I'm sorry about your tomatoes, Lynn. Did you start any for a fall garden? Is it too late to do that?

We've got tomatoes. I doubt we make any salsa this year. And people who were depending on me to over grow tomatoes are gonna be disappointed.

I've not had a year like this one. Its been a struggle from the get go. I really just wanna till up the garden and forget about it , for a while.

Lynn, I can relate. Six years ago my mom can to live with me, I have not put the effort in a garden since then. I also quit using my irrigation tubes and started downsizing at that time. I got out my light shelf and started again this year with less square footage, but still no irrigation tubes. Although the past two years have been wet ones for me, the rain did not always come at the right time. I am also having more problems with wildlife eating my plants. I dont remember the deer ever eating my tomatoes, but they are really rough on peas and sweet potatoes and okra. I wont be sharing as much produce this year, but I seem to be at the stage where many of my friends and loved ones are dying off or moving away. I expect I will have enough for Madge and me, plus my daughter and her family. I have really fallen back on my ability to work in the garden like I use to. My garden would do better it I would feed it a little.

I am sorry you crop is less than what you had hoped for. I want to plant more fall garden that I normally do,

I think it likely is the weather, and we cannot control that Lynn. Don't let it get you down. We Oklahoma gardeners live by the saying that things will be better next year. Maybe they actually will be better next year, or even this fall.

I deliberately planted a whole let less tomatoes this year and think I still planted too many, but the only ones producing a huge yield are the ones I planted in large pots in mid-March. The ones I planted in our raised beds went in so very late because we were flooded and underwater for so long, and those are just producing a fruit here or there thanks to their very late start. I could yank all those out of the ground tomorrow and not miss them at all because they aren't doing much of anything. The plants in the pots should sustain us throughout the summer. I'll likely plant 4 new containers of tomato plants for fall, but haven't done it yet. The heat lately is just so brutal.

Larry, I'd like to plant more of a fall garden too, but I'm waiting to see what the weather does. Hopefully it will cooperate more with us in late summer and autumn than it has done so far this year.

Since we are social distancing and not seeing anybody except our son and his family, there's no one to give excess produce to anyhow. I'd give it to our son and his family normally, but they have their own garden this year and don't need our stuff too.

We are in the same boat you're in with so many recent deaths among our circle of friends and loved ones that most of the people who were recipients of our excess tomatoes and other produce in the past no longer are living, and the ones that are left have their own gardens.

Surely the conditions for fall gardening will be better, and if not, there's always next year.

Dawn

I've yet to get a single tomato from my 8 plants. I do have 6 cherry tomatoes forming so I'm getting close.

I still have not put in my irrigation tubes. I think my tomatoes would do better if I would water them better, plus I have grown tomatoes in the same spot too long. The tomatoes that are in new spots look better, but they are younger also. I think my tomatoes would also do better if I would feed them. Last year was also a bad year for me. I think that I gave my tomatoes too much nitrogen last year. Last year was a very wet year for me also, and I thought that some of my nitrogen may have leached from my soil, and over did if when trying to add some back. I was afraid to do that this year and my tomatoes seem to be small and fewer of them. I also had one BER tomato this year, that is also something that I seldom see. Every thing I have seems behind, even though I am way ahead of some of the hardens in the area.

I am also trying to grow a few tomatoes in containers. I think with a little practice that may be more of my future gardens. It is still hard for me to know when to water them.

Larry, I just water mine in the containers whenever the soil-less mix looks dry...or when the plant looks dry. Right now, in the weather we are having with highs in the mid-90s and lots of wind, I've been watering them about every other day early in the morning hours. At some point they'll probably need to be watered every day, but we aren't to that point yet here. With tomato plants in containers, you walk a fine line---you want to be sure you are watering enough to keep them happy and productive, but not so much that you are watering down the flavor or causing them to crack and split. Most of mine are in 30-gallon containers so they can handle being watered every couple of days even in the heat. Back in Spring when it was raining a lot, I didn't have to water them at all but those days are gone now.

Dawn

Lynn, maybe if you’re discouraged with the tomatoes this year, and want to tear them out, how about planting some okra. I don’t think it’s too late for that. They are pretty plants too. If y’all like to eat okra at your house, of course. i have some burgundy seed I can share with you. I think you live near where I work. We could meet somewhere.

it’s just a thought....

Hazel, I love fried okra. One of my fav foods when I was growing up , was a big slice of tomato covered with okra fried in corn meal ( not that breaded stuff the restaurants serve ) . To me, that's eating.

But Mrs Dollar does not like fried foods. I've grown okra, she reluctantly fries up a little bit for me and the rest gets stuck in the freezer never to be seen again . So I quit growing okra. :)

As for tomatoes, I've got tomatoes. People ask me why I grow so many plants and I do it just for years like this. Never can tell what the weather is gonna bring.

What's been doubly strange about this year, is I have some plants doing really well. I've got two plants that are putting on big slicer tomatoes. I grow Big Beef. And the biggest tomatoes I get are the first fruit that's set, they will always be near the bottom of the plant. They get smaller as the plant grows. This year I've got two plants that are continuing to make good sized tomatoes. I'll post a pic of those plants.

And then I've got two plants that the blight has already taken. And the rest are somewhere in between those two extremes .

The blight has taken these plants, and what's funny, this happens every year in this part of my garden. I think next year, this is gonna be some variety of peppers.

Never mind the pug, I can't recall having Big Beef plants produce like these.

And Im getting a lot of tomatoes from almost all my plants, colored like this. I normally get some of this, but this year I'm getting a lot of it. I don't think these are really good eaters and Mrs Dollar won't mess with them. And they're generally very small.

This is like farming, at the mercy of the weather. Its been an odd spring.

