Late Tomatoes

[Magicman]

Our tomato crop was a bust this year due to the extreme heat.  I was watering and blooms would form but drop off.  After the temperature dropped I noticed that the plants were still producing blooms but now they were sticking and forming fruit.


 The vines have now all died and the fruit is green but there.


 I picked all that was there which was about a gallon I guess.  I picked one that had started to turn a week ago and we each had a mater sammich for lunch.  I'll store these on a tray in the dark somewhere and see what happens.

Back on the farm my Mom always planted a late crop of tomatoes.  Before they started to ripen we would pull the plants up by the roots and layer them under hay in a storage house.  They were taken out, one plant at the time, and hung upside down so we could gather the tomatoes as they ripened.

[doc henderson]

It is good to know about the "old ways".  we have bought the perfect shaped organic tomatoes.  perfect uniform color.  must have been made by a machine in a factory as they had no taste.

[21incher]

We make fried green tomatoes  digin1 with some of the leftovers. 

[Jeff]

I ate my last ripe tomato grown here at the cabin just last week. We had over 120 fist size ripe tomatoes off of 3 plants. I made sauce here at the cabin and Tammy made a batch at home. This past weekend I made venison chili for us from our tomatoes and it was great.


 

 

 

 

[Magicman]

As a friend of mine once (or twice) said; I would eat that. 

[sawguy21]

I'm jealous, our tomatoes are done by the end of August. They did well this year and I certainly ate my share. 8)

[SwampDonkey]

Made lots of spaghetti sauce here and a bunch of ketchup to. Home made ketchup is the best you ever had.  We've gone through 4 jars already since September. 

[Magicman]

So far.....


 
About half of them have ripened and been eaten.  We have only had two to rot so the success ratio is good.  So are da maters. 

[SwampDonkey]

Yep, I've ripened many tomatoes by the box or paper bag in the closet method. ;D

[randy d]

Speaking of later Tomatoes we have a Bing cherry Tomato under lights and it just ripened a nice red cherry Tomato  ya got to love it  Randy

[Don P]

Ours usually blight out long before the season is over so one strategy is to plant plenty for early harvest, counting on losing them as the blight sweeps through. I was working on one farm and noticed the high tunnel was still closed and it was approaching noon in full sun, Ruh-Roh! A hollered to the owner and he said Yup, I'm giving a few more minutes to cook the blight. He knew the blooms would abort but he was hoping to get more fruit to.. fruition. Someone mentioned the other day about getting several seasons out of garden stakes. Trying to keep that stuff under control I burn ours every year and make new ones over the winter. Or when she reminds me I was supposed to make them over the winter.

[Magicman]

The Holidays took out the remainder of our mater stash.  There is nothing like craving for a big ole Chef Salad when you are "mater less"  :

[SwampDonkey]

Blight needs live tissue to survive winter, like an old potato that don't freeze out over winter that was blight infected. Stakes aren't going to carry blight over winter into the next garden season. It's too cold to begin with to survive on a green plant in New Brunswick. It will be black and dead and freeze dried. :D  I also plant resistant tomato varieties for the garden.

[newoodguy78]

The one thing to consider very often bacterial canker is misdiagnosed as blight. Without doing a tissue test it can be almost impossible to differentiate.

Blight is a nuisance canker is miserable to get rid of it's cancer of the tomato world. No one seems to have the cure. It stays in the soil and will winter over, anything that comes in contact can and will transmit it be it stakes, people or equipment doesn't matter.
Unfortunately we have been dealing with it here for the last couple years. Came in on seeds and took off.

I burn every one of our plants when they're done and we take all the precautions we can to help prevent the spread further than it already has.

[SwampDonkey]

I'll say it again. Blight won't over winter on garden stakes, nor in bare soil. It can only survive winter on live tissue. Either left in a garden to survive or not rotted in a compost pile. Cornell will tell you that and lots of gardening and Ag sites as well. Most often potato tubers are the culprit. I've never had a problem of recurring blight and have gardened for 40 years. Any infected and missed potatoes during harvest in the fields and gardens are potential over wintering hosts. They have to have been infected first. If any potato field is infected up this way, by law, the plants and tubers have to be destroyed and they are not sold. If you're watching your garden or field closely it is easy to identify, spread and symptoms are rapid. If you have one tomato plant that looks rough and all the others around look great, pretty probable it ain't blight.

