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Oklahoma Gardening
okiedawn1

Toamtoes in Oklahoma: Part III, Successful Growth

Okiedawn OK Zone 7
16 years ago

Once your plants are in the ground and growing, the fun really begins.

WEATHER: The largest challenge you will face is the weather. Spring and summer weather in Olahoma can range from heavy rains and flooding to hail and tornadoes to thunderstorm and high winds to drought. You just have to deal with each type of "misfortune" as it occurs.

TOO MUCH MOISTURE: Your best protection against overly wet ground and heavy rains is to have planted in well-drained soil and probably in raised beds as well.

Once the rain starts, there is not a lot that you can do. Sometimes, if water stands in your garden, you can use a shovel to dig a drainage trench and that may help. Or, you can lay down large sheets of heavy plastic on the surface of the soil, weighing down the edges with bricks or boards, and hope a lot of the water will drain off the plastic to an area outside the garden.

In general, though, once the rains start and the garden is planted, you can't change the situation much.

At times (last spring is an excellent example), the rains are so heavy and the soil stays wet so long that the waterlogged roots CANNOT take up the nutrients they need. The nutritional deficiencies will show up as slowly or stunted plant growth, poor leaf color or the rolling/cupping of leaves, etc. During this time, fruit set may not occur. Tomato plants don't like to set fruit they cannot support. Although you MIGHT be able to mist your plant foliage with a water-soluable fertilizer in an effort to feed them, it may not be effective enough to make a difference.

In general, you can address the nutritional deficiencies once the soil dries up.

HIGH WIND: You will have the least amount of trouble with high wind if you let your plants sprawl. If you grow them upright, you will find that occasional high wind may blow over your caged, staked or trellised plants. It is easier to prevent this by using sturdy stakes driven deeply into the ground prior to the high wind. Otherwise, all you can do is go out and repair the damage after it occurs. Be careful handling wet foliage as your hands can spread disease from plant to plant.

LACK OF WIND: This tends to be more of a problem in gardens that are surrounded by buildings and wooden privacy fences. If you are getting blooms but the blooms are falling off the plant and no fruits are forming, it may be that a lack of wind is the problem. There are several ways to work around this.

First, if you have a small number of plants, just use your fingers to "thump" individual blooms a few times to shake up the pollen and cause fruit set.

If you have more plants, you can gently shake each plant as you walk down the row.

If you have a lot of plants, walk down the pathway between two rows of plants carrying a tennis racket or sturdy stick. Give each plant's SUPPORT STRUCTURE (cage, stake, trellis, whichever you use) a good whack or two with the tennis racket or stick. Don't whack the plants themselves or you'll damage them. (smiling)

HAILSTONES: Once in a blue moon, a thunderstorm with damaging hail may strike your garden. If so, there isn't much you can do to prevent damage since you can't run outside and quickly erect a sturdy roof above your plants.

After the damage occurs, though, you need to evaluate the damage and take any corrective action you can.

First, pick up all the foliage that has been broken off the plants and put it on your compost pile or otherwise dispose of it far away from your living plants. (If you leave it on the ground under the plants, even for just a few days, that downed foliage will serve an an incubator for disease.)

Secondly, go out into the garden with a set of hand-held pruning shears and cut off stems and leaves that are damaged and dangling. To lessen the chance of spreading disease, dip your shears in a solution of water and bleach (1 of 2 tablespoons of bleach to one gallon of water) and dry them off with a clean paper towel before moving from one plant to the next.

Third, if your plants have numerous open wounds, these can serve as a gateway for bacterial and viral disease and you may or may not be able to do anything to prevent disease from getting into the plants through the wounds. You probably should spray your plants with a fungicide (chemical or organic, your choice) at this point to try and lessen the chance of disease development.

Fourth, if you already have fruit on the plants when the hailstones fall, remove damaged fruit. If the skin is broken in any way, it is unlikely that the tomatoes will grow and ripen anyway. They are likely to get infected and rot, so leaving them on the plant doesn't do any good.

Finally, if the plants are literally destroyed down to the ground, you can either replant if replacement plants are available OR take a wait-and-see approach and see if the plants regrow.

In nine growing seasons here in southern Oklahoma, I've only had severe damage once, and most of the plants recovered, although my crop was about a month late that year. I've had minor hail damage once or twice, and I've had a couple of occasions when hail fell but it was smaller and fell in lighter amounts and the plants and fruits were undamaged.

DROUGHT: Here's the big surprise that delights new tomato gardeners. One of the best things in the world (up to a point) for tomatoes is drought. Yes, it is too! So, if we have a drought, at least one thing good will come from it--a great tomato harvest.

WHY? During periods of drought, we tend to experience both lower rainfall and lower humidity, both of which can be good for your tomato plants.

Many tomato diseases are related to moisture--moisture in the soil, moisture on the leaves and moisture in the air. The less moisture, the less disease. In a dry year, you will see very low levels of bacterial disease and very low levels of various fungal diseases.

If you water your plants correctly, using either soaker hoses or a drip irrigation system, you will put water where the plants need it....in the root zone area, but not where they don't need it....on the foliage. However, if you use a watering method that pots water on the leaves (like by using a water sprinkler), you're asking for trouble.

When it is too wet, you cannot vacuum up the excess moisture out of the ground (unfortunately) but you can add more moisture to the ground when it is too dry. The key is to give your plants enough moisture to keep them actively growing despite the drought's heat, but not too much. You DO want to let the soil dry out somewhat in between watering sessions. However, you DO NOT want to let your soil swing wildly from being too wet to too dry. Such abrupt changes in moisture levels is one of the primary reasons tomatoes develop Blossom End Rot. During a drought or an extended dry period just strive to keep the soil evenly moist, not too dry and not too wet, but "just right", as Goldilocks would say.

NUTRITION: If you prepared your soil well, you may or may not need to feed your plants during the growing season. For what it is worth, most newer gardeners tend to both overwater and overfeed the plants. You get better growth and better tomato production from plants that are a little dry and a little hungry. Plants that are hungry or thirsty will show you either through their leaves (looking a little off in color or rolling or cupping) or by slowing down on plant production. You can then feed as needed. After you've grown tomatoes for a couple of years, you'll be able to tell at a glance if they are hungry or thirsty.

PESTS: Eveyone loves tomatoes and will want to help you eat yours. This can include EVERYONE from tomato hornworms to fruitworms to stinkbugs to turtles to birds to deer and including neighbors or passers-by (well, some people DO take tomatoes from other peoples' gardens without permission). A good fence helps keep unwanted critters out of the garden, especially if it has a good gate that locks. A fence that is tall enough will also keep out deer, cows, horses, goats, pigs, etc.

Pest insects are only a problem when their population gets out of control, usually due to a lack of natural predators, but we'll go into that in the next and last section, Section IV: Harvesting Your Crop

Dawn

Featured Answer
  • jlhart76
    2 months ago

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