Jay, Our weather has been all over the place the last 6 weeks with very little consistency. Some nights it has dropped into the 60s and many nights it has dropped into the lower 70s. Walking out the door before sunrise to an air temperature of 84 was just pathetic. We usually have that kind of heat here at night in early August, not early July. I cancelled my plan to dehydrate the tomatoes today when the heat index hit 105 and the power went out. The power was only out a couple of minutes, but it caught my attention and made me decide to wait until tomorrow. I don't want to have an oven full of baking sheets with little dehydrating tomatoes on them and then have the power go out. It currently is 98 here with a heat index of 105, and we're in the "cooler" Red River Valley. Up in Ardmore and Madill, one of which is one county north and the other is one county northeast of us, they have hit 100 degrees and Ardmore's heat index is 106 and Madill's is 107. We're supposed to hit 103 here today but I keep hoping the cold front will send T-storms out ahead of it that will cool us down. I hope my mentioning the ripe tomatoes didn't hurt you too much! I am sure you'll have ripe ones before you know it. My harvest is peaking a month late--it usually starts in earnest the first week in June and this year it really started around July 1st. I think the harvest will be just as large as past years, assuming some disease does not suddenly strike, but over a shorter period. As long as we get tomatoes to eat, that's all I care about. Have you ever had trouble with the foundation of the garage wicking moisture away from the plants? Is that possible? I wonder too, if somewhere in the subsoil there might be a big crack and the water is seeping down into the ground through it. When our clay soil cracks, I could stand there with a hose running all day and the water would keep draining down....the crack would never "fill up". Our sandy soil hardly ever cracks, but our first drought year here I couldn't keep plants in it watered enough to keep them from dying. After a decade of soil improvement, that's not an issue any more though. I went and bought Daconil but haven't sprayed yet. I keep trying and can't get to it before the heat gets too bad and I have to come inside. This morning, I picked all the ripe fruit I could before I came in for brunch, and then intended to go back outside, pick the rest of the ripe ones, remove the diseased foliage, and then spray. Since it got so hot so fast, I didn't get it done, so maybe I can finish it this evening when the temps drop down to some reasonable temperature like 92 or something. When you lift those plants that are failing in that one hole, do you see any signs of root knot nematodes? Other than something that is strictly a soil drainage issue, nematodes are another possibility for a plant in sandy soil that is not thriving. Other than that possibility, I am stumped. The farmer's market will be such fun. If you get hooked on selling there, you'll "have to" build a greenhouse or high tunnel so you can plant early and have the first ripe fruit at the market every year! I am leaning towards building a high tunnel before next year. It wouldn't have to be really huge. I'd be happy if I could just plant 20 or 30 tomato plants really early and know they'd be protected from the colder nights and heavy rains. If we build a high tunnel, we'll put it on higher ground than the current veggie garden so that heavy rains aren't an issue. It is so miserably hot here that I brought the outside dogs in from the garage to cool off for a couple of hours, and the feral cat who hates all the other cats and starts fights with them is even inside. He's in Tim's weight room, though, so he can sleep and chill out and not have any "contact" with our other laid-back, mellow kitties. We're pretty much in a regular routine now where the house dogs go to the master bedroom to sleep on their dog beds all afternoon, the cats go to the guest room (because the outdoor dogs like to chase cats), Yellow Cat goes to the weight room and the outdoor dogs sleep downstairs in the living room, breakfast room or kitchen. The only animals still outside are the poultry! I am eagerly watching the radar for signs of cooling rain. I do have the sprinkler on right now, "watering" the chicken coop and fenced-in poultry run in an attempt to cool it down a bit for the 10-week old chickens. Dawn

Yeah even with all the deer damage done early - they topped off some 20-30 plants but most have recovered well - I still have to come down on the far better than average year...so far...knock on wood. Pretty good year for hornworms but no disease issues and really good production on all varieties. Been eating Bella Rosa, Jetsetter, and a few Mortgage Lifters for a couple of weeks. Dave

ML's are one of my favorites not sure what strain I've had probably Radiator Charlies. Production is important to me but taste is much more important. I care very little about turning out huge pounders with which to impress others, again it's taste that is paramount to me. I would like to try all the strains of ML to see if there is a difference in taste but from what I've read there really isn't much difference in that regard.

Congratulations! all i have are cherry tomatoes. they're not bad though.