so I planted it several feet from the big bed. It completely covers the wagon wheel there and last year it wound 3/4 of the way around my arbor. I yank any strays that blow to other parts of my flower bed and mow it when it grows up in the grass. I really love it, though.

I love it too. I just don't love it climbing all over everything. I think that if I let it, it would cover every square foot of my garden. I haven't planted it in years, but still get hundreds of volunteers every year.

I actually just stumbled onto this forum looking for any information as to why my tomatoes were NOT growing this year. This makes me feel much worse in my gardening abilities. I've grown tomatoes 4 of the last 5 years, and this is by far the worst. Little to no production thus far outside of one big grape tomato plant. Everything looks fairly healthy, so I suppose I'll just keep powering through.

My tomatoes are sad this year too. About a month or more behind. The excessive rain stunted growth and kept some from going into the ground. One bed has decent sized plants, but still only half to 2/3 the size of last years. Tomatoes I have gotten have split or had fruit worm damage. I will either have a huge fall crop or this will be a bust year for toms.

kwstumpy, my tomatoes are unhappy too. Only my cherry tomatoes are productive. Other than that, I've only had two fruit. :( The plants are growing and have blooms---just no fruit. Same with the tomatillos.

Maybe they need a fertilizer, but I get SO confused with fertilizers. What exactly does a tomato plant need to produce fruit. I know it's not nitrogen. Any suggestions?

On the other hand, the summer squash is doing GREAT. The squash bugs still haven't shown up.

kwstumpy07, If you are here in Oklahoma, then I am willing to bet the issue is the weather and likely it is not you or anything you've done. If you're somewhere else, it also might be the weather depending on what sort of weather you've had.

When there is too much rainfall (or excess irrigation) the plant roots literally become so clogged with water that they cannot take up nutrients from the soil. As Amy mentioned, this causes stunted and stalled growth. Unfortunately, this year the excess rainfall was occurring in May and June when tomato plants normally would be blooming and setting fruit. Even after the rain stops, depending on how saturated your soil is, it still can take several weeks for the plant roots to dry out enough for the plants to begin taking up nutrients normally and putting out new growth and behaving normally. Because excess heat (roughly daytime highs at and above 92 degrees and nighttime lows at and above 72 degrees) can interfere in fruit set on many types of tomatoes (but usually not those that produce bite-sized grape, cherry, pear or plum-shaped tomatoes) we have had the double whammy of the rain stalling plants and then the heat that came after the rain preventing fruit set. The fruit set issues are worse when it is more humid at the same time it is hot, and not quite as bad when the air is very dry at the same time it is hot. So, this year's weather in OK is sort of the perfect storm for tomato fruitset issues.

The people I know who have had the best success with fruit set this year in my area are the ones who got their plants in the ground early enough that they already were getting fruit set in April and in May before the rainfall reached astonishing levels. Those of us who already had a lot of fruit set before the plants became waterlogged still have had to deal with many rainfall-related issues, but at least we have good harvests despite them.

Be sure you aren't planting too late in the spring. I push the limits and plant as early as possible every year in order to get good fruit set before the heat arrives, and that makes a gigantic difference in my yields, even in a rain-plagued year like we had this year.

Amy, I've had more fruit worm damage this year than normally (I rarely see any at all), but it was occurring when all that rain was falling. Now that we're hotter and drier, I haven't seen any new tomato fruit worm damage. Now, stink bug damage.....that's the issue for my fruit this month.

Dawn

I planted 3 plants this year. At this point they are 6+' tall, 8-10' wide, and probably 6' deep. They're all intertwined and kicking out a dozen romas a day. Had to buy my first canner last night.

I found two more horn worms today and they are safe in their little containers, eating their little hearts out.

I've had lots of Silver Spotted Skippers in the yard today, nectaring on the Buddleia bi-color. The butterflies sure love this one!

I'm having a hard time with oleader aphids on the milkweed, and my Pineapple Sangria are battling, of all things, spider mites. You'd think with all the rain humity that that would be one problem we don't have.

My parsley I just planted this spring has bolted! Yes, its supposed to be a biennial, but try to tell them that. I did read that weather can also influence it to bolt in its first year. Its a first for me, though.

The Zowie! Yellow Flame zinnias are gorgeous right now but they sure haven't attracted the butterflies, or any pollinator for that matter, like they were touted to do.

The lantanas are finally beginning to pull out of their slump - whiny little things. They sure did not like all the rain and fluctuating temps.

I finally harvested my first Bradley tomato this week. Pretty tasty. :-) Eating a ton of Juliets, Patio, and Jelly Bean, while waiting for Kimberly.

I have plants of Indian Stripe, Vorlon, and several others to put in the ground. They were from leftover seeds from a couple years ago, so they may not have long enough time to mature before frost, but well see.

Susan

Tigrella and sungold cherry are outperforming everything here. Benj picked a few large ones the other day and really thought I would break out some salsa. Lol. He was just a little disappointed when I told him I put all tomatoes in the freezer.