My garden friend, Niki Jabbour, is hosting me for half an hour to talk tomatoes - the link is here

Click the listen live button at the upper left at the link.

Our discussion will likely touch upon tomato diseases.  Here are two very useful links.

Cornell site on tomato diseases, here
Specific link to Late Blight info here.

I just got back in from watering and picking - though things have slowed down, there is plenty in the basket!

Tonight feels like a ratatouille night, actually.  

Before we head out to the kayaks (lower humidity and temp - calm conditions - seems like the perfect thing to do), a few stats:

I've completed seed saving from 86 tomato plants (leaving 2-3 at most to go), 20 eggplant plants (4-5 to go), and 93 pepper plants (only a couple of those to go as well). Whew...spread out over a few months, it didn't seem all that bad. There is a massive stack of paper plates with dry seed out of the cats' reach in my office.

Today was another major milestone on my book, Epic Tomatoes - all captions and another set of edits, comments and additions were sent off to my editor last night.  The latest I've heard is that the book will be available on December 10!  Now I can focus on my talks for the Heritage Harvest Festival at Monticello, September 12-13.  More on that later....off to kayak!

I just looked back at my blog for last August - and there is an entry on the 8th that indicates my tomatoes were pretty much finished, dead due to disease. What a sad entry to read.

My day was spent in two long sessions in the driveway going through all of my plants, removing dead foliage, dead plants, and adjusting staking and tying to ensure everything is upright. It is a very different picture when compared to last year; even though we headed out on our trip on August 5th and today is the first day I've paid much attention to the garden, I was delighted with what I found. After completing this blog, I will head back out to give all the surviving plants a good dose of fertilizer. If all goes well, we will have tomatoes well into September.

Here is what I found when working with my plants this morning:

Large pot indeterminate varieties (and bale indeterminates) that are no more:  Favorite, Golden Queen, Lillian's Red Heirloom, Big Boy, Polish, Don's Double Delight, Magnus, Lucky Cross, Hugh's. That makes 9 losses so far.

That leaves 24 that are still alive, ranging from nearly flawlessly healthy to just hanging on. A few are just incredible in their continued vigor and health - among them Green Giant, Cherokee Green (not - red fruit instead), Cherokee Chocolate, Lillian's Yellow Heirloom, Matchless, Little Lucky, and, oddly, Giant Syrian, which has made an amazing recovery after a rough beginning. I still have nearly 75% of my indeterminate tomatoes. If I include the deck and main garden, only Lemon Drop, Abraham Lincoln and one of my 4 Sun Gold is having a tough time (though still not dead); 11 others are thriving, including all three front row Cherokee Purples, just now yielding lovely, large fruit.  And so my current percent of living indeterminate varieties is a bit over 80%.

Moving on to the driveway Dwarfs, the following are finished:  Tasmanian Chocolate, Sleeping Lady, Big Green Dwarf, Chocolate Champion, Boronia, Dwarf Wild Fred, Dwarf Confetti, Dwarf Peppermint Stripes, Uluru Ochre, Fred's Tie Dye, Adelaide Festival, and Tennessee Suited - 12 of the dwarfs are dead.

But....another 24 are doing really well - 67% remain. I've not assessed the dwarfs in the big garden, but suspect only a few are done for, most are alive. I am quite surprised, again, and the health of many of the Dwarfs - Beryl Beauty, Kelly Green, Jade Beauty, Mr. Snow, in particular, are perfectly healthy and still loaded with fruit soon to ripen. (all are from the Sneezy line).

Yesterday I fed all of the peppers and eggplant - once I get the tomatoes fed later today, the garden will be ready for the home stretch. We are really enjoying making all of our favorite summer veggie recipes.  Here's hoping all of you are enjoying a similarly successful 2014 garden.

Hey folks - the lack of updates wasn't due to garden frustration, disasters, or an overdose of vegetables!  Sue and I just got back from a visit to see our daughter in Seattle - throughout the 10 days we mixed in lots of fun, including an Arcade Fire concert at The Gorge near Quincy, time at a B&B in Wenatchee, tubing in Leavenworth, this and that in Seattle and a few days at Orcas Island in the San Juans....

I've no idea what's going on in the garden, but that mystery will be solved in the morning. Thanks go out to some nearby friends and our daughter Caitlin who kept things picked (we hope!). I will blog a bit about our trip, including pictures - it was so wonderful to see Sara again, and to spend time in a place we actually lived back in 1983. It - and we - have changed considerably!

Stay tuned....the clock says bed time, but my body says that it is still early!

I've noted previously that this has been a really good gardening season for me. Feedback from friends/seedling customers close by indicate that it isn't uniform; some are sharing my good fortune, others not. This just reinforces how different things can be due to very local weather, pests and diseases. This is a theme that emerged last year as well - my garden was pretty awful, while some of my seedling customers who live quite close by had very good years.  Go figure!

