We had a great spring with warm/hot, and dry weather from February to mid May. The tomato plants grew like crazy. Then the switch was pulled, and we went to wet, humid, and warm. Only have seven plants, and two of them are about 10 feet tall. One was diseased early, and not much I could do but fight it the best I could by spraying and removing foliage, but it was a losing battle. The other plants were great. Now all but two are taking a fungus hit, and it's hard to fight. My two best plants are Indian Strip PL, and Dwarf Wild Fred, which seem relatively unaffected. Anyway, we've processed short of 100 pounds of tomatoes, so its not a loss by any means. I guess I'm posting this because I'm a bit surprised at the hit they're taking. Seems they grew ok the last two summers. These might recover if it stops raining.

Basically same deal here in N. Florida. What fruit I’m harvesting is ripening very unevenly due to cracking and splitting.
The earliest tomatoes were so pristine in comparison it’s just crazy. I have never seen such a perfect spring growing season in 10 years.

I haven't even gotten one tomato to set. Blossoms look good for a couple of days then pffft they're gone.

I feel for you, [mention]edweather[/mention] ! I had that almost record rainfall and humidity last season, until around 7-20, causing fungus on every tomato plant (plus shortening the storage time on my garlic) - I'm hoping that doesn't happen again this year. And so far, rain has been a little short.

I have some Juliet tomatoes hanging on dead plants.
One thing I do know they will be back next year.
They set fruit in some serious high heat.

Worth, good to know. I will put Juliet on my grow list for next year.

I did a major pruning on all my tomatoes yesterday. They mostly look very good for June 10th. No sign of blight or any disease. Really just some insect damage and worn out lower leaves, lower leaves, any I hadn’t previously pruned all got pruned away to about 18” off the ground. Carmello still setting fruit. Still have a lot of green tomatoes and pulling off color breakers daily, more fresh tomatoes than I can possibly use. Finding plenty of folks to take them. Mom’s Mah Jong group are tomato addicts. I’m Freezing a few, tomatoes, not her friends, for later in the year. Gave my buddy a couple of ripe Carmello tomatoes and he loved those, but was blown away by the taste of the Hillbilly tomato. Pineapple and Hillbilly managed to set one tomato more each last week , both tomatoes up about 7-8 feet in the air. Both plants still blooming, I sprayed each, and all the rest, with kelp emulsion this morning and we have 3 days or so of lower humidity, mid sixties nights upcoming, maybe I squeeze out a few more fruit sets. Cucumbers still going strong. Even the Emerite French filet beans are hanging in there, pulled off about a pound last week. Christmas Lima productive. Good season overall.

Hot and swampy weather here. Yesterday's heat index hit 102. It's the season of afternoon pop-up t-storms. Slash and dash. Perfect conditions for funk to move in. So far I've been really lucky and the tomatoes are OK. Well, I had one lower leaf on a Rebel Yell that looked like EB wanted to start but I removed it. It's awfully hard to find a dry window in which to spray fungicide.

This afternoon I did find a wilted, crunched up tip on one cucumber side vine and cut it off. The rest of the plant was fine as were the other six plants in the bed.

Keeping fingers, toes and eyes crossed, hoping to keep the funk at bay!

Up until last week, it was pretty nice here - not hitting over 80, and humidity manageable. But last week the weather turned and we started hitting the low 90s and afternoon showers that bumped the humidity way up. Now the humidity has set in for the summer, I think. And to make it worse, we keep getting stretches of sporadic rain - day before yesterday, last night and again this morning. I keep hoping for a break to go spray some fungicide, I had planned on tonight. but looks like it'll rain all day. So maybe tomorrow.

My plants are still young and healthy with plenty of space/air flow between them and no hint of fungus or blight yet but every year I lose a couple of them to fungus/blight issues and I'm trying to stay ahead of that this year to the maximum extent I can.

Glad to know I'm not alone. Got the plants pruned to the max trying to stop the spread. Another hot humid one today, with the HI up near 100 and a chance of rain.

I have the opposite problem. No rain since planting and the humidity has been very low. Good for disease but I'm getting tired of watering. Temps in the upper 80's and humidity in the upper 20's to lower 30's and full sun just sucks everything dry daily. Always something!

It's almost a losing battle. Not exactly sure what the disease is, but it's determined to strip the leaves. There are lesions on the leaves, but not the main stems, and the tomatoes are ok. Id say the plants are 80% defoliated. Luckily, we got most of the tomatoes in by mid June, and processed over 80 lbs into sauce, not including what we ate, and what's left. I've tried copper, daconil, soap, neem, bleach, and nothing works. I might have stemmed the tide a bit, but this is a bad year.

This is making me nervous. I better get out and spray as soon as I get some time off. I KNOW I need to start spraying BEFORE it starts, and I never seem to get it done, and I always regret it.

supposed to hit the 90's next week

We didn't have a single day in the 90s in May (unusual here), and only an occasional day in June, with more cool days than are typical. But it is getting back to normal now, with days in the 90s, or close to it, and a lot of humid days, to go with them! Some of those new Indian gourds I'm growing - the Tinda - were really slow taking off, but now that it's hot, they're climbing the trellis! I figure they think they're back home!

However, today I went out early, when it was 74º, but came back in soon, as the heat index was up to 10 - no clouds at all, and no wind at all. Later, I went out when the shade was over there, and there was a generous wind, so it felt better, despite being 13º hotter.

Yesterday (or maybe the day before) the weatherman was talking about the record heat back in 2012 when it was 108 degrees!


Compared to that... there's nothing to complain about this year...

If you are having trouble with the tomatoes getting played out early... I suggest making a note of it... and plan on doing some succession planting next year.

While my tomatoes are still quite a bit behind your plants... I have plenty of younger plants bringing up the rear...
Last year, I tossed tomatoes to the chickens along with the rest of the garden thinnings (weeds to you people who don't appreciate the valuable nutrient accumulators), and this year, the tomato seeds came up and are fat and happy plants...

Sue_CT wrote: ↑Thu Jul 02, 2020 7:53 pm This is making me nervous. I better get out and spray as soon as I get some time off. I KNOW I need to start spraying BEFORE it starts, and I never seem to get it done, and I always regret it.

I sprayed with copper about 10 days ago, and so far all I've found is a tiny spot of EB on a single branch. However, that was at the tail end of our dry spell, so tomorrow morning I'm doing mancozeb/zinc. At this time last season everything was COVERED with Septoria. Have you noticed any fungal disease yet?

Just one or two of my 12 plants on the lowest leaves.