I can honestly say that I've never quite experienced a season quite like this one....it is not one that I will look back on with fondness!
My checklist of issues are rampant Septoria disease, tomato fruit worms, tomato hornworms, ants, incessant heat and humidity, poor tomato fruit set due to blossom drop (leading to poor yields), fruit cracking due to uneven moisture supply, total failure with radishes (plenty of green, hardly any radishes to harvest!), tiny cucumber yield (plants went down to disease quickly) and rampant weeds (could there possibly be any potatoes under there?).
Now, for the good news of the season so far - no problems with deer, no drought, great flavors on those tomatoes that did set, outstanding yields of both sweet and hot peppers and eggplant, a good crop of blueberries, summer squash, garlic, beets and spring greens of all sorts.
But, since tomatoes are our favorite summer crop, and because I was so ambitious in numbers of plants (especially Dwarf project research), the puny, disappointing yield has hit pretty hard.
The prognosis for the rest of the season: a smattering of tomatoes (most of the pot grown dwarf varieties are looking quite bad, and I won't get much more from them), plenty of hot and sweet peppers and eggplant, a good crop of bush green beans from a later planting, plenty of basil for pesto, and whatever potatoes are managing to have developed amongst the choking weeds.
I am already getting an idea of some adjustments so that next year isn't a failure repeat. There are two major ones - an extensive bleaching of all of my tomato grow bags and pots (more concentrated bleach for a longer soak than I did this year), and a much earlier plant out. The stretch of 90-plus degree days in June, July and August hit at the wrong time for my plants, which I didn't get planted out until mid May or later.
If I can get my plants off to a healthy start and blossoming before the extreme heat and humidity set in, a better yield and healthier plants will hopefully result.
My checklist of issues are rampant Septoria disease, tomato fruit worms, tomato hornworms, ants, incessant heat and humidity, poor tomato fruit set due to blossom drop (leading to poor yields), fruit cracking due to uneven moisture supply, total failure with radishes (plenty of green, hardly any radishes to harvest!), tiny cucumber yield (plants went down to disease quickly) and rampant weeds (could there possibly be any potatoes under there?).
Now, for the good news of the season so far - no problems with deer, no drought, great flavors on those tomatoes that did set, outstanding yields of both sweet and hot peppers and eggplant, a good crop of blueberries, summer squash, garlic, beets and spring greens of all sorts.
But, since tomatoes are our favorite summer crop, and because I was so ambitious in numbers of plants (especially Dwarf project research), the puny, disappointing yield has hit pretty hard.
The prognosis for the rest of the season: a smattering of tomatoes (most of the pot grown dwarf varieties are looking quite bad, and I won't get much more from them), plenty of hot and sweet peppers and eggplant, a good crop of bush green beans from a later planting, plenty of basil for pesto, and whatever potatoes are managing to have developed amongst the choking weeds.
I am already getting an idea of some adjustments so that next year isn't a failure repeat. There are two major ones - an extensive bleaching of all of my tomato grow bags and pots (more concentrated bleach for a longer soak than I did this year), and a much earlier plant out. The stretch of 90-plus degree days in June, July and August hit at the wrong time for my plants, which I didn't get planted out until mid May or later.
If I can get my plants off to a healthy start and blossoming before the extreme heat and humidity set in, a better yield and healthier plants will hopefully result.
RSS Feed