[Don P]

I asked the boss why she is making me burn and replace if blight is not soil borne. Early blight and Septoria leaf spot among other problems are soil borne, late blight is wind borne. We also have several perennial solanaceous weeds.

"How are next year's stakes coming?" Thanks! :D

[newoodguy78]

Don do you have much tobacco grown in your area? We have a lot grown around us, some of our fields border tobacco.
That in itself presents a challenge, being in the same family of plants.
My personal belief is having that many plants in a relatively small area increases the risk of issues.
That's not meant to be a dig at tobacco farmers at all. More of a point that what is grown in your area affects plants heavily. As you stated certain strains and diseases are wind borne and some stay in the soil.
Paying attention to where you plant what and what was planted there previously imo is the first step in controlling problems.

[tule peak timber]

We normally have tomatoes until November. Not this year!

 

[SwampDonkey]

Early blight also has to survive on plant material. Plowing the grown up after harvest will kill host material, it will rot and not infect next year.

An example excerpt from U of Maine about early blight. "The fungus spends the winter in infected plant debris in or on the soil "

So infected plant debris under the soil surface or plant debris laying on top. Solanaceous weeds is where a lot of the problem is. I have none of that in the garden area. Rare to even find in the wild here, usually in damp woods with openings. Only one I know of is Circaea alpina, or small enchanter's nightshade. It's not a plant that even grows in a garden or field around here.

No mention anywhere of garden stakes being a problem concerning blight. A belief is not a fact. :D

I will continue using older stakes and make new as required, with no ill effects.

[Don P]

Good deal. We opened up a jar of homemade salsa last night.
I grew up around bright leaf, this was burley country up here but I cannot think of a field left within miles now. Horse nettle is probably the most prevalent host in the family around.

[Sod saw]

.


Could it be that there is enough cold for SwampDonkie to be able to reuse his tomato stakes but not enough cold for folks further south like Don so that he needs to destroy his stakes?

Is there any reason that last seasons stakes could not be put into the kiln for a disinfecting cycle at the end of a load of lumber?


.

[SwampDonkey]

Chance of blight wintering on stakes is very slim to none. But I'm only talking about blight. I have no knowledge of life cycles of other infectious fungi or viruses. I've never had a problem growing tomatoes using old stakes. Maybe next summer some wilt disease will wipe the whole crop, not expecting it. Then how do you prove it was stakes with a one time incident?  Correlation isn't causation. If you asked Dep of Ag around here if they could test stakes, they'd get a good laugh and that would be the extent of that experiment. :D

[Don P]

It was a passing comment. Do a quick google on tomato stake sanitation, for me it is easier to make new ones. This was just the first 3 hits

Purdue;
Use clean stakes or cages each year

Cornell;
Power wash dirt off tomato stakes and then disinfect before re-using. This is especially important for bacterial pathogens.  Power washing wooden stakes is not sufficient to remove bacteria because they can be in the small spaces of wood.  Washing is important because soil interferes with disinfecting.  Disinfect them with a quaternary ammonia product (best) or 10% bleach solution. Make sure stakes are completely submerged and not tightly bundled. Soak for at least 20 minutes. Where bacterial canker developed it is recommended that the stakes be disposed of because it is difficult to eliminate all the bacteria by disinfecting contaminated stakes, and canker is more difficult to manage than other bacterial diseases.

UConn;
Wooden stakes are a place where the bacterial pathogens that plague tomatoes can survive between crops. In fact, stakes from a tomato planting where research was conducted on bacterial diseases have been used as a source of the pathogen for subsequent experiments!

[SwampDonkey]

Yep, all well and good if you have trouble with those other diseases. I've not had issues. As far as controlling bacteria that's a heck of a lot harder to control than blight. Bacteria, from what I recall from biology, can hibernate on a rock in a suspended state if it has to. :D Pretty sure the best treatment of old stakes is heat treatment. Simply because they can hide deeper in wood pores or checks. I would be wary of those types of disease in your garden that summer and burn them at the stake, so to speak. I wouldn't trash them for the sake of trashing them if your tomatoes are healthy. ;D

[21incher]

I used to scrub my stakes with a strong chlorine mixture but then got lazy and stopped when I didn't  see a difference.  I figured a couple below zero days would kill anything but now you have me thinking. 

[Magicman]

I use T Fence posts, so I doubt that anything soaks into them.   I haven't had any to rot either.  ;D