Susan,

None. Most of my spring-planted tomatoes are still pretty healthy, loaded with fruit and producing well, so I decided to just stick with them. Some years, the plants are so exhausted, diseased, pest-ridden or raggedy-looking by mid-July that I am ready to yank them out and replace them all. This year is the total opposite, though. They're doing so well that I'm going to leave them.

In a very hot and very dry summer (it is dry here even if it isn't dry in most of the rest of the state), it costs me so much to water new tomato transplants for fall that it almost isn't worth planting them.

If my spring-planted plants take an abupt nose-dive in late July or in August or whatever, I'll just yank them out and replace them with a cool-season crop for fall.

As it is right now, there's not much empty space in my garden, and what space I am opening up by harvesting the carrots, potatoes and corn will be filled with beans and southern peas for fall. Maybe a few more okra plants for fall to replace the summer ones or some cukes or something if space opens up.

It is too hot for me to do much in the garden right now, and I stay busy with all the canning and dehydrating.

I looked at my garden last week and asked myself where I would put fall tomatoes if I planted them, and decided there wasn't anything out there that I was willing to sacrifice in order to have more tomatoes. So, I guess for once, I have enough tomatoes and don't need more. Yes, I know that it will be a terrible shock to everyone to hear me say I have 'enough'. Maybe I'm ill and running a fever....I am awfully hot. No, wait, that's just the darned heat index making me feel incredibly hot.

I hope your fall tomatoes do well, and I hope my spring tomatoes keep producing because by keeping them, I'm putting all my eggs in one basket. I still have at least 53 varieties producing well, so I don't think they'll all 'crash and burn' in the July and August heat.

Dawn

None.

I tried to ignore tomatoes today, but after I heard thunder I decided that I better go pick the blushing ones quickly. I got a Walmart bag full. Al carried it into the house and it was about to break the handles on the bag. At least they aren't totally ripe so I don't have to process them yet. I need to go find my bigger basket.

I think most of my container tomatoes will not last long, but some are determinates anyway and I doubt it would be worth messing with them just to see if they would produce again in fall, although I have had a few that do. The vines in the garden are holding up much better than the ones in containers (except the 5 that got too dry), and the ones that don't get full sun all day are doing better than the others.

If I write down the ones that I haven't been impressed with this year, then I can elimate several, but then Jay will just tempt me with more. LOL Next year I am doing my final (no really) garden expansion. Of course, that is because I will have planted all of the fenced area. If I plant containers, I am going to put them in a different location where they don't get all day sun. Of course, I am not admitting how many large containers I have.

Thanks, Dawn, I hope they do, at a minimum, okay!

Am I surprised to know you aren't planting any more tomatoes - HECK, YES! But I understand on the other hand because I don't understand how you plant, manage, harvest, can, dehydrate and do everything you do with the high number of plants you start in the spring anyway.

Another part of me thinks to me wee self, something is up with Dawn. She must have a touch of the summer flu or something.....no tomatos? This has to be a first and we should save this thread for posterity.

Heeheeheehee

Susan

So if a tomato is beginning to turn (is kindof orangy?) it's ok to go ahead and pick it? Would you recommend doing that in case it storms?

Kelly,

You can pick them anytime after you see color break on the blossom (bottom) end of the fruit. Bring them inside, line them up on a counter or table OUT of direct sunlight and let them finish ripening on their own. It can take anywhere from 2 to 7 days anytime of the year for them to finish ripening indoors, and sometimes in July and August it happens incredibly quickly.

You can pick them any time after color breaks, which is called the 'breaker' stage, but I like to wait a couple more days until they're at the 'turning' stage.

See the chart at the link below to see tomatoes at the breaker and turning and other stages of ripening.

Finally, whatever you do, NEVER, EVER, EVER put a fresh, home-grown tomato in the refirigerator. Refrigeration destroys the flavor and texture of tomatoes and turns your beautiful, fresh home-grown tomato into the flavor/textural equivalent of a store-bought tomato.

I have told my DH a million times "do not refrigerate tomatoes" but he still sticks slices of tomatoes into the fridge. When I see them there, I tell him he'll have to eat those slices himself now that he's ruined them. He just doesn't get it. If I wanted a round, reddish-looking thingy that visually resembles a tomato, has poor texture and poor flavor, I could buy those at the grocery store instead of going to all the trouble to grow my own. If we ever divorce (lol, and we won't), it will be because he still puts tomatoes into the refrigerator.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Chart Showing Ripening Stages of Tomatoes

Dawn-how long do you think your tomatoes will keep producing? I've always pulled mine at the end of the summer, but my vines look healthy and they are loaded with fruit, so I'm wondering if I will even need to bother with a whole load of fall plants.

