Suzie, You're welcome. My garden is roughly 10,000 square feet but its size is hard to figure because it isn't a square or rectangular box. It is actually several separate plots of land, and the biggest portion of it is bordered by the woods on the north side, a grove of trees on the west side, and the driveway on the south side. It curves to go around trees, and a big mound of clay that is worthless and which I'd love to have removed, and a little pond for the wildlife. When we fenced it, it took 400' linear feet of fencing, but because it isn't a nice square garden, it really isn't 100' by 100'. It looks like a garden designed by a person who'd been drinking. I should have just hired a guy with a bulldozer to flatten everything to the ground, but I wanted to preserve mature trees and shrubs for the wildlife....so what we have is a crazy garden tucked into a clearing in the woods with fencelines that meander around trees, shrubs, cacti (even they shriveled up and were really dessicated last year), a berm and a pond. I have several smaller garden plots that are more squared off and normal looking, and I grow lots in containers...I have 60 tomato plants in containers, though I am tired of watering them and about to let them go. They're really struggling in all these 100-degree-plus days. I grow so much because I use wide rows 4' to 5' wide with 12-18" pathways, although I confess that the plants spill over into the pathways. I also grow vertically on every bit of the garden fence I possibly can, which explains why I have cantaloupes hanging up there 8' above the ground at the top of the fence. Tomorrow I am going to climb a ladder to harvest the beans growing next to them, and while I am up there I am going to put slings up to support the cantaloupes. Today (and I am laughing at myself here) I found a Moon and Stars watermelon growing on a fence about 4' above the ground. The issue with that is that Moon and Stars is a huge melon. Usually I just plant the little mini-watermelons by the fence and they do just fine when grown vertically. I'm going to have to figure out how to support the Moon and Stars melon as it enlarges. I didn't think I had any Moon and Stars melons in that specific garden plot. It is the Three Sisters Garden with 'Texas Honey June Corn', 'Seminole ' and 'Old Timey Corn Field' pumpkins, 'Worchester Indian Red' Lima Bean, and Red Ripper southern peas. I'm not sure if I planted a watermelon plant there or if it is a volunteer from compost. When I saw the plant climbing the fence a couple of weeks ago, I shrugged and wondered if it was going to be 'Black Tail Mountain' or 'Yellow Baby'. Well it is neither. It has the moons and stars of 'Moon and Stars' so I am sure that's what it is. I do remember squeezing in some birdhouse gourds on the other fence, and a few leftover gourd plants and okra plants at the east end. In the spot where the watermelon is growing? Well, I have Kebarika bush beans there. So, apparently there's a melon there. All of the above explains how I don't plant rows so much as I plant groupings that fill up the space both vertically and horizontally. Even when it is unplanned, it happens. In the big garden my Seminole Pumpkins have escaped from their bed and run 20' eastward, but they aren't growing on the ground. No, that would be too simple. They are running across the tops of the tomato cages of the 'Indigo Rose' tomatoes. Apparently while I was busy canning during the whole month of June, plants began running amok in the garden. Tim can't even see me when I'm in the garden, so he stands at the gate and hollers my name. My cats sometimes hunt me down but often they just walk up and down the adjacent driveway meowing. I tried Square Foot Garden and it was only okay for me. I just am not that structured and regimented in the way I do things, and I felt some of the plant spacing didn't work well in our hot climate, especially with big monster tomato plants. So, after reading John Jeavons book (linked below) I began planting and interplanting using his spacing and find I can get about 4 times the yield I got from traditional row spacing years and years ago. Here's a quick example of how you can get more from your garden. I planted three rows of tomato plants, with each row being about 18' long and with 4' in between the rows. In the middle of that 4', I planted rows of bush beans. The bush beans had matured and had been harvested before the tomato plants were 4' tall, and after that, I yanked out the bean plants and the tomatoes filled in all that space. I often do the same things with carrots, lettuce and radishes underneath tomato plants like a ground cover. It is a way to get multiple crops from