Tomatoes this year

[Vanman]

This year has been very hot and dry, as in a drought, for us. Fortunately we are using woven landscape fabric over the entire garden and drip tape to irrigate with well water. The fabric and drip tape is wonderful. This is the first time for both, but not the last. We have pulled weeds from around the tomatoes and peppers twice. No other weeding, hoeing, or tilling has been done. Maybe a total of two hours work. The garden is about 2000 square feet.

Anyway, we have noticed that a very high percentage of our tomatoes have cores that are much larger than usual. Do you think this is from the heat?

Also our squash is not maturing as fast as usual. Usually if you see a small squash in the morning it will be ready to pick in the afternoon or at least by the next morning. No so this year. It will take it two or three days to mature.

[bower]

It's great to know the techniques that are working for you in the drought.
We also had it dryer and hotter than normal, but nowhere near the extremes in parts of the states and in europe.
I've been hand watering tomatoes in containers, and have seen some BER scattered through the plants, but so far no issues with potassium defects ie uneven ripening, which like sunscald is apt to happen in hot and sunny weather. I think my spacing is better this time so fruit are getting the right amount of sun or shade.
IDK if a large core would be part of the potassium defect issues, which are similar.
It does sound like something heat related, IMO, but I suspect our friends in Texas and hotcetera, will be the experts in these questions.

[Uncle_Feist]

This year has been very hot and dry, as in a drought, for us. Fortunately we are using woven landscape fabric over the entire garden and drip tape to irrigate with well water. The fabric and drip tape is wonderful. This is the first time for both, but not the last. We have pulled weeds from around the tomatoes and peppers twice. No other weeding, hoeing, or tilling has been done. Maybe a total of two hours work. The garden is about 2000 square feet.

Anyway, we have noticed that a very high percentage of our tomatoes have cores that are much larger than usual. Do you think this is from the heat?

Also our squash is not maturing as fast as usual. Usually if you see a small squash in the morning it will be ready to pick in the afternoon or at least by the next morning. No so this year. It will take it two or three days to mature.

The large cores are a combination of heat, but mostly lack of moisture. The lack of moisture is responsible for nutrient uptake, especially K, which is directly tied to fruit quality.

[Vanman]

My soil testing showed my K level was high and I irrigate regularly. Might need to irrigate more.

[Uncle_Feist]

My soil testing showed my K level was high and I irrigate regularly. Might need to irrigate more.

Definitely need more water. Due to some dry years we had back in the 90's, I started running 2 high Flo lines per row, one each side of the plants. While my plants are in production I like to be able to push my fingers to the knuckles in the mud directly under the drip line at any given time.

Little story..
I had almost an acre of market maters in the late 90's. It was a great year weather wise, and I did my part by keeping the plants well irrigated by watching a couple of soil moisture meters placed in the crop rows. One evening in July just as the first fruits were ripening I was walking the rows scouting the field for problems as the irrigation pump was running. I found the reason that evening why a section of one row had much larger and more productive plants than the rest of the field... I heard that unmistakable hiss of a sizable hole in a drip line. Those healthy plants were getting at least 10 times more water than the rest of the crop. That was an eye opener and I never looked back.

[Donnyboy]

It's been 110F at my house a few times this summer. My okra loves it. Everything else shows it's displeasure. I covered everything shade cloth and hoped for the best. Most plants lived in the heat, but died in the direct sunlight. I ordered a packet of 100 Heat master tomato seeds from Seeds and Such for next year. Most "experts" are predicting the same wther next summer and into the future. I will plant my garden and if the same high heat appears, I will pull my garden plants and throw my seeds away and work on my house to resist the heat better in order to control my energy costs. I may be old enough to retire my gardening tools honorably. We have a few hundred native oak trees on our property. When we experienced high heat an extended draught in the past, we lost a lot of the old trees. I hope we don't this year.

Most years, when we experience extended droughts, Wild hogs move from the forested state park near our house onto surrounding, property where they destroyed gardens, lawns, and any property which has soil which wasn't rock hard. In the softer soil they could smell roots and other edible products. They used their snouts like shovels and destroyed the property. If it happens this year, I will fire up my smoker and eat a lot of smoked pork instead of garden tomatoes.

Me, About fifty miles north of Dallas and slightly east.

[indysun]

I was wondering, some of the tomatoes I have harvested this year do not look, taste, or seem like what I have labeled to come from said
plant.?? Since I do not bag my blossoms and plant my own harvested seeds from the previous year, is this what happens: unintended crosses??

[JRinPA]

Indysun, I'd say yeah, that may have happened. I like to save seed from the best each year, but I do not sow it each year. For example, I am still starting cuostralee from 2016 seed, even though I saved fresh seed the last two years. When I am out of the old seed, I'll plant some of each of from the newer sources, and then I can see which ones grow best/truest and use that source for the next few years.

