In Honor of Marty and Joe:

[LoganBuck]

Sorry I missed this thread coming back up.

Sundeck, I have dehydrated some of them this year, in my food dehydrator. They come out great, and it sure sounds a lot easier.

I have had problems with insects this summer and have lost probably 10% of my crop. Whatever the little bugs are they are not suspectible to Sevin Dust or Spray, and they attack when the tomatoes are starting to turn. I don't like going to crazy with chemicals on nearly ripe tomatoes. So I have started picking them a little early.

The Health Kick variety is great. The taste is exactly like a Roma, but the fruit is a little bigger, and there are a few less fruits per plant than a traditional Roma. Makes great salsa.

The Big Beef variety is really making terrific tomatoes with a light tender flavor.

If someone could explain to me how to make green peppers take off, I would be much abliged. My peppers are below average for size, and they are not really putting out high quantities. Everything else is doing well. My habaneros, and Jalapenos are doing great.

[Roy Tucker]

Our basil has been producing like crazy as well. We've been on a pesto-making frenzy too. My wife and I made about 10 batches last night.

We put the just-mixed pesto into ice cube trays and freeze it and then bag it up. An ice-cube size chunk of pesto is a good serving size. My hands still smell like garlic today.

And the nets over the tomatoes seemed to keep the birds away. I also started picking them right before they got ripe. The birds seemed to like the just-about-to-burst ripe tomatoes so I just get the fruit before it gets to that point and ripen them in the house.

Lots of green beans too. My bell-peppers aren't very big this year. I attribute that to it being so dry.

[Roy Tucker]

So, how did everyone's tomatoes do this year? It wasn't such a great year for us. The romas produced like crazy and I got a few good beefsteaks, but everything else didn't do very well.

My mainstay jet stars and better boys just didn't do much. And the oddest thing was that my cherry tomatoes didn't do very well either. Usaully I can't keep up with picking them but not so this year.

I attribute it to a very dry end of July and all of August in our neck of hte woods (Warren Co. in SW Ohio). I tried to keep up with watering them, but Mother Nature didn't cooperate.

[919191]

Mine grew really tall, but didn't produce many tomatoes this year. I have 5 plants, and right now there is only 1 tomato in the kitchen. The plants have had a bit of brown leaves, but the plants look mostly healthy and green, just not too many tomatoes. There are several right now, but they are still green. Anyone know if this is from not enough water?

[westofyou]

So, how did everyone's tomatoes do this year?

Still on the vine and looking good, Romas that is.

[LoganBuck]

I planted Roma, and Celebrities this year. They did really well. The plants were more slightly more mature then normal when I bought them at the nursery. I had ripe tomatoes around July 15th. The really produced well until about Aug 25. Then they slowed to about a couple decent tomatoes a week. I suspect the heat stressed the plants as mine are planted in full sun. They have responded to the nice weather here in September and I am looking at a nice early October crop.

[gonelong]

I had 5 plants this year. They grew well, but didn't produce as well as I'd hoped. In fact, I had two plants last year and they handily outproduced these two. Peppers did well, so we have some salsa out of the deal.

GL

[OldRightHander]

Four plants this year. Some yellow ones (can't remember the variety) beefsteaks, and grape tomatoes. All the plants produced quite well. We can't eat them fast enough to keep up and have been giving a lot away.

[Roy Tucker]

Thought I'd revive this thread....

With the drought we had in SW Ohio in May and June, I was fearful for my tomato crop. But we've had enough rain and sun the last month to keep the tomato plants going along nicely.

I've been getting cherry tomatoes for a couple weeks now along with some early girls.

My jet stars, better boys, and romas are all starting to kick in with a vengeance and it looks like a tomatopalooza this year. Tomatoes galore for the next 2 months.

[Unassisted]

I planted mine in early March.

They grew to about 7 feet tall and had just started producing a few tomatoes in late June when the weather changed to rainy and overcast and stayed that way most of the time. Now the immature tomatoes are splitting and rotting on the vine, thanks to the record rainfall and limited sunshine that we continue to have. I'm also having trouble keeping the snails off of the fruit that is there. I'm just about ready to yank 'em out of the ground and either plant a second batch for the fall or give up on tomatoes for this year.

[LoganBuck]

Mine are about a week away from being ready yet. I started them from seed this year, so they were a little behind the greenhouse bought varieties. They seem to be on the small side, and I suspect the hot afternoons, and the lack of natural rainfall.

[pedro]

Didn't grow any this year. They just don't do that well in our climate.

The raspberries and strawberries were good though and the grapes and apples are coming on.