Congratulations, Dorothy, on the ripe tomatoes and the real beginning of the flood of tomatoes that soon will follow! Tomato harvest season is my favorite season, and I like it best when it is a really long season. We've mostly been harvesting Early Girl, Chocolate Cherry, SunGold, Terenzo, Lizzano, Little Sun and some random Yellow Cherry that grew from seeds labeled JD's Special C-Tex but which clearly are not JD's Special C-Tex at all. Usually SunGold is the earliest spring-planted cherry type here, but Chocolate Cherry, Lizzano and Terenzo all beat it this year. Loving tomatoes as we do, we've enjoyed every last one of them. I know you're enjoying yours too. Our early plantings of squash and beans have paid off big-time so I'm glad I took the chance and planted them early. My cuke plants are climbing, but haven't bloomed yet. We're harvesting oodles of zucchini and yellow summer squash, and so far have seen no sign of SVBs or squash bugs. Knock on wood! The lack of rainfall worries me too, and we're starting to have little grassfires popping up here and there, which worries me even more. Fires are about the last thing in the world that are a concern for us here in May of most every year. Our relative humidity is dropping into the 20s in the afternoons, but I prefer that to the kind of humidity we had in previous weeks. Our high temps continue to overachieve, and I don't like that. Our forecast yesterday was for 86 and we hit 91 at our house. Today's forecast is for 88 and we're already at 87. We have a slim chance of rain next week. I think it is a 20% chance one day and a 30% chance the next, but that's still a few days out and I'm not holding my breath waiting for rain to fall. Our broccoli crop was better than our sugar snap pea crop, but neither was great and I feel like the space I used for them was wasted space. The cabbage is OK. I think the onions, potatoes and carrots will be just fine. So, it looks like this year was pretty hard on most above-ground cool-season crops, but not so rough on the cool-season crops whose edible parts grow below the ground. That means I will think long and hard about how much space I devote to cool-season crops next year. At a grassfire about 5 miles south of us yesterday, I saw bazillions of grasshoppers about 3/4" long. I was not happy to see them. They were all over every single blade of prairie grass. Seeing them sent a chill up my spine. I have not seen them here near our house in large numbers, but knowing they are present in large numbers just a few miles away sets off alarm bells ringing in my head. I hope they were present in such large numbers because they were fleeing the fire, but they really weren't moving very much, so I think they may not have been fleeing...just sitting around eating grass while the fire burned a few yards away. I have seen all kinds of bugs this year that I usually don't see, and the potato bugs are entertaining us as they creep around the garden looking for potatoes. I've seen potato bugs on tomatoes, peppers, catnip, snap peas, broccoli and now on the zucchini. They clearly must have emerged from last year's potato beds, but this year's potatoes are growing about 150' away and they can't find them. Of course, I squish the CPBs when I find them. Our "Early Sunglow" corn is participating in the trend towards early harvesting. We usually harvest it right around Memorial Day, but I think it likely will be ready to harvest next week. The coons have been prowling around the yard and garden at night, and if that is not a sign the corn is almost ripe, then I don't know what it. Dawn

thank you! i've got lots-o-blossoms now. lots of teeny tomatoes starting to show. i thought i'd NEVER have anything going in the garden after the late cold, wet weather here in nebraska this spring. we had rain again thursday night and late friday afternoon. not typical weather for our area. not so many years ago it would be dry and brown just shortly after july 4th. now it stays green well into august.

I pick them at first sign of blushing and let them ripen on the counter. I used to think they needed to vine-ripen to get that homegrown taste but have found that is not the case. IMO of course. And I think you might have some blight on some of your lower leaves...

http://tomatodiseasehelp.com/bacterial-cankers The picture here looks similar - I think. Perhaps you could isolate that plant from the rest? I don't think it would hurt you to eat the fruit because tomato diseases don't affect humans. It's just that you wouldn't want disease to spread to the other plants - if that is what this is. Perhaps it's just a reaction to the hot sun and nothing to worry about, especially since the leaves are not affected. Keep a sharp look out, and be sure to sterilize your pots and stakes in bleach for next season. Linda