Out here in the northeast all the commercial growers know that a dry summer makes great tasting fruit but they probably prefer the bigger fruit that tends to come with regular rain and lots of warm sun in between. Those big fruit really fill a bushel basket in a hurry. Season before this one I let the weeds grow under my peaches hoping they'd suck up surplus water but there was so much wet cool weather the weeds made no difference. The peaches sucked until late summer when it finally dried out a bit and we had almost summer weather. This summer was very dry but as was mentioned before some of us here (myself included) suffered from a too hard frost at least a week past petal fall for peaches. Made the harvest spotty for stone fruit. Next season I'm going to try some root pruning and maybe woven landscape fabric to shed water as an attempt to make certain peaches less vegetative and higher in sugar. Plums don't seem as vulnerable to these issues and nectarines are much less vigorous than peaches- at least the ones I'm growing here. I may not be going for what fruitnut considers optimum fruit, however. I don't even want to have his high standards- I'm already spoiled enough. Yes, pome fruit grows determinately, getting most growth with the spring surge while stone fruit is indeterminate and grows throughout the growing season. Insects have an affect on this as leaf hoppers and aphids can arrest growth and tend to on Euro plums and pomes. Unfortunately this arrest of veg growth is probably not helpful to fruit quality because they are sucking the carbs like an open spigot, mining for protean.

By all means, pull up the fabric when the tomatoes die back. Sounds like that is the only 'mistake' you made. When the tomatoes are finished bearing fruit (at first freeze), break up the plants and mow them down. Leave the clippings to mulch the soil. Add leaves and other mulchable material from the yard or flower beds if you have them, but remember that seeds from weeds and flowers and grass should not be put in your mulch if you do not want them to seed out in the Spring. If you need it, you should add raw manure now so that it will break down during the winter and not burn plants next year. Use a spading fork or rototiller to get the mulch into the soil so it will break down faster, per Tapla's post. You can wait until the Spring to add compost or composted manure, or you can add it now. If your soil is already rich, then you shouldn't need to add compost or manure, but your own mulch will help keep the soil loose and rich in nutrients. Best wishes,

Violet, I don't think I really answered your original question. Here is what does really well without a lot of work for me: Illini blackberries (Miller Nurseries, NY) Supermale Asparagus (Miller Nurseries, NY) Sour Cherry tree (Miller, either a Meteor or a North Star, redskin, yellow flesh). No spraying whatsoever. Various strawberries from various sources. Kwintus Pole Beans (Park Seed Co., grown on cattle panel hoop frame) Cimarron lettuce, romaine type from Jung and Pinetree Various potatoes, Yukon Gold is the favorite (from various sources including small potatoes I save and sprouted ones from the pantry) Beauregard sweet potato (usually from Dorothy's Digs, local greenhouse close by) Bodacious Sweet Corn (Hummerts in Springfield) also Peaches and Cream and Candy Corn....Bodacious is the favorite) Various tomatoes, mostly heirloom varieties from various online sources....favorite last year was Granny Cantrell (sorry ceresone, Anias Noir got more disease for me) All peppers do well: Parks Thickset, Cal. Wonder, Sweet and Hot banana, cayenne, Anaheim and Ancho, Valencia Bloomsdale Long-Standing spinach Onions: Only Candy and Super Star (from seed, Harris Seed Co. NY) am trying a sample of plants to see how they compare to seed started. They are the only onions that have ever made any size for me...day neutral type. Hope this helps...as you will see, I don't grow exotics...or haven't before.

I read your posts and admire your fortitude for toughing it out on your old homestead for as long as you did! You really could write a book! I am reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and it's inspiring me to want to try my hand at small-scale homesteading again. But I'm wondering if I need to move to a different state. I'm joking/not joking. I'm in the DFW area and I can barely get a vegetable garden to grow between pests and heat. My parents and siblings live in the Central Valley of CA and it seems like they stick plants in the ground, water, and they grow. Are you having better success with gardening in Gonzales?