Maybe I could just try to take some cuttings of the current ones and only have to find space for a few new plants in the garden?

Of course, I probably will seed at least a couple...

Kelley, I'm thinking that Dawn said they become watery and less tasty when it rains.

Where are the brave souls here that "intended" to plan fall tomatos? Am I the lonely tomato lady who is striving to persevere - thru wind, and rain, and heat, and humidity....and all that stuff.

I'm not planting because my other plants are declining (they are a bit, and since they are "iffy", I don't know if they'll make it thru fall or not), but mainly because I want to try some different varieties, and I didn't want the other small plants to go to waste entirely.

Carol, boy have I heard that before, about this being the last garden area. Seems I said that several years ago, and somehow I keep expanding. LOL. I have the opposite issue from yours - my tomatos in containers have done so much better than those I put in the ground over the last few years. Of course, it was hard to find a spot with much sun in the yard. With the containers, I can move them to sunny spots, which is the median between my yard and the neighbors, and I cleared it with him before I set the containers up there. I'm also anxious to see how the plants do in Al's mix. So, lots of "testing" going on this year.

Susan

My spring tomatoes were hacked to death by that huge hail storm so they are pretty ragged now. So I am planting

Roma (san marzano)
sweet 100's
ground cherries
and chocolate tomato

This time they are going in containers to better control conditions.

Megan, It all just depends on what the weather and pests do. Some years, I have had spring-planted tomato plants produce well into November, and one year they produced until the first frost in mid-December. However, once your daytime highs are down in the 70s, their flavor is pretty sorry. I'm kind of at the point that any tomatoes harvested after September (or sometimes mid-October if it stays hot) aren't worth picking because their flavor has greatly diminished. That doesn't mean I won't pick them...I won't look a gift horse in the mouth, but it does mean I likely won't take great pains to save them after Sept. if a frost is coming (unless it is a really hot autumn and the flavor is still good).

In a year, like this one, when the tomato plants still look really good in July, they usually keep producing into September or October as long as they remain disease-free and pest-free. Usually, by now, if Early Blight is going to kill them, it is well on its way to doing so. If spider mites are going to severely hurt them, they already are there. So, with plants that still look relatively healthy and vigorous at this point in time, I have little concern that they'll poop out in August or earlier.

However, that doesn't mean bacterial wilt or blister beetles or something won't suddenly hit, but some years they don't (and some years they do).

You know, you could take a few cuttings from the current plants and have them as 'backups' in case your current plants run into trouble.

I used to always plant pretty much all new tomato plants for fall, but the last few years, the fall planting has varied depending on whether I felt like I 'needed' new plants or not, and this year I don't feel like I need new ones for fall.

I'm looking at an enormous fall harvest (hoping I don't jinx myself by saying this) from sweet potatoes, okra, black-eyed peas and pole beans among other things (squash, tomatoes, peppers), so I really don't want to overload myself with too many crops to harvest and process at the same time. I also have to keep an eye on my three freezers and on how much they're filling up (they're already moderately full) and on how full the root cellar is getting. There's not much point in producing more than we can process and eat.

Dawn

Dawn, just curious, have you ever grown those "keeper" tomatos? The that are supposed to stay good for a very long time after picking? I don't think there are very many, and I've only read about a couple of them, but just wondered if they are worth the effort.

Susan

I always pick before dead ripe if I see the tomato before then. If I dont pick around the pink stage I run a greater chance of the tomato splitting, especially in this kind of weather. It is very dry here. We are around 9 inches below normal. My water usage last mo. was 4 times what it runs in the winter and spring and 3 times yearly monthly average. As space becomes available I am just tilling and waiting. Within 2 weeks I will expect to only have tomatoes, peppers, and pole beans left.

I had planned to plant more but the water bill is too high. I have 22 tomatoes and 10 peppers, if I can keep half of them alive and producing, I will have more than enough.

Larry

Dawn said:

"I have told my DH a million times "do not refrigerate tomatoes" but he still sticks slices of tomatoes into the fridge."

Steve does that, too!!! What is it with these guys? Sheesh. Actually, he hadn't done it yet this year but the pickin's had been slim before he left. I'll give him credit for it anyway (while keeping a wary eye out should he get to come back before winter).

No fall tomatoes this year. I'm just not up to messing with them.

Diane

I guess I am late to the show, but I always stuck them in the fridge, never knew any different. But now I know...

The main problem with my spring tomatoes is the fact that the lower branches are huge, and still producing. That big hail storm we had cut off the main branch at that time. So all my tomatoes except the sweet 100's look like bowls. It really is funny to see...

