Almost any gardener has one favorite vegetable in the garden, one that, if everything else in that garden failed except for that one, it would still worth having a garden. For me and Cliff, it is tomatoes.
Ever since 1980, I've had some amount of blight on my tomatoes; it is primarily caused by fungal or bacterial pathogens. I shouldn't complain, because we always have enough tomatoes to eat until frost anyhow. I have tried all kinds of tricks hoping to find something that works: putting straw around the plants to keep them off the dirt, or always putting tomato plants in a different place than where they were in the two previous years. I've sprayed that stinking old copper spray on them and pulled half the black leaves off the plants in hopes that would stop the death march of my plants, but alas and alack, nothing works very well.
This year I'm trying something different. It appears that many of the old trusted breeds have had a facelift. I have Celebrity Plus, Jet Star Plus, Early Bird Hybrid, and Better Boy Hybrid. Also Big Daddy, Bodacious Hybrid and Mountain Magic (that's a cherry tomato plant). Those last two were started with seeds I planted in the garden; the others I bought as plants. I have made a map of all my tomatoes, with their names written down so I don't forget what's in each space.
I've learned a few things about tomato plants already, and it wasn't necessarily about blight. For instance, if some nighttime creature eats every leaf on a baby plant, leaving only the lonesome stem of the plant sticking out of the ground, if you don't bother it, more leaves will come.
These three plants will be the first ones to give us tomatoes to eat. The two on the right are Celebrity Plus, and the one on the left is called Super Fantastic.
And these will be one of the last ones to give us tomatoes:
We had creamed new potatoes and peas from the garden yesterday, and I have beets ready to eat. We had several rounds of spinach before it started to bolt. I've started preparing the new strawberry patch and already got rid of the patch we ate from this year.
My boysenberries are coming on strong, and I may have enough for a pie this week, if I can manage to stop eating every ripe one I see while I'm in the garden. Boysenberries taste a lot like raspberries, although you won't find them in the grocery store because they are too soft to travel.
So there you have it. I wouldn't know what to do with myself if it weren't for my garden.
I am also on Team Tomato! I miss home grown tomatoes but mine also got blight and I gave up. :( We have lots of berries here in my area and I love them all. Loganberries, marionberries, salmon berries as well as the more mundane strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. I even found a patch of thimbleberries on my walk! Now to get to them without getting scratched up.
ReplyDeleteAnother hands up for tomatoes
ReplyDeleteI’m not a big tomato lover, but I will cheer you on! This year a neighbor asked to have done of my sister in law’s pine needles to put around her tomato plants. That is supposed to discourage weeds and blight. I think I will try it too.
ReplyDeleteRebecca in SW MO
Some
DeleteFresh picked tomatoes from the garden....a bit of heaven right here on earth, in my view. Enjoy them, Donna. ~Andrea xoxo
ReplyDeleteI also feel a need to raise tomatoes every year though I haven't raised any of those hybrids that you listed in decades. I prefer more heirloom type tomatoes like Amish Paste. The only hybrid I have planted are Roma. Perhaps that also explains why I have little problems with blight. Back when I did plant those hybrids like Celebrity and Big Boy, blight was always an issue.
ReplyDeleteI prefer those oldies too, but they cannot even give me a ripe tomato. They have no way to survive blight. I like hybrids, whether we are talking about dogs, cats, humans, or tomatoes. They don't die so easily.
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