Tomatoes Galore

Garden Update

Since I last posted about my garden, I've got tomatoes coming out my ears and have just started getting a few picked. I've got 4-8 large tomatoes per plant. The Super Fantastics are twice as tall as the Heat Wave II, but they both have about the same number of tomatoes and look large and delicious. I had a little bit more rust show up last week, but quick leaf pulling seemed to stop it from spreading. My cherry tomato plants have outgrown their stakes. After re-staking they're close to 7 feet tall now and loaded with about four large clusters of tomatoes per plant.

The bell pepper and jalapeños are loaded with buds and shiny new peppers.

The zucchini and squash have given me a hard time with powdery mildew and blossom end rot. Both are caused by fungi, as far as I can tell. The first fungicide I applied did not seem to eliminate the problem. I think part of the problem is that the plants were too close and stayed too wet, so I went drastic and pulled every other plant to give them room and keep them drier. A few days, water, and miracle gro later, they are perking up, and I got my first mess of zucchini pulled to eat. One zucchini was over 12 inches long and two inches in diameter! Maybe it is working. I applied a different kind of fungicide yesterday to fight off the powdery mildew. We'll see what happens.

We ate our first cucumbers last week. They were so good. Sometime late last week many of the leaves started turning yellow and brown before drying up. I worried that the fungicide burned the leaves, but clover near the cucumbers and near the house also were affected. I pulled all the bad leaves last night and applied a new fungicide. Time will tell.

In the meantime I have a window sill full of tomatoes!