Susan, You asked where all the 'brave' souls are who intended to plant fall tomatoes. I think we're all still here, but the thing to understand about fall tomatoes is that some years you 'need' them because the spring crop is playing out and its productivity is decreasing. Other years you don't 'need' fall tomatoes because the spring tomatoes are still going strong.

I can't speak for everyone else, but my spring crop is in amazingly good shape, so I don't 'need' new plants for fall. That was a decision I made in early June, by the way, because early June is when I would have started seeds for fall tomatoes. I also could have started new plantings for fall from cuttings a week or two ago and still could do that now, but there's no reason to do that with the spring plantings still going strong.

I suspect that if I kept records, I'd see that I do a fresh planting for fall about half the time, but not last year and not this year.

I have grown longkeeping types and they are OK. Their flavor is nothing to get excited about but it still is superior to grocery store tomatoes. The key to success with longkeepers is that you have to have a place to put them where they can ripen slowly. I use the tornado shelter as a root cellar, so I have that. Depending on the space you have in your house, you may have room to store them and keep them as they ripen slowly. They are worth the effort if you don't have a lot of tomatoes frozen, canned or dehydrated to get you through winter. Since I started dehydrating so many in recent years, I haven't bothered with longkeeping types.

The ones I've grown have included Longkeeper, Red October, Yellow In Red Out, Reverend Morrow's, Old-Fashioned Garden Peach and Winterkeeper. Sunray is another one that lasts forever on the kitchen counter even though it is not normally described as a longkeeper.

Larry, I'm sorry the drought there is causing you so much trouble. I spent a huge amount of money watering my garden in June (the June water bill was three times higher than the May water bill, and the May water bill was twice as high as the April water bill) and would have lost everything if I hadn't irrigated. The rain that arrived here in late June/early July has kept it going a bit longer, but I'm pretty much at the point that if rain doesn't fall here in July, I may not be able to keep the garden going much longer. It is a simple financial decision, you know, because at some point you spend more to water than you'll get in produce out of the garden. Several times in recent years (2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007 come to mind), I've just basically turned off the water and said "I'm done" and let the garden die, and that was after having a water bill in the triple digits. It is the hardest thing in the world to do, but water is very expensive here where I live and it takes enormous amounts of it to water a huge garden in clay soil. So, you certainly have my sympathy. If it doesn't rain here in July, my garden may not survive until August and that's just the reality of a low rainfall year. Even in a good year we don't get enough rain in June, July and August, and we're not having a good rainfall year here in Love County. We go for long periods with no rain and then get so much at once that much of it runs off instead of soaking in.

Diane, Here's the difference between Tim and I. Let's say we cut up a couple of big ol' maters and made BLT sandwiches for lunch. After the meal, if I am cleaning up the kitchen, I look at the two or three slices of tomato left on a plate and decide to eat them right then and there so they won't spoil. They are so yummy! If he is cleaning up the kitchen, he puts them into the refrigerator and NO ONE eats them because of the way their taste and texture change. He doesn't even eat them!!!! So, when I see slices of tomatoes in the fridge, I take them out and feed them to the chickens. I don't know why he doesn't just eat those couple of slices himself, offer them to me, or feed them to the chickens.

Ezzirah, To keep that fresh-from-the-garden taste and texture, never refrigerate tomatoes. It basically reduces their quality to little better than that of the tasteless red 'excuses' for tomatoes that most all grocery stores sell. You'd think after well over 25 years of hearing me say "don't put the fresh tomatoes in the fridge" that my DH would understand not to do it, but in this case, it just goes in one ear and out the other. The funny part is that he doesn't eat them after he sticks them in the fridge. My DH is VERY spoiled. He is so used to always having tons of fresh garden produce around that he isn't very good at eating leftovers of anything. It drives me nuts. He is great at putting stuff in the fridge, but not at taking it out, reheating it and eating it. That just drives me nuts! (What is the point, after all, in putting it into the refrigerator if you aren't going to use it?)

Sometimes I think men shouldn't be allowed in the kitchen, but then he cooks a lot in the summer when I'm canning a lot and sick of being in the kitchen, so I can't very well order him out of 'my' kitchen, now can I?

Dawn

Thanks for the explanation, Dawn, even tho I was just "ribbing" you! :) And, thanks for the info on the longkeepers. I may try them next year, but I am kinda burned out on keeping up with just my small part of the gardening world, too. I still have 3 or 4 tomato plants to pot up, but today was a heavy watering day, so I'll do it tomorrow - maybe.

