Useless tomato fact--that might amaze the some ?

[TomHillbilly]

1. Years ago when most country dwellers raised hogs. All garden waste material was feed to the hogs. Come tomato canning time, 5 gallon bucks full of tomato parts would be dumped into the hog trough. It makes no difference that all those tomatoes was slicers. Almost ALL of the maters that sprout up out of pig dung, will be a cherry tomato of sorts. Finding a slicer tomato plant that sprung up out of what a hog injected. Would be far more rare than a 4 leaf clover. PS-- Old timely facts lost through the years.
2. Over 60 years ago, no one had heard of all these tomato blights. People grew tomato patches. A portion of the garden was one huge tomato patch. Vines roamed freely on the ground. Tomatoes laid on the grasses that was underneath. Where tomato vines made it impossible to hoe the balk. No one sprayed maters for anything. How long would your plants last, if you tried that now ?? LOL
PS-- Things I've seen with my own eyes. And may not exist in books.

[brownrexx]

When I have had volunteers pop up anywhere they usually turn out to be cherry tomatoes. I guess that those seeds must be more resilient and less fussy than their slicer cousins.

I agree that we baby our tomatoes but some of the tomato disease that we see today may not have been around in the past.

We used to raise honeybees in hives with no medication and they did fine but diseases have now entered the picture. These diseases came from other countries and are now endemic here. If we try to raise bees now without medications, they will die out in a year or two.

We also used to be able to grow Elm trees but Dutch Elm disease has now wiped them out. Ash trees grew fine too until the Emerald Ash Borer came to town from Asia. Now all of the Ash trees are dying.

Things change and not always for the better.

[Labradors]

That is interesting, but I wonder if people only grew masses of one variety. If that one variety was a hybrid then that would explain the appearance of cherry tomatoes the following year.

I grow organically and do not spray. My tomatoes are affected by Early Blight and Septoria, but they usually keep going until frost despite these fungal diseases.

Linda

[TomHillbilly]

brownrexx---- I'm pretty ignorant about Honeybees. I don't even know what "medications" is ? Everyone had bees when I was growing up. But that was always grown-up work. Dad became allergic to them, before any bee keeping skills could be handed down. One thing is for sure--If it were not for Bumblebees, I would have no maters, squash, or beans. Bumblebees is all that is left in east TN, to pollinate crops. Seeing a honeybee is rare.

Linda--- You are lucky to get off that easy with blights. I collect mater seeds for my niece. She lives on a road off to herself. She will plant tomatoes one time. And harvest up until frost, with my seeds. I've gotten older, and moved more close to suburb type of living. I still raise about 70 tomato plants. But I have to plant a early crop, and a late crop. If I don't -- I will be out of maters 6 weeks prematurely. I don't know if its the wind, ground, or bees working multiple gardens, but blights is expected every year. PS-- I take extreme measures to make sure I send nothing toward my niece in a seed packet. Last year we had some type of spot rot. It looked like you pushed your thumb down hard on a tomato, and left a bruise. 24 hours later that entire tomato would be rotten. That disease ranged in TN, VA, and WV, for sure. All my old friends had it.

[Labradors]

Tom, you would have to be very careful about saving seeds that could carry disease. Perhaps you could harvest seeds early before the spot rot begins?

I should add that we have a short season here, which probably helps me to get a good crop before disease pulls down the plants. Last year I started some compact plants very early and grew them in pots. We were lucky that the summer wasn't extremely wet, and even the compacts kept on going, and even looked healthy until frost. They have the advantage that I can move them under cover when it rains. I know here that the fungal diseases blow in on the wind and are helped by the rain.

[EdieJ]

TomHillbilly, Alabama was hit with the same thing. Never saw anything like it in my life before. I used to live in Ohio and just thought this was one of those "southern" things I was going to have to live with. We also had 100's of some kind of beetle-type bugs (NOT Japanese beetles, these were black with orange) as well as stink bugs out the wazoo and no amount of spraying stopped them, so I am not sure if the bugs were the vector for the disease?

