I pulled up the rest of my tomato plants today, after a week of nights well below freezing they were officially done. I had been covering them with plastic but at 22°F even the newer foliage was done for the year.
I picked about 50 or so medium to small tomatoes that had matured since I stripped the plants a month ago at first frost. ( I've picked three times since that). For some reason this year these plants seemed to deal with the first few frosts with no real issues.
In pulling up all 20+ plants I found three had tennis ball sized paper balls of some sort among the roots that got pulled apart as I uprooted each plant.
I didn't have any bug issues this year, maybe a few stink bugs here and there but not like years past. I did find some white grubs when I tilled up the garden but I figured since I only saw a few I hadn't put any pesticide down.
The stems of several plants were bumpy, Like a candle with wax running down the sides that hardened.
The years growth overall was very late, I didn't get tomatoes till late August despite only being a week or two late getting them in the ground. The weather was cool for longer in the spring than usual and this year we cooled off faster than in the past 9 or 10 years.
We had a pretty severe lack of rain this year too but I water regularly. We had a few heat waves but only one lasted any length of time back in July.
Here's one of the root balls I pulled up, this is from a Better Boy plant, which produced very little compared to the others. (Better Boy plants this year were poor producers, the first batch I planted died off, the second got eaten by ground hogs so i finally put in some late sprouting plants that were still in the hot box and although they got going late seemed to catch up but never got to full size, acting more like determinate plants than Better Boys.
Three of them seemed to re-energize once the weather started to cool and I got a few baskets of smallish tomatoes from them.
All of my tomatoes this year were smaller than I usually see but its also the first year I tried Garden Monster seeds (they were the only VFN seeds I could find back in Feb.
I first thought these were some sort of nest but remembered I had used those jiffy starter pellets this year after not being able to find starter soil or peat moss anywhere.
The roots in general were better anchored than most overall, with roots spreading as much as 4 feet away from the plant on some. They were not easy to pull up and I suppose I left a lot of the roots still in the ground. Most of the plants grew to about 8ft tall and over and back down the cages they were in. Next year I'll have to double the height of the cages I suppose as I probably lost a lot of production as vines folded over the top. Many of those vines get pinched off as they fold over the wire cages. Maybe adding a larger ring to the top would help as well?
When they fold over and keep producing they get hard to pick or find the tomatoes within the foliage and a few often get missed, not found till their way over ripe or rotten.
Although I consider the overall year a success, as it gave me far more tomatoes than I had first anticipated by the late start, and about 30 gallons of sauce and paste put up for future use, and about 30 qts of tomato juice frozen as well.
Taste wise this years tomatoes were more acidic than any I've grown in the past with weaker overall taste. The few Better Boy tomatoes I got had the best taste.
The Garden Monsters are hard to peel, somewhat tart and slow to ripen but were disease free all year. There were still blossoms on the newest growth when I pulled them from the ground today. Some of the plants at the one end of the row, which get the most sun, even shot vines out across all the other cages the length of the row. It took me several hours to pull up all the vines, stakes, and untie all the cages for winter and another hour to run them all through the shredder to dispose of them.
I picked about 50 or so medium to small tomatoes that had matured since I stripped the plants a month ago at first frost. ( I've picked three times since that). For some reason this year these plants seemed to deal with the first few frosts with no real issues.
In pulling up all 20+ plants I found three had tennis ball sized paper balls of some sort among the roots that got pulled apart as I uprooted each plant.
I didn't have any bug issues this year, maybe a few stink bugs here and there but not like years past. I did find some white grubs when I tilled up the garden but I figured since I only saw a few I hadn't put any pesticide down.
The stems of several plants were bumpy, Like a candle with wax running down the sides that hardened.
The years growth overall was very late, I didn't get tomatoes till late August despite only being a week or two late getting them in the ground. The weather was cool for longer in the spring than usual and this year we cooled off faster than in the past 9 or 10 years.
We had a pretty severe lack of rain this year too but I water regularly. We had a few heat waves but only one lasted any length of time back in July.
Here's one of the root balls I pulled up, this is from a Better Boy plant, which produced very little compared to the others. (Better Boy plants this year were poor producers, the first batch I planted died off, the second got eaten by ground hogs so i finally put in some late sprouting plants that were still in the hot box and although they got going late seemed to catch up but never got to full size, acting more like determinate plants than Better Boys.
Three of them seemed to re-energize once the weather started to cool and I got a few baskets of smallish tomatoes from them.
All of my tomatoes this year were smaller than I usually see but its also the first year I tried Garden Monster seeds (they were the only VFN seeds I could find back in Feb.
I first thought these were some sort of nest but remembered I had used those jiffy starter pellets this year after not being able to find starter soil or peat moss anywhere.
The roots in general were better anchored than most overall, with roots spreading as much as 4 feet away from the plant on some. They were not easy to pull up and I suppose I left a lot of the roots still in the ground. Most of the plants grew to about 8ft tall and over and back down the cages they were in. Next year I'll have to double the height of the cages I suppose as I probably lost a lot of production as vines folded over the top. Many of those vines get pinched off as they fold over the wire cages. Maybe adding a larger ring to the top would help as well?
When they fold over and keep producing they get hard to pick or find the tomatoes within the foliage and a few often get missed, not found till their way over ripe or rotten.
Although I consider the overall year a success, as it gave me far more tomatoes than I had first anticipated by the late start, and about 30 gallons of sauce and paste put up for future use, and about 30 qts of tomato juice frozen as well.
Taste wise this years tomatoes were more acidic than any I've grown in the past with weaker overall taste. The few Better Boy tomatoes I got had the best taste.
The Garden Monsters are hard to peel, somewhat tart and slow to ripen but were disease free all year. There were still blossoms on the newest growth when I pulled them from the ground today. Some of the plants at the one end of the row, which get the most sun, even shot vines out across all the other cages the length of the row. It took me several hours to pull up all the vines, stakes, and untie all the cages for winter and another hour to run them all through the shredder to dispose of them.