Vanman, that woven black mulch and drip tape is what I like to use as well. Great to hear you found it. I use Chapin 4" emitter stuff. I think it a gallon per minute per 100ft. It is so much better than soaker. I've never used drip lines to compare to. But the tape is awesome because I can run it from house water through a 15psi limiter, or run it with a bilge pump from a barrel, prime it with a bilge pump for a minute and then let it siphon, or even just run it from 5 gal buckets with as little as 2ft of head. Really nice stuff for the garden. Plus with fairly cheap TEE fittings, I can make plenty of custom setups, as long as they are mostly square and downhill-ish. If something chews through it, it is easy to find by sound or checking the pressure at ends, and easy to fix. Yeah, I love that stuff.

Not a great squash year for me. My first summer squash transplants got froze off, mostly. I filled in/resowed, but they were never great. After the first few, replacements grew very slowly. It was too dry, I thought. I have a bucket drip there, and 5 gallons for the whole bed at evening when I remembered was not enough. My winter squash was put in too late. I missed the May rain with that and it suffered, but I'm finally starting to see some set now.

I haven't noticed particularly big cores yet on tomatoes. You mean like a big white core? My harvest just started the last week or so. I saved my first seeds tonight from a sweet ozark orange... That cut is kind of at an angle. I wasn't planning to save seed - I had eaten the two thick center slices, but it was so good I figured I better go ahead and save some seed from the top, before eating the rest. It wasn't any kind of hard white core, just nice and solid meat. I do see some white on another top in that pic, but all the scraps on that board were from good tasting tomatoes, nothing off or bland.

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[Vanman]

Most of mine this year have a large white core that is not just small and round. It fills most of the top third of the tomato.

[slugworth]

harvest running about 1 month late
I just picked a 4th of july hybrid today.
Heat and drought put a damper on everything.
I had to cover some plants this a.m. to avoid sunscald.

[JRinPA]

I don't have that at all, thankfully. I guess 2/3 of a tomato is better than none though. I cut another cuostralee that has the same white ribs up top like that one in above pic.

[Paulf]

Tomato ripening here is at least two weeks late, now into the third week late and looking like a month later than the 20 year norm. Heat and humidity to blame.

[JRinPA]

I seem to remember one year I got a "4th of July" picked on July 8th. Not much taste. Then a couple more from that truss then nothing more for weeks.

I don't feel like it has been particularly much different than usual, except the nights are not cooling off much. I went and tried fishing a few mornings back, and there was very little in the way of a bite, even at best fishing time on the solunar table. The morning surface temp was 84F. Every evening it's about 90F and panfish are about 11-16 ft down, instead of the usual 8-12 ft in August (thermocline fishing on the reservoir). I thought morning would be better with the cooler morning temps, but it certainly was not. The evening bite has been okay.

I'd say were are about 10 days late, here. It has been hot lately, but it was a cool spring. Dry though. Storms came through this afternoon; they hit west north south and somewhat east of us. Anything from the southwest, we are like the top of a rock in the creek, at least on the radar. Storms break and flow around us. Lancanster Co. got rain from three separate cells today. A little over a 1/2" was our last rain, I emptied the gauges Aug 2nd. At this point though, I'm okay with the rain holding off. Sauce will be better.

I picked these today, my three favorite colors this year. White is not a favorite color so I hope I don't see that inside.

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[MissS]

Most of mine this year have a large white core that is not just small and round. It fills most of the top third of the tomato.

That is most likely from the heat and dry conditions.

[AKgardener]

I just have a small 2 cents !! Our summer came early this year and it was hotter than normal!! I had an epic year for both tomatoes and the entire garden I will take this win !! The only tomatoes that did not ripen on time were the exstreme bush and they were supposed to be early and I had to pick them all green because of temperatures dropping at night. Next year is gonna be a test year of crazy varieties

[NarnianGarden]

So far, tomatoes look great - I have not tasted any, yet. We have had some crazy heat waves, so I have had to water them a lot (mine are always in containers, and they need to be watered almost daily, unless it is very cool..)... Now, I am gradually cutting down the amount, just to encourage the cherry tomatoes to ripen. (a tip I read at TomatoVille years back.. not sure it is true).
I did notice some years back that when I needed to water my plants a lot, the flavour really suffered... it is tricky to find the balance, as I cannot give them too much fertiliser either - I gave lot of stuff to each container, and until now, the greens have been very green and lush, and there are plenty of blooms (and they set well)
Maybe once or twice a week I give them a mild 'lemonade', as I call it... just to make sure they have everything and do not get pale from all that fruit-pumping )

Only one variety has shown signs of BER, and it really was bad.. the first six, seven fruits on Dwarf Arctic rose were infested, and I almost despaired. Now, the later fruits seem to be fine and grow nicely.
Curious to taste my first of every variety, that tells me all I need to know