[Setec Astronomy]

We also had 100's of some kind of beetle-type bugs (NOT Japanese beetles, these were black with orange) ... and no amount of spraying stopped them

Sounds like potato beetles.

[EdieJ]

What kills them? We sprayed just about anything and everything I could find short of Sevin or Captain Jack's Dead Bug Brew. I won't use either one because of the bees.

[TomHillbilly]

EdieJ-- I sure hope you read this. I say it was a blight of sorts. But I got 2 different buddies, that totally agree with you. One lives in Fairmont WV. And the other lives in east TN. Their claims are--- "We never had this spot rot until these new bugs showed up." That part is certainly fact. I grew 5 types of Cherry tomatoes. Black Cherry was the only type that got it. I had a plum tomato that escaped it also. The bigger the fruit, the more acceptable was the rot. I can't use this as proof I'm right. Because horn worms prefer larger tomatoes. Who is to say these bugs don't do the same ? All slicers in my first wave of tomatoes got spot rot. None of my second wave got it. Bottom line is-- These ole boys I'm talking about have both gardened over 55 years each. And they are fairly pretty good at it. We just disagree on the cause. I base my theory on the bugs was still here when my late wave started to produce. The weather had changed from wet--to drought like between the two waves. If the rot was caused by bug bites, then my second wave would have gotten it. Because um bugs was still here. I know I'm talking out both sides of my mouth. Its just I think I'm right. But I would never bet against either of those garden buddies of mine. They claim bug bites was the culprit. PS-- No this isn't just a southern thing, it hit big.

[Setec Astronomy]

What kills them? We sprayed just about anything and everything I could find short of Sevin or Captain Jack's Dead Bug Brew. I won't use either one because of the bees.

Spinosad works, but you have to spray at dusk so it can dry for 3 hours before the pollinators arrive in the morning. Botanigard/Mycotrol ( Beauveria bassiana) also works, but it's very expensive and has a short shelf life, safe for bees though. This is what I had: https://www.insectidentification.org/in ... ato-Beetle

[brownrexx]

Spinosad works great on the Colorado Potato Beetle larvae but not the adults. I hand pick them.

[EdieJ]

TomHillbilly - you are right about tomato size. It was only my slicers that got hit, my cherries were perfectly fine. We did have to pick some hornworms off of them but the other bugs didn't touch them.
I will have to get some Spinosad!
I am growing some tomatoes specifically for seed this year and am going to cover them with bug barrier cloth that lets in light and rain. That will hopefully prevent both bug damage and not allow anything to cross.

[Setec Astronomy]

Spinosad works great on the Colorado Potato Beetle larvae but not the adults. I hand pick them.

I dunno, I sprayed both the spinosad and Beauveria bassiana and that killed everything.

[MsCowpea]

Diseases have been around a long time. (The Irish Potato famine was in 1845 and that was late blight on potatoes. )
Though Organic advocates would point to mono cropping and resistance that develops when using a multitude of chemicals as a detrimental factor when modern farming developed.

George Carver wrote of tomato blights and other tomato diseases in 1918 and his booklet was revised in 1936.

1918 first edition (tap on the side of the page and it will turn)
https://archive.org/details/CAT31355722 ... 1/mode/2up

Here is the updated 1936 link: Interesting brochure. How to grow them, treat diseases and insects, recipes. The works. In 1918 they didn’t know what caused Blossom end rot. 1936 something to do with moisture which would impact calcium levels.
https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/veg ... er-tomato/

You may be familiar with the Bordeaux mixture ( copper, lime, etc)—it was frequently mentioned in very old publications for disease control.
Used Paris green too. I think that was some sort of copper arsenic compound like they later used to treat pressure treated wood?

Insects were dispatched with arsenic and nicotine concoctions. Agatha Christie made good use of all that horticultural arsenic in people’s sheds.