September tomato plants

[rainbowgardener]

Well it is September and my tomato plants are starting to show a little wear and tear. They are still doing well and producing more tomatoes daily. But the bottoms of the plants are now getting a little bare from removing septoria leaves. Some of the leaves are looking a little chlorotic (so I just put down more compost top dressing and watered it in; this weekend I want to make a batch of AACT, haven't done that since early spring). Some of the leaves I pulled were riddled with little holes like tiny buckshot; I think that is flea beetles, though I didn't see them. There is some kind of tiny orange flying insect on some of the plants. I did find a couple hornworms, but they both were covered in braconid wasp cocoons. I found one tiny hornworm that was not parasitized yet and dispatched it. Haven't found any others, though I may just have not spotted them. The ones with the white cocoons show up so much better. The farther on in the season, it seems the more pests find them.

But we have about 6 wks until average first frost date and I'm thinking my tomato plants will have no trouble making it through until then.

[imafan26]

My two tomatoes that I started in July are growing well and have started to flower, but no fruit yet. I probably need to take the sun gold down. It has produced only a handful of new fruit.

[rainbowgardener]

yeah, we are working with completely different climates and seasons... my tomato plants I started from seeds indoors in February, while it was still too cold to start them outside. So these plants are 7 months old now. I started getting ripe tomatoes at the end of June and will likely have vine ripened tomatoes until the end of Oct.

Tomatoes are actually quite a big energy investment .... grow them for 4 months in order to have 4 months of production. If I lived with any shorter growing season, I might not bother.

[applestar]

I have to take the time to make note of what is still producing and what has died down completely, and yet others that have new shoots growing that for me won't do any good because they don't even have flowers on them, but where frost is still at last two months off, there's good chance these would bloom and fruit if they were fertilized (I,m not going to bother).

Some are down to one or two last green fruits on the end of bare vines. Some of them these fruits didn't get any size to them but some of them are actually at good or full size and I can anticipate 3-5" salad-slicer size fruits to ripen before frost.

Grandma Viney's Yellow and Pink has been outstanding. One of the first to be planted, it has produced some giant size tomatoes and I've been harvesting 3" plus fruits every couple of days. Zarnitsa has been surprising with renewed fruit production of 3" globes. Others have been yielding one or two fruits per week.

I have some late planted varieties that septoria caught up with before production could start, and now are limping along trying to produce 2nd or 3rd fruit of the season, and even later planted varieties that are just now producing their first fruits.

I do have a late planted black cherry that is going wild now, having claimed approximately 6ft span of the top of the 5 ft picket fence despite leafminers and septoria, with big bunches of fruits on my side and my neighbor's side of the fence. I've asked my neighbor to please harvest any ripe fruits on his side because I can't see and am not going to walk around the fence to check on them. The Earl's Green Cherry that was limping along due to excessive shade at the next fence post from the Black Cherry has been going nuts since reaching the top of the fence. That one is taking up about 4 ft span. Blondkopfchen is trying to grow in between. I explained to my neighbor that NONE OF THESE ARE RED when ripe but can be harvested once they change color and blush, and are good to eat once the surface gives slightly and they are fully colored -- frosty brown Black Cherry, dark green striped amber yellow Earl's Green Cherry, and dark yellow to light orange Blondkopfchen pointed plum mini cherry.

[digitS']

I have long disliked determinate varieties because I am faced with a dying plant after it produces - whatever it produces .

There are plenty of indeterminates that I canNOT grow because they require too many days to ripen before frost. Having something like ripe Gold Nugget cherries really, really early seemed like some sort of miracle! Then, the last of the fruit and the entire plant would just deteriorate away!

Not too many years ago, I discovered Legend - which ripens just about the 1st of September here. As the weather cools, the onset of ripening fruit slows. Legend, a determinate, makes it thru several weeks to the first frost with fruit and without looking like I've been stomping on it.

Steve

[Juliuskitty]

I am on the opposite side of things here. Just started transplanting my 2 week old seedlings into 4 inch pots so I am full of the high hopes and excitement a new season brings. Nope, don't remember a thing about all the spraying and worm picking and yellow sticky trap hanging, and cage and trellis construction that I did last season!

[imafan26]

In the tropics, indeterminate tomatoes are technically perennial. What causes decline are pests and diseases. But I will pull them when production declines.

[mattie g]

I still have all of my 11 tomato plants, except for one volunteer that wilted after I did a little trimming. I don't know what happened, but it wasn't producing much anyways, so I'm not missing much. I also planted two plants from cuttings, one of which is blossoming now. Since I have 7-8 weeks before my average first frost, I should be able to get a small harvest from the one plant (I think it's an Amish Paste); the other (a Brandywine) might be a little too young.

I may pull one Brandywine - I planted it in a fairly shady spot and it didn't produce that well this year (only a few tomatoes came from it). The plant itself is about 9'-10' tall and pretty sturdy (not leggy), but I had very few flowers form, and I don't think there are any on it now. Strange, since I didn't fertilize with anything except fish fertilizer and compost tea. Oh well...no big loss.

In general, all the remaining plants are doing relatively well, especially since a few of them contracted what I think/thought was curly top virus a couple months ago. A few of my plants have quite a few pounds of green fruits on them right now - my Amish Paste being the prime example - so I'm pretty happy about where I stand. I've taken off some leaves and branches here and there, but the weather has generally cooperated, allowing me to leave them well enough alone for much of the season. I'm sure they'll start going downhill pretty quickly in a few weeks as we get our first extended stretches of cool weather.

