Mostly I use straw. But right now the tomatoes are growing in with spinach and carrots that I don't want to mulch over. I have some cedar shavings, the kind sold for animal bedding, around the base of each plant. It is not enough, but eventually the other plants will be living mulch, and when they are harvested and the tomatoes are bigger I will mulch with straw. Someone will say the shavings are bad for the tomatoes, but I have used them before. I bought these to put under squash last year to hopefully repel squash bugs. So I had them on hand. I have also thrown coffee grounds around the base of the plant in the past. Some people say they are too acidic. I can't say I saw any problems when I did it, but it was just our grounds, not massive amounts, and I was just trying to put something between the soil and the tomatoes. I have put weed block fabric around them, too. Didn't care for that, but in a pinch, it's a layer between plant and soil. It didn't stay put for me and kind of blocks water from the plant. All in all, straw works best for me, just sometimes I improvise.

Hay (because it's cheap and often already rotten from where I buy). I would like to try straw and see if it is 'cleaner', but the soil and soil life really benefits from use of rotten hay. Anytime I pull off the hay to weed or harvest or whatever, that hay goes directly to the compost pile and replace cleaner fresher hay mulch. In the cases where hay wasn't ever removed and piled thickly, the soil benefited the best.

I have not planted too many seasons. So far, all my tomatoes survive through fall which is incredible since I don't know what I'm doing very much when it comes to growing and caring for mature plants. I don't have clean source of irrigation. I water with a hose.

I'd be remiss if I did not add that i have really good clay soil to work with and a prolific ecology. It may be my environment that causes everything to thrive, not my gardening methods.

bon

Thanks Amy and Bon for your responses. Looks like I'll hit up my brother for some old hay from his barn to mulch with. My garden soil transitions from a sandy clay on the high end to a sandy loam on the lower end. I have nine imaginary sections through which I try to rotate my various crops. Last year the tomatoes were in the upper end and this year on the lower end, so I'm hoping the soil type will be better. I plan to use soaker hose to water the tomatoes with and hopefully keep the foliage drier. Thanks again!

Lynda

Thanks Dawn for all the good information. I have newspapers I can layer under the hay and I will go ahead and purchase a fungicide spray to be ready in case signs of EB start to show up. I was despondent last year when I had no ripe tomatoes in high summer!

materlady, You're welcome. With the hay, make sure that whatever hay you use has not been sprayed with Grazon or any herbicide with active ingredients from the same chemical family (pyralids). The nickname for hay, compost, mulch or manure contaminated with long-lived herbicide residue is "killer compost" because these particular herbicides can survive in the livestocks body, can survive being composted and can carry enough herbicide to contaminate garden soil and kill or severely damage many plants, but especially tomatoes, peas and beans. Once the contamination has occurred, it can take 1-3 years of remediation before the garden soil is useful for growing anything other than corn and other grains and alliums. This has been a problem since around 2000, but a lot of gardeners still don't know about it and only learn about it when they accidentally use a contaminated product and it begins killing their garden.

One of our own neighbors contaminated and killed her garden accidentally by using manure from her own livestock. She knew they didn't use any of the herbicides, but forgot they bought and fed their livestock a lot of hay during a drought---and apparently some of that hay contained herbicide residues.

If you thought you were despondent last year, imagine how you'd feel this year if you accidentally brought in something contaminated with herbicide that killed your plants.

Here's info on killer compost (as we gardeners call it) or persistent herbicides (as the industry refers to them):

Persistent Herbicides

I mulch Larry's tomatoes (I don't like tomatoes) with old newspapers and then a layer of old straw. I add more straw when it starts getting hot. I like your idea of removing the bottom 18" of the stems Dawn. I'll start doing that.

On a gardening show this winter I saw a gardener in Georgia removed just about all the leaves on her okra plants. The plants were 3-4' tall and just a straight stalk. When asked about them, she said that was how her grandfather grew okra and she continued removing the leaves - because she didn't like picking okra with the itchy leaves. Also, they usually had several storm that blew the stalks over during the summer months and removing the leaves helped. I thought I might try that. What do you think Dawn??

Patty, by "Larry," do you mean Larry Peugh? Sure miss him!

I'm sure Dawn will answer soon. But for my part, I'd think that removal of many okra leaves would make the plants produce less. It has to cut down on their photosynthesis.

I grew an experimental hybrid of coffee and African okra last summer. The plants had no spines to make one itch. But I'm not positive about their actual eating quality. I only ate a couple pods raw. I also know that the cross wasn't stable.

George

Patti, I've never removed okra leaves and don't know if I would. The solution is to wear a long-sleeved shirt and leather gloves while harvesting. I keep Tim's old dress shirts when they are past their prime and wear them as an overshirt when harvesting in summer to protect myself from the relentless sun and prickly leaves. My answer is exactly the same as George's. Leaves are the plant factories that conduct photosynthesis, thereby fueling plant growth and productivity, so I cannot imagine removing the leaves would be a good thing. I'd think it would mean the plants would produce less okra per plant. Maybe it works for that woman in Georgia, but I don't understand how. Maybe she has a ton of space and doesn't care if she gets fewer pods per plant.

You know, if you want to try it, you could let 50% of the plants grow normally, remove the lower leaves of the other 50% and see if you can tell if it affects the plants in any negative way. I do experiments like that and they are the best way to learn what does/doesn't or will/won't work for you.

George, I miss Larry terribly. He and Madge both began having more health problems and he hasn't posted here in a very long time now. I am sure he's busy taking care of Madge and himself, but I wish he still was able to be here with us too.

A hybrid of coffee and African okra sounds interesting, but I find it frustrating to grow unstable plants. I want the plants to be stable and to produce what I want them to produce, or they feel like a waste of space and time. I guess the summer heat just bothers me too much any more for me to spend time on plants that aren't highly productive.

Dawn

Sorry, no. The Larry i spoke about is my hubby and friend for over 47 years. The Georgia lady had a very productive farm to market garden that was a family owed business for a couple of generations and had been growing her okra like that for at least two generations. I'm like you Dawn, I wondered how in the world the plant could produce without so many of it's leaves. I always wear long sleeves and gloves outside-trying to avoid the sun as much as possible-so picking okra isn't a problem for me. I think I'll play this summer just for the fun.

Don't forget to let us know the result of your experiments, Patti, so we all can learn from them right along with you.

I will do that. This will be fun.