Something stung me on the neck while I was watering today, and I don't know what it was, but it sure did sting for a bit. I didn't have any baking soda on hand (or I just couldn't find it), so I stuck some salt on it in hopes that it would have the "drawing out" effect like BS does. I'm pretty tolerant of bites, bruises, cuts, scratches and such, and often don't realize I've even got a bite or an owey, til I'm done and in the house relaxing a bit. But this one stung right from the get-go. I'm pretty darned sure I cracked a bone in my foot a couple of weeks ago, but they don't do anything for that kind of injury, so I've just been tolerating it. Que sera, sera!

When you just have a few tomato plants (very, very few, comparatively speaking), you kinda wanna make sure you're gonna have some in the fall, so that's another reason why I wanted to plant some more. So, I'm covered reasonably well in case the others go kaput. For all our complaints about it not being a good tomato year, and the drought and heat interrupted by massive amounts of rain, everyone's tomatos must be doing well despite the negative influence of the weather.

I wonder if Jay or MaxMex are going to plant fall tomatos???????

Susan

Susan,

I just didn't want you to feel like we all 'deserted' you with the fall plantings. I'm thrilled to be able to carry plants over to fall two years in a row because the older plants have large root systems and don't need to be watered as much as younger plants with small root systems, so that reduces my watering. I watered container plants last night while it was still very hot and wish I'd left it until this morning when it was much cooler. Ever since the rain fell (and, really, not that much fell here, but some rain is better than no rain), I've been trying to water them only once a day, although they'd prefer twice.

I seldom have a bad tomato year, or at least what I ought to say is that I plant so many plants that even in a bad year I have plenty of tomatoes, and think that is true of many others here as well. A bad tomato year is almost never, ever the 'fault' of the gardener, but rather it is one of those things that weather causes, but it can be very discouraging to the gardener who is going through it. I hope anyone who has had a bad tomato year this year knows that the weather threw everything it could at us so far in 2010 and a bad tomato year is common under these circumstances.

I don't think Jay or George plant new plants for fall because they have a lot of late-season producers and both are in zone 6 (oops, think Jay is on the 5/6 border) so their first freeze is likely early compared to mine most years.

Dawn

Well, I have planted 2 new tomato plants, but they are volunteers that came up in Jo's garden. We don't know what kind they are, but any tomato is a good tomato :) She gave me 4 plants but 2 didn't survive the transplant. The 2 that made it are doing really well! I'm also hanging onto my other 4 plants from the Spring, as they are just now recovering from the trauma I inflicted upon them, and seem to be doing really well. I'm also gardening in a very small space, in containers, so while I could have planted a few more Fall tomatoes, I opted to give some pole beans and carrots a shot.

Thanks for the info on picking the breaking tomatoes! I shall run out and pick my tomato and do a happy dance.

:D

Carrots are a pain in my butt. Whenever it rains it washes all of my little teeny seeds away. I can show you how to make paper towel seed tapes, which I am hoping will help. My carrot germination rate is sad, sad, sad.

Jo

Susan,

About your bug bite and not finding the baking soda. My favorite remedy for bites and burns is plain ol' mustard out of the fridge. Leave it on a few minutes and it takes the pain away. Must be the tumeric? Forget where I learned it. Anyway-----

Marcy

You also can use lavender oil for insect bites. Leava gave me some at the spring swap and it is wonderful.

I am thinking Leava needs to open a little soap and herb shop!

Dawn

Yum, that sounds so devine, Dawn!

Marcie, thanks for the tip on the mustard, I never would have thought of that as a home remedy. It is feeling much better tonight, so don't think it was anything serious. Could have been a biting fly, ant, sweat bee, anything. I have had some Stinging Rose caterpillars in the garden this year. I don't get them every year, but I think they would have packed a more powerful punch. They just look like something you don't wanna touch!

Susan

Oh, how we've fallen for Leava's lavender oil! Just today, I searched out recipes for it since we'll be out before long. We use it every single day now. Josie, my one year old, has come to love it so much (she gets the most mosquito bites of all) that she reaches & points & cries for it every time she gets a boo-boo of any kind. She doesn't get that it won't help her bruised noggin or her scraped knee but it's so cute!

Diane

Heehee, Diane, my granddaughter loved her Lavendar baby bath and lotion when she was little, too. I remember one time she got ahold of the bottle and doused herself with it, and then proceeded to "wash" her hair with it, too. She still loves lotion, but has expanded her like now to include many more scents. Lavendar is supposed to have a soothing and relaxing element to it, and is used a lot in aromatherapy. I believe it.

My favorite scent is still Patchouli, just for the smell of it. I used to grow it occasionally but haven't for a long time. It is an annual here, or can be grown as a houseplant. My sister does soapmaking, too, but she usually just does it during the holidays to give as gifts.