[rainbowgardener]

Yeah, we are in season transition. Today will be 95, near record high for the date, only getting down to 72 tonight. But that means tonight's low, will be higher than the high temp for friday (70) and we will have a couple nights at the end of the week with lows in the mid-40's. That's not enough to kill the tomato plants, but it is enough to slow production down some.

[imafan26]

95 degrees! Wow! It was 87 today and 89 is predicted tomorrow but with the humidity it will feel more like 95. I am thankful for trade winds. It is normal for this time of the year. Today, I weeded inside the shade house which was probably about 90 degrees. It is always more humid in there. Tomorrow will be a good day to be some place air conditioned.

[rainbowgardener]

Places like Phoenix are still having temps over 100, but theirs is dry. We have 95 and humid which is killer. And 102 is just average for the date in Phoenix. Average for the date where I am is 80. After hardly having any summer weather all summer, we are now having a heat wave when it should be fall... ( I know the calendar says summer for another 10 days, but traditionally in Cincinnati, summer weather was OVER at Labor Day, just as if the weather gods were looking at the calendar. Aug 30 summer, bamm, Sept 2 fall. )

[rainbowgardener]

Our september heat wave is slowing them down a bit. Found more tomato hornworms today, but also already parasitized by the braconid wasps. Found one of the previous hornworms - it is now a flat black empty skin, with hollow empty white coccoons all over it, from which the new wasps have already emerged.

I would say always plant parsley or carrots next to your tomatoes and leave one to flower the next year. I really think the reason the braconids have been so efficient with the hornworms is that right next to the tomato plants is a big parsley plant from last year that got covered in flowers this year. I harvested some of the seed, but I am leaving some to just fall, see if it will volunteer itself.

I keep picking off more browned leaves. Since I added more compost, there's lots of fresh new green growth and flowers. So even though the plants are getting older and more under attack, they are still doing well and producing more tomatoes daily.

[gixxerific]

Barely hanging on myself

[rainbowgardener]

Still harvesting tomatoes. I've been cutting all the growing tips off, to help stop them from growing and making more blossoms that will never become tomatoes. Cut some of the plants back to make room for the seeds I planted.

I was squishing some orange aphids that were on them until I noticed a lady bug and decided I should quit squishing her breakfast.

[Juliuskitty]

I still have all of my 11 tomato plants, except for one volunteer that wilted after I did a little trimming. I don't know what happened, but it wasn't producing much anyways, so I'm not missing much. I also planted two plants from cuttings, one of which is blossoming now. Since I have 7-8 weeks before my average first frost, I should be able to get a small harvest from the one plant (I think it's an Amish Paste); the other (a Brandywine) might be a little too young.

I may pull one Brandywine - I planted it in a fairly shady spot and it didn't produce that well this year (only a few tomatoes came from it). The plant itself is about 9'-10' tall and pretty sturdy (not leggy), but I had very few flowers form, and I don't think there are any on it now. Strange, since I didn't fertilize with anything except fish fertilizer and compost tea. Oh well...no big loss.

In general, all the remaining plants are doing relatively well, especially since a few of them contracted what I think/thought was curly top virus a couple months ago. A few of my plants have quite a few pounds of green fruits on them right now - my Amish Paste being the prime example - so I'm pretty happy about where I stand. I've taken off some leaves and branches here and there, but the weather has generally cooperated, allowing me to leave them well enough alone for much of the season. I'm sure they'll start going downhill pretty quickly in a few weeks as we get our first extended stretches of cool weather.

Mattie,
The dirty little secret with Brandywines is that they are poor producers. You can increase the amount of blossoms if you give them a fert that has a higher phosphorous number, this encourages blooming.
As far as the curly leaf virus, do you have whiteflies? They are the delivery system for Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus. If you do, yellow sticky traps worked fabulously well for me. I put them every 5 feet and the whiteflies were strongly attracted to the yellow color. First year I haven't had TYLCV, after getting it for 8 years.

[mattie g]

Mattie,
The dirty little secret with Brandywines is that they are poor producers. You can increase the amount of blossoms if you give them a fert that has a higher phosphorous number, this encourages blooming.
As far as the curly leaf virus, do you have whiteflies? They are the delivery system for Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus. If you do, yellow sticky traps worked fabulously well for me. I put them every 5 feet and the whiteflies were strongly attracted to the yellow color. First year I haven't had TYLCV, after getting it for 8 years.

I've done OK with Brandywines in the past, but this year was a different story. Funny enough...the plant in question has a *ton* of flowers on it now. But we only have 4-6 weeks of growing season left, so it's unlikely anything will ever come of them.

Not sure about whiteflies, but your advice is noted!

[gixxerific]

I thought it was leaf hoppers that spread curly top. I had this last year.

[Juliuskitty]

Yes, curly top virus is spread by the leafhopper. I was referring to TYLCV a different virus which is spread by whiteflies. I think Mattie thought it was curly top virus, so I confused the issue by bringing up TYLCV. My bad, sorry.

[rainbowgardener]

Well my tomato plants still look pretty good, but with chilly nights and shorter days, production has slowed down. I may go ahead and pull them soon, just to plant other stuff there.