Winter finally arrived!

Well, tomato season is like a memory now. We chopped down the last of the plants a couple of weeks ago, pulled up the roots and dumped bags of vines. It's sad to turn back to store bought tomatoes, but we had a good run. This year's harvest lasted well into October. In fact, we still had a few tasty tomatoes on the vines when we returned on November 5th from our trip to Vietnam.
Well, check us out next year, when we start our heirloom tomato garden all over again
See ya in the spring!
Valerie

Wonder Weather

By this time last year, the garden gave out to the inevitability of the changing season. Not this year. We're almost into October, but still the plants are sprouting. We've got the best eggplants of the season. The peppers are going strong. The basil won't quit and the tomatoes - well, they just keep growing, taller and taller. The plants look sickly, with their brown leaves, and much of the fruit is cracked and creviced. Still, the tomatoes taste delicious - sweet and juicy. I've kept them on a diet of Miracle Grow Tomato Food every 10 days, as if to hold the fall at bay. Maybe it's working.
I heard the caw of the blue jays (yes, they fly over Manhattan on their way south) last week and I thought the time had come to say adieu to morning watering, pruning and harvesting. But our babies just keep on growing.
I guess there is a positive side to climate change...

Fruitful Fall

Crisp air and chilly weather may be on the way, but don't tell that to our tomato vines. Most of them are still thick with green fruit waiting to turn cherry red. Yes, our Brandywine is done, the Japanese Trifel has given up and the Cherokee Purple is a shadow of its summer self. Still, the Donna is heavy with green globes, the Black Ethiopian has plenty of life left in it and the cherry tomato is out of control! Of course, an untimely frost will nip any new tomatoes in the bud. And shorter days mean the ripening process will take longer, making sudden death that much more likely. Still, a girl can dream of baskets of tomatoes right through October...

eek! a worm

All summer we managed to avoid them, but I thought I saw telltale signs of green horn worms on one of the plants last week. Little black droppings that just couldn't have been soot. But though I searched under leaves for the invaders, I didn't find any. Until this morning! I was pruning the dead branches from the Japanese Black Trifele when I tried to pick off a leaf - and it turned out to be a big squishy worm! Ugh. It wiggled between my finger tips as I threw it to the ground and smashed the bugger! Splat!

September blues

September is a bitter sweet month for an urban gardener. The plants are still rich with fruit, but the leaves are brittle and dry. Yes, we've got a new crop of eggplants hanging like globes on green stems. Peppers are sprouting anew and cherry tomatoes are still going strong. But there is in the air the knowledge that time is not on their sides. Despite the 90 degree days this weekend, a frost will inevitably come. Even without the chill of autumn, the days get shorter as the sun begins to wane. Though the tomato plants continue to flower, even they seem to know deep down that these shoots will come to naught. Instead of producing, the flowers will wither and die.
So, as I survey the glut of red fruit sitting on my kitchen counter, prepare my gazpacho and wonder how we'll eat the rest, I know that the end of summer is the end of gardening season. The wind will pick up, the cool air will come and the bounty of the harvest will give way to store bought produce.

Ask Us/Tell Us

With three summers of tomato farming under our belts, we've seen just about every disaster, disease and disorder possible with our plants. We'll share our remedies on this site. If you have had any experiences and have thoughts or tips, please post 'em here!

Vitamins and Minerals are for plants too!

We found out that tomatoes need fertilizer in our second growing season (2006). That may seem obvious, but we didn't have a mineral deficiency problem in our first year. We used Miracle Grow soil and cruised. But when we found purple and black spots on our leaves last year, it meant we needed to put phosphorus on the menu.

Saiffee Hardware on 7th St. and 1st Ave. in Manhattan had the goods. Hoffman's Tomato Food 5-10-10 includes the proper balance of phosphorous, nitrogen and potassium and restored our babies to health.

This year we were prepared with Hoffman's when the spots showed up. However, next season, we'll start feeding them before the problems start and continue with regular fertilizing. I bought Miracle Grow tomato food, a balanced mineral diet, and will try using it after the seedlings are transfered to outdoor pots and are strong enough for fertilizer. Of course, if the spots show up, I'll be back with the Hoffman's.

Rainy days = fungus

Last summer, (2006) came in with wind and rain. That didn't suit our tomato crop at all. A wet late June and July left our plants covered with a white filmy substance that dried out the leaves and turned them brown and brittle.

Again we hit the Internet to find out what was eating our plants. We plugged search terms "tomato diseases" into Google and found several sites with pictures and explanations of every tomato killer imaginable. Our babies had powdery mildew.

To find a solution we went off to hardware/garden outpost Saiffee on Seventh Street and 1st Avenue in Manhattan (we've found the store a great, inexpensive place to buy tomato accessories like bamboo tomato stakes.) There we found Copper Soap Fungicide. Well, again we wanted to farm without chemicals, but we didn't want to lose our plants, so we sprayed. The affected areas remained brittle and dry, but new growth came in green and healthy.

The mildew stunted our crop, but the plants still produced enough brandywines, cherokee purples, patio tomatoes and cherries to share with friends. And they still tasted great.

In reading the fungicide label this year, I note that it can be used to prevent mildew by spraying before a period of protracted rain (watch the Weather Channel for predictions.)

Pests

Our first tomato growing season (2005) brought dreaded green hornworms that ate leaves and burrowed into our precious tomatoes. They came with the heirloom Cherokee Purple and the patio tomato plants we bought at the Union Square Green Market and quickly moved on to the rest of our crop (even the cherries Mitch raised from seeds.)

Well, we went right to the Web and found out what these critters were. We headed to a plant nursery in Long Island (we were there for the weekend coincidentally) where they suggested we try an organic compound called Safer, that's pretty widely used. We were leary of using any pesticides, but we didn't want to lose the plants so, we mixed and sprayed. The Safer was fairly effective at controlling the tough to snuff critters. We also kept a vigilant eye out for them under the leaves so we could pluck them off and squash them too.

Exploding tomatoes

So, our tomatoes are bursting thanks to all this rain! It's August and you'd expect the sun to be shining and our crop to be ripening on the vine. Deep red beauties of the heirloom variety.
Instead we've hit a bump. July and early August brought forth plenty of fruit, a fab 2007 Tomato tasting festival on our terrace, but then, BAM - no tomatoes this week.
Well, the skies are supposed to clear tomorrow (Friday) and the weather's supposed to warm up, so maybe all those green globes will turn for us.