one space. I grow all my melons under okra plants. I grow most all my vining crops on trellises and fences. Often the pole beans will climb not only the fences, but any tomato cages or okra or corn plants within reach. I work really hard to get the most from every square inch of space. I always think the garden looks great in May because it is green, lush and yet still soemwhat orderly. Then June arrives and the heat brings explosive growth (as long as there is moisture) and it gets rowdy, wild and out-of-control and becomes a jungle. I continue working night and day to manage the harvest, and likely will make the last salsa tomorrow. I've been running the dehydrator almost 24/7 and may finish drying the Principe Borghese tomatoes this week. After that, there likely won't be that many more tomatoes to harvest and dry at once, although every now and then I get a bunch of SunGolds at one time. I'm sort of moving on now, beyond tomatoes to peppers, trading in salsa-making and other fabulous tomato products for candied jalapenos peppers, jalapenos rings, Habanero Gold jelly and jalapeno jelly. I've also been busy making pickles. Today I made Spicy Pickles using a Mrs. Wage's spice mix that includes jalapenos. I think Tim is going to love these hot, spicy pickles, but they may be too hot for me. Tim looked at the counter a few days ago, with rows of tomato products (Pasta Sauce, Chili Base and Pizza Sauce) lined up neatly in their pint jars while I was trying to figure out where to put them and said "it's starting to look like you're a Doomsday Prepper". I told him no, that I was just a gardener who didn't want to waste a bit of the harvest. Doomsday Prepper indeed! (I do enjoy watching the show, but I am not one of those folks.) My Roma/Villawear tomato press/strainer is one reason I can so much stuff. Without it, the whole process is too time-consuming. With it, I can whip out batch after batch of stuff in the blink of an eye. I never would can this much if I had to peel tomatoes. If I never, ever again have to drop tomatoes into boiling water to begin the tomato-peeling process, I'll be a happy camper. Insanity reigns at our house this year--both in the garden and in the kitchen, but I am having a lot of fun (tiring fun) and getting oodles of food put up. The deep freeze is about 2/3s full, and I will finish filling it up (hopefully!) with okra, frozen peppers and mid- and late-season corn. My big worry has been that fires would start up and would take me away from the kitchen. Now that the tomato preservation is about done, I can relax and not worry much about that. We have had fires, but just not big, out-of-control ones like we had last year, and I've only had to leave in the middle of canning one time, and it wasn't at a critical time when I shouldn't leave. I have my eye on a place behind the garage where I want to be able to plant corn and pumpkins, but the soil needs massive work. I scatter sowed (with no tilling) a deer/wildlife plot mixture there last fall and it all seemed to grow well. This spring when Tim cut it, he came in and told me the turnips had grown entirely above ground. I told him that turnips will pop up like that, similar to onions sometimes (at least in our clay they do) and he told me they'd never been in the ground. I didn't believe him and went out to see...and there they were lying sideways on top of the hard clay soil. I cannot even imagine how much work we'd have to do to make that soil suitable for growing anything, but if we managed to do it, that would give me 1800 more square feet to play with. Dawn

What make a tomatoe to qualify for the adjective PASTE? Isn't that it has less juice and more meat ? If you are growing them for commercial purposes (to make paste and sell) then it make sense, like HEINZ company goes into a great extent and develops a tomato just for that purpose, regardless of taste, color... But as a home gardener, we want a tomato that is flavorful and requires less efforts and energy to reduce it. For that, there are ways. For example cut the tomato into halves and squees the juice(and seeds) out and then boil it. But I have found a better and more energy efficient way: After regular preparation, bring the batch to boil so that the tomato chunks soften and break apart. With a hand held blender, blend it real well and then strain it through a fine meshed steel straner and get the seeds and pupl out. Now here comes the trick: You have a bag made of a tightly woven strong cotten fabric. Pour the must into the bag, either hang it or rest it in a strainer. Depending on how thick you want your paste, let the juic/water sip out. This way you dont need to boil it for hours and waste energy.