It is easier to note those varieties that are struggling, which are far outnumbered by the healthy plants.

As far as Indeterminate tomato varieties in my driveway, I've lost the following: Favorite, Golden Queen, Polish, Magnus, Big Boy and Lucky Cross - apparently all to Fusarium Wilt. Magnus was the first to go and produced very few tomatoes. Golden Queen and Favorite went pretty much at the same time, but I did get a few fruit to sample and save seeds from. Polish, Big Boy and Lucky Cross are recent catastrophes, and all yielded very well before saying goodbye. It is also interesting to note that of these half dozen, three are old commercial varieties from the 1880-1900 period, one is a handed down heirloom, one is a creation of mine, and one a hybrid.

A few of the indeterminate varieties are struggling, but putting up a good fight - these include Lemon Drop, Nepal, Lillian's Red Kansas, Giant Syrian and Hugh's. Of this batch, only Giant Syrian was shy to yield - the others are doing quite well. Yellow White is very healthy, when looking at the plant, but all of the fruit so far develop gray blossom ends and have been pretty much inedible.

What is amazing is that 25 varieties are still thriving, and this is what makes 2014 quite a different experience for me when compared to last year...at this time, most of my plants were dead or dying.

When considering the Driveway dwarf varieties, the following are gone: Tasmanian Chocolate, Sleeping Lady, Chocolate Champion, Big Green Dwarf, Boronia, Rosella Crimson, Dwarf Wild Fred, Confetti, Tennessee Suited, Uluru Ochre, Fred's Tie Dye and Adelaide Festival. Sweet Adelaide is barely alive. Sweet Scarlet, Wherokowhai, Blazing Beauty and Rosella Purple are rallying. Of this set, pretty much all of them provided a decent yield before taking the long trip to the rear woods. The problem in nearly all cases wasn't Fusarium wilt, but something that killed the plants more quickly; my suspicion is Bacterial wilt.

Again the good news is that 18 plants are in great shape and are not only providing great tomatoes, but continuing to set fruit. 

If I was a pessimist, I'd bemoan the loss of 17 tomato plants and iffy health in another 10. But as an optimist, I will delight in the fact that as we ease into August, 43 tomato plants continue to thrive, yield tomatoes and set fruit for future picking.

I've not said too much about the tomatoes in the side garden. Of the indeterminate plants in the front row - 4 Sungold, 3 Cherokee Purple, Coyote and Mexico Midget, and Tiger Tom - all but Tiger Tom (which is fighting a good fight against Fusarium wilt) are in near perfect condition and yielding well. The plants in grow bags in bales at the rear of the garden are a mixed bag. The problem is lack of sunlight, which was expected. My plan was to use the area to test straw bale growing and accept whatever tomatoes managed to be produced by the relatively sun-starved plants.

We are eating tomatoes until they are coming out of our ears. Tonight, as an appetizer, Sue and I tasted a big plate each with slabs of 12 different tomatoes. My canker sores have canker sores. But...are they delicious. Highlights of tonight's tasting were the first Bisignano #2 and Giant Syrian (my sickly plant managed to pump out a few pathetic specimens, but..yum!), Dwarf Wild Fred, Lillian's Yellow, Summertime Gold, and the star of the plate, Summer Sunrise. With the exception of Little Lucky (they are coming, but are really testing my patience), Anna Russian (also so close - the first few had a date with the photographers), Cherokee Purple (the deer, in their sole attack of the year, snagged a big cluster of fruit on the very day the photographers were to arrive), Green Giant (please hurry up!), Yellow White, and a handful of Dwarf project varieties, we've tried them all.

I've already got seed saved from 70 different varieties. That leaves 30 or so to go, which is pretty good for the end of July. I'd love to save seeds from eggplant - each of my plants has one large fruit with a big black "X" - but have to wait for the fruit to turn a golden color, which indicates that the seeds will germinate next year.

The sweet peppers are beginning to show their ripe colors.  Chocolate Bell is going chocolate brown, Candy Corn, I am delighted to say, changed from cream to orange to red (as hoped). Amethyst and Fire Opal are fading from lavender to....we shall see. A few of the super hots went red and seed was saved. And there are 60 odd colorful, small pot ornamental hot peppers in a riot of colors that need to be attended to for seed saving.

For those seedling customers who are reading this blog, I've got some questions.

If you are growing any of the Big Boy F2 plants, what kind of fruit sizes, shapes and colors did you get?
If you are growing Arkansas Traveler from me, did you get a purple, or pink?
Is anyone experiencing results different from the descriptions?
If you are growing Abraham Lincoln, what sort of fruit did you get? (size/color)
What did you think of Lemon Drop/Tiny Tim Yellow/Egg Yolk cherry tomatoes?
If you grew Cherokee Green from me, how did the fruit turn out?