WineLovers Discussion Group

Alan Wolfe wrote:Had my first tomato from my garden yesterday. It's was from a determinate hybrid variety called "Better Bush." Not great, but better than anything in the supermarket.

I looked up Better Bush and it has a good write up, but doesn't appear to be available here.

I'm growing several different varieties this year, including some unusual heritage ones, but most successful and earliest again is a favourite - 'Sungold', golden cherry sized tomatoes from a cordon plant. Large producer: yesterday on one truss I counted 45 tomatoes and there are still flowers , I reckon there will be 53 tomatoes on this one truss.

Lucky you!

Other than herbs, we harvested the first fruit from the garden yesterday; a cucumber! There are tomatoes on every vine, but none ripe yet.

I was right, I've been eating ripe tomatoes since July 4th. Pick a few more every day. Ate my first Flamme last week. What a summer this has been.

Now, some less happy news: Mary is battling a bad case of "early blight" in our garden. It took out one of the San Marzanos (sob!) and a couple of okra. She has doused everything with maneb, hoping to save the rest, and is muttering about needing to find a different place to plant veggies next year and let this garden lie fallow. Problem is, in an urban neighborhood you just don't have all that much yard to fool with.

http://www.tomatodirt.com/tomato-blight-early.html

Robin Garr wrote:Now, some less happy news: Mary is battling a bad case of "early blight" in our garden. It took out one of the San Marzanos (sob!) and a couple of okra. She has doused everything with maneb, hoping to save the rest, and is muttering about needing to find a different place to plant veggies next year and let this garden lie fallow. Problem is, in an urban neighborhood you just don't have all that much yard to fool with.

http://www.tomatodirt.com/tomato-blight-early.html

I wonder if soil solarization at the end of the season or early next Spring might help rid your garden of the blight?

Redwinger wrote:I wonder if soil solarization at the end of the season or early next Spring might help rid your garden of the blight?

I'm going to have to google that, but I'll definitely pass that on to her, Bill, and thanks! Her studies suggest that crop rotation is the classic solution - plant next year's tomatoes in new ground. That's tough, though, in an urban neighborhood of 1/4-acre lots!

Robin Garr wrote:

Redwinger wrote: That's tough, though, in an urban neighborhood of 1/4-acre lots!

Growbags.....

I'm thinking about the farmer in the Bible who had weeds sown with his wheat. We have the same situation tho I don't think the weeks were sown by an enemy. All the wheat (good stuff) is doing well so I think I'll do what the guy in Bible did and just harvest the good stuff. I won't burn the weeds, but will cover them with black plastic after harvest.