Carolyn, my Opalka seeds were sourced from Sandhill. I will admit, my first year growing Opalka BER became a problem for several varieties(but not all) of tomato that year. Lots of rain followed by drought, and then I think probably over watered to compensate. Last year I gave Opalka another shot. And while I didn't get any BER problems, the production, fruit size, and plant vigor just wasn't all that spectacular. As I said before, the taste, while not bad, was only a slight improvement over Roma(which I consider to be far more vigorous and productive). I know most here won't share my opinion, but I've found leaf problems are far less pronounced when growing hybrid tomatoes and varieties bred for resistance. I understand that all tomato varies are susceptible to one thing or another regardless of being OP or Hybrid, dictated by the grower, but more accurately, by the environment and soil- which is sometimes difficult if not impossible to control. Mulio, I am far from being an expert, but this "grower" has successfully grown and harvested many varieties of tomatoes over the last decade. I've made a few mistakes along the way, but it ain't my first rodeo. I mean, really, how hard is it to grow a tomato? Opalka just didn't pan out the way I hoped it would. Just because the majority likes it(and Carolyn recommends it) doesn't mean I have to. I know it's not a popular opinion and I'm ok with that. This year is a mostly hybrid centric crop, and the plants just look so much happier and healthier than before, and producing like mad. Pure luck? science? grower? There are a few heirlooms that I would probably grow again, but 1 or 2 varieties out of the few dozen I've tried is hardly worth it.

Congrats on the great harvest. I have found that the hornworm, cutworm and tomato worm populations fluctuate a lot. This year, they've been the worst here that they've been in all but one year since we moved here. I don't know why. We were extremely wet and flooded in May and June so maybe that allowed their populations to grow more earlier in the season. They haven't been as much of a problem in the latter half of the summer when we turned very dry. Tomatoes self-pollinate and self-fertilize internally within the flower even before the flower blooms, so pollinators aren't even necessary for pollination to occur. However, after the flowers bloom, pollinators can contribute to pollination (or cross-pollination) for any flowers that weren't fully pollinated/fertilized while closed. I grow tons of flowers within my veggie garden to attract pollinators and other beneficial insects to the garden, and that generally means I have plenty of the beneficial (and very tiny) wasps that prey upon hornworms. I think that is the reason that hornworms rarely damage my tomatoes even though I have tons and tons of the white-lined sphinx (and other types of sphinx) moths around all my night-blooming flowers every evening. For all the moths we see in the hornworm family, we rarely find a hornworm on a tomato plant. It is likely your zinnias and marigolds helped your plants by attracting the predatory wasps that prey upon hornworms. I'm the odd gardener who grows many night-blooming plants on purpose specifically for the sphinx moths and other night-flying moths because we love all the moths so much. I think I get away with it because other flowers I grow attract enough beneficial insects to keep the caterpillars under control to such an extent that they aren't found on the tomato plants much---some years not at all. My tomatoes produced great all summer despite having almost no rain at all for the last 7.5 weeks (0.13" here in that 7.5 weeks), and the tomatoes did get smaller as the summer went on. I spread my planting of tomato plants over a very long period of time. The first 4 rows of plants went into the ground in late March, and from those plants we were harvesting the first fruit by latest April, and heavy loads of fruit from late May through late June. That's when I did much of my canning. I continued putting more plants in the ground through late April or maybe even the first week of May, so those plants were coming on strong in July with heavy loads of fruit after the earlier plants were slowing down. I finished most of my canning by mid-July and then just started freezing or dehydrating the excess tomatoes. My fall tomato plants went into the ground in either latest June or earliest July and are blooming, but it still is too hot here so they're dropping blossoms instead of setting fruit. We're back in drought, so my expectations for a good fall harvest have faded quite a bit. I always see my tomato fruit size fall as the season goes on. I think it partly is that the latter half of the growing season is so very dry, and likely also that the plants are devouring nutrients in the soil and may be getting a little underfed as we move into mid- to late-summer. I always mean to feed them in mid-summer, but generally just don't get around to it. I think feeding them well then might keep the fruit size from diminishing if rain is continuing to fall in a good amount (which almost never happens here). Usually by the time the tomato size is falling, we've about overdosed on tomatoes and I just don't care if the fruit are smaller by then.