Lynn, those speckled tomatoes are insect damage. Stink bugs, leaf footed bugs will cause that .

oldbusy1, that's interesting. I did not think of that cuz its alway on the smaller tomatoes. On the inside, its white blotches. We've just been cutting out the white spots.

My tomato year has turned out better than expected, I was a bit pessimistic when I started this thread. The blight did not get my plants nearly as soon as I thought. I picked several today with BER. And I had terrible amount of cracking. I think the 2" rain we got about three weekends ago, created that.

And I would say almost all my tomatoes have a gold color on the skin. Cut into them and they're a good color red.

I didn't have a great turnout with tomatoes, either. Peppers. . . one here or there. . . some of the Chile peppers. But what I really hated was failures with most of the flowers! So am wishing I could just pack it in with all the flower beds and mow em to the ground.

Brought in 10 tomatoes that weren’t cherries. All but 3 had BER. Cherries are fine...as is Juliet.

The Heidis I cut back earlier this week are starting to grow back.

All my new tomatoes are in except two, and I have plans for those.

Tree is finally down and hauled off. New poke weeds addressed with brush killer. Plants watered. I’m showered and back in for my nap.

Im feeling pretty blah, still have some shortness of breath on exertion, appetite still shot, brain still fuzzy, and very fatigued. Mornings are my best time to get things done.

I have a picture of the weeds taking over my yard, and ideas? They laugh at Roundup.

That looks like the weed I fight all the time in the garden, must come in in the hay I use for mulch. I pulled a bunch this morning before it got hot. If I have a really bad fence row to spray, and round up does not do the job that I like, I come back with about a 50/50 mix of roundup and 2-4-d . I put in about pint or more each in a 25 gal sprayer, but it wont kill Honey Locust. You will think its dead, but will come back the next year.

I have some spraying I need to do this afternoon in my wildlife garden. his spraying will be Glyphosate ( roundup ) only. The spraying is in an area where I cant get the brush hog or mower in. I cant even walk in, will just have to stand spray in with a stream.

Lynn, I see two issues with the discoloration of your fruit. First, uneven pigmentation development occurs when tomatoes are ripening at temperatures above 86 degrees. The heat interferes in proper pigmentation development. If you pick them at the breaker stage (I'll link the chart below that shows the breaker stage) and bring them indoors, their flavor compounds already are fully developed at that point and all you need to do is let the finish coloring up indoors. They will have better color when it develops indoors in the cooler air, and they also will color up more quickly in the more moderate indoor temperatures.

Here's the chart that shows the breaker stage:

USDA Tomato Chart

The second thing I see is called gold speck and it develops on tomatoes maturing under certain conditions. It will make some tomatoes look like they have golden freckles or speckles. For a long time, it was thought to be linked to certain nutrients in or missing from the soil and/or the fruit, and that probably still is true, but the more credible theory in more recent years is that is also involves high humidity, which we certainly have had this year. It is just a physiological thing that happens, and some varieties are more prone to it than others, so it probably is genetically linked. Now, here is where it gets really interesting. Tomato varieties that are prone to get gold speck usually do not develop blossom end rot, and tomato varieties that are prone to develop BER usually do not develop gold speck. I have absolutely no idea why this occurs, but it is what researchers have discovered. So, if your fruit are going to develop one or the other, at least yours have gold speck and not BER.

Rebecca, I just don't understand what is wrong with your tomatoes this year. I've never had plants persistently develop BER throughout the season. Are all of them in containers with a soil-less mix? I'm seriously starting to think that the manufacturer forget to put a handful of lime into each bag to balance the soil-less mix's pH and ensure the availability of calcium. When I used to mix up my own soil-less mix, I always used to mix in one handful of lime into each batch.

I hope you're taking good care of yourself and not overdoing it when you are outdoors.

That is a horrible weed. I have had something similar pop up in my garden and have had to work persistently for years and years to eradicate it. I dug it out endlessly, but mine never got as far along and as well-developed as yours, so I could dig out any that popped up while small. I couldn't pull them---they'd break off at the soil line and regrow overnight. Mine was in the smartweed family and seemed to have smaller leaves than yours but otherwise looked very similar. If I had that mess growing now and I could safely hit it with Roundup, I would, but since you tried that already and it didn't work, I'd get the lawn mowing guy to mow it down, and then I'd cover it with 6 mm plastic and let the sun solarize it to death. The problem with the heavy use of Roundup over the years is that many kinds of weeds, including Johnson grass in some states, have become resistant to or tolerant of Roundup.

Dawn

Thanks Dawn, this is the first year I've seen gold speck, so I will go with the humidity theory. The meat inside has normal red color and no off flavor. I grow only Big Beef and I get very little BER. And when it does occur, its early in their development and its higher up in the plant. I figure the plant has trouble getting calcium up there.

The discoloration fits also. Based on your advise from a few years ago, I pick when they're blushing so they won't attract the birds when they're red. I have mockingbirds nesting in a nearby red bud tree , every year. And they keep a close eye on my tomatoes.

Those tomatoes with the yellow spotting or discoloration are usually smaller tomatoes that I leave on the plant a little longer. I don't see it on the medium or large size tomatoes.

You're welcome. Gold fleck is weird. Some years there's so much of it and other years there's not, and I've read all the research I can find, and mostly it just tells me the researchers still cannot explain why some varieties are so prone to it and some are not. I am sure it is a genetic thing that they'll understand some day.

One year I ordered seeds for a Brad Gates' tomato variety, back when you only could get seeds for his varieties by ordering them directly from his farm. The variety I ordered was called Freckled Child. It was a red and yellow bicolor that had tons of golden freckles. It was okay, but wasn't anything special and I didn't continue growing it after trying it for a couple of years. I did wonder if his gold freckles on it were just gold speck gone wild.