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A Year in the Garden
Diseased tomato leaves are often a problem in wet summers
For many of us, 2023 was a disappointment. The summer was rainy much of the time. Vegetables like tomatoes and potatoes – vegetables that require lots of energy to build fruit or tubers – did not do well. Fungal diseases like late blight are most virulent with moist conditions, which we had in spades. And in my part of the world, there was a late frost that spoiled the blossoms on uor fruit trees – so no apples or pears. Sigh.
Pawpaw fruit has a tropical flavor but a texture that is mushy.
I have one pawpaw tree that is now 20 feet tall and 10 years old or more, but I am yet to get any fruit from it – despite the fact that it has blossomed. Apparently they are self-sterile, so in the past three years I have been planting new trees from different sources. Pawpaws send up root suckers, but these are genetic clones and not suitable for pollinating the mother tree. They are most often pollinated by insects that feed on dead meat, so one friend I know hangs road kill in her trees to attract pollinators!
Gomphrena, an annual, is great in arrangements.
My advice about planting flowers is simple: grow what you love. Grow what your Grammie and mother grew. Grow what stops you in your tracks when you see if for the first time each season. Plant more of your favorites each year, or divide them and spread them out to new corners of the property. But keep it simple: Don’t plant so much that weeding becomes a dreaded chore.
The Tomato: Queen of the Garden!
Defiant tomato are resistant to late blight
For me tomatoes are the best tasting, most important vegetable I grow. I eat them raw in salads and sandwiches or cooked in soups and stews. I dehydrate some, I freeze many whole, and I make some sauce for quick dinners in winter. But they are not grown without difficulties – and sometimes heartbreak.
The leaves here have been killed by a blight which is common but does not affect the fruit
Of lesser portent is ‘early blight’. Except for first time gardeners, we all get it. It causes lower leaves to darken and dry up, but fruit is produced until all the leaves are gone. You can minimize this problem by mulching under your tomatoes with grass clippings or chopped fall leaves. You should do that now. Unlike late blight, early blight survives our winters in the soil, and splash up from hard rains or watering gets it onto the leaves.
A watering wand directs a soft spray just where you want it
By now most of you have planted your tomatoes. If you haven’t, and if you think this will be a hot, dry summer, plant them deep in the soil. You can bury the root ball six inches down or more, and the stem will grow roots in the cooler, moister soil down deep.
Remove tomato suckers early and often
Alternatively, you can buy 5- or 6-foot hardwood stakes. These are one inch square stakes that come with a pointed end that you can drive into the soil with a hammer – small rocks or not. But you have to tie your tomatoes to the stakes as they grow up. You can use old rags to tie them on, or sisal twine. Don’t use plastic twine as the vines may get damaged when they are loaded with heavy tomatoes. You may need to tie your tomatoes onto cages, too.
Sun Gold tomatoes
I grow at least a dozen Sun Gold cherry tomato plants each year. Each plant produces more tomatoes than I can count (even if I take off my socks to use both my fingers and toes). They are supremely tasty fresh, and are great dried and saved for soups and stews. I cut each tomato in half, and use a food dehydrator to get it ready for storage. Later, I add them to soups, stews – and even scrambled eggs.
How to Minimize Tomato Blight
John Denver introduced me to a Guy Clark song called, “Home Grown Tomatoes” with a refrain that goes, “Only two things money can’t buy. That’s true love and homegrown tomatoes”. How true. I love tomatoes.
Healthy tomato plants in mid-July
Growing disease-free tomatoes is nearly impossible. Usually by this time of the year, gardeners see lower leaves turning yellow and getting spots. Stems turn black early on. Some summers, we only get a few fruits, those tomatoes that started early. Other years we get late blight half way through the season and our plants and fruit turn to disgusting black mush.
So what can we do? According to companies that produce seeds, we can choose varieties of tomatoes that are disease resistant. Breeders using old-fashioned breeding techniques have been successful in breeding resistant hybrids. But some say the flavors are not always as good as the old fashioned heirlooms. I grow both kinds.
This year I am growing ‘Brandy Boy’ (a hybrid produced by Burpee Seeds) that is supposed to taste as good as the heirloom Brandywine, one of my favorite heirloom varieties, and have improved disease resistance.
I know I like ‘Defiant’, a medium-sized hybrid with high resistance to late-blight, produced by Johnny’s Seeds. But Defiant does get early blight, which reduces its production. Still, I grow it each year.
This year my tomato plants are beautiful. Only a few leaves on a few plants showed any signs of yellowing leaves by mid-July. Here are a few things I have done to help prevent tomato diseases.
At planting time I mulched my tomatoes with leaves that I collected last fall. Some fungal disease reside in the soil, and when it rains, or when you water, splash-up sends spores onto the tomato leaves, causing disease. Mulching helps minimize splash-up. Grass cuttings are good, too.
A simple one gallon sprayer is used for applying bio-fungicide
This year I got a soil drench from Gardeners Supply Company called “Root Shield”. This is a bacterial powder that I diluted with water and applied to the soil around each tomato. It is approved for use by organic gardeners. The bacteria attacks the pathogenic fungi in the soil, minimizing the chance of them getting on the tomato plants.
The other bacterial fungicide I applied is called “Serenade”, which I also obtained from Gardeners Supply Co. This contains Bacilius subtilis, a broad spectrum bio-fungicide. It is designed to be sprayed on leaves and stems once a week – and before signs of infection are seen. I have sprayed just twice, not keeping up with the schedule, but will. It’s easy to forget about disease when your plants are disease-free. Once plants are infected, both bio-fungicides are not going to solve the problem.
Diseased tomato leaves are often a problem
What else can you do? If you have tomato leaves turning brown, cut them off and put in the household trash, not the compost pile. I did this pretty regularly last year, and I think it helped.
If you get late blight – which basically causes a total meltdown of the plants – quickly bag everything in contractor bags and get everything affected out of the garden. Fortunately, late blight does not survive New England winters. But if you do get it, do not overwinter potatoes, or allow ‘volunteer’ potatoes to grow, as they can carry the blight. Tomatoes and potatoes are in the same plant family.
Fungal diseases often require moisture on the leaves so that fungal hyphae (their root-like appendages) can penetrate the leaves. So do not water at dusk. Water in the morning if possible, and try to keep the leaves dry.
I use a watering wand, not an overhead sprinkler. This is a hand-held watering device – a 30-inch long wand with a sprayer on the end – that allows me to deliver water around the roots, but none on the leaves. In a normal summer I rarely water tomatoes – my soil stays lightly moist most of the time just with rain. But if we go a week or so without rain, I do water.
Many tomato plants will grow taller until the fall over or are pruned back. It’s better to cut off tall branches and keep your plants supported by their cages or stakes. Cutting back plants allows them to spend their energy making tomatoes, not stems and leaves.
As a gardener I am always optimistic. I think this year’s crop of tomatoes from my 37 plants will be the best ever. But I’ll be happy with whatever I get.
Read Henry’s twice-weekly blog posts at https://dailyuv.com/