I have to pull out some of my tomato plants. BOOOO. For reasons unknown to me, some of them just aren't producing any usable tomatoes. Even though the tomatoes were there before The Blight hit, on some plants all the tomatoes themselves are all blighted and rotting before they even get ripe. But not all of the plants. It probably has something to do with the different varieties and how resistant they are to the fungus.
The happy news, though, is that while ALL of the plants have been blighted and are pretty much dying, they're not all dead yet! Yay! When I first saw the signs of The Blight on my plants and read up on it, all the sites I consulted were all gloom and doom and pull your plants up NOW because they'll be dead in a week and you won't get any tomatoes anyway.
Well. I respectfully disagree with the Cornell Cooperative Extension. I couldn't bear to pull them all up when the tomatoes were so close to ripe. So I left them out there. That was three weeks ago. And my faith has been rewarded by a fairly respectable harvest, considering the circumstances. Some plants, as mentioned, have just given up and everything on them is rotting. But some others, notably the Romas (love you, Romas!), have managed to produce quite a lot of non-blighted tomatoes. I don't really understand how some of the tomatoes on a plant can be blighted and some can be perfectly fine, but mine is not to question why. Mine is but to can or die.
However, some culling will be necessary today. I really need to clean up the tomato area. It's pretty gross, what with rotting fruits and decaying plants all over in there. So the sickest plants will be mercifully euthanized today, and I'll see how many more tomatoes I manage to get out of the plants that are left.
It's all so exciting, isn't it?
13 comments:
Sounds gross and slimy. At least the weather's not hot, right?
I gave up and let my tomato plants go live with Jesus a couple days ago. I got a grand total of three (3) tomatoes this year. BOO. BOO, I say!
Remember you were sick yourself yesterday. Don't overdo!
The blight here killed off the Rutgers first and then the Romas. None of them survived. I'll be in mourning all month. Feel free to send some of your salsa to me. Sob.
You go from puking one day to gardening the next?
I'd still be in bed. Because I'm a big baby like that.
RLS: No, the weather is not hot. It's sunny and dry and still cool in the mornings. Alleluia. Early fall has arrived.
Anonymous and Sweet Bird: Me? Overdo? Just because my entire torso is sore from bouts of violent retching doesn't mean I have to stay in bed, does it? Bed is boring.
I am not so good about taking it easy, obviously. But I appreciate your concern.
My mom got some sort of blight as well and hers produced a respectable harvest as well. I actually brought home 28 pounds from her garden on Sunday (didn't include it in my totals, I should have). I'll be giving her some jars of tomato soup as a thank you.
I'll probably be helping my mom clean her tomato patch next week some time - yuck.
Bad news about the tomatoes, but good news since you're feeling well enough to go out and clean up the garden. In Adam's defense, if he indeed was the reason for your 3 a.m. wake up, he can be forgiven since he was out making money so y'all can buy your not-that-long-till-birth baby stuff real soon. (How 'bout that for the good mother-in-law.) Glad you're on the mend! Guess you can attribute some of your push the limit activities today to that military upbringing and the old standby saying - if you're not bleeding, bla, bla, bla.
BTW, I now know why there will be a hiatus on the alcohol fridays...I guess I missed the post where you announced your pending arrival! Congratulations!
I'm glad you're feeling better! And, I will mourn with you the loss of your tomatoe plants and will not mention how fabulous mine are doing.....(ooops, sorry)
;o)
S
How does one euthanize a tomato? And does one bury it, or does one toss the rotting flesh into a separate, putrid pile of look-what-the-damn-blight-did-to-my-harvest reminder?
Yes, these are the questions I have about farm life.
I think maybe all the tomato plants with blight should be boxed up and sent to the place you bought them for selling you tomato plants with the blight. Glad you are feeling up to snuff.
M.M.: I prefer the quick and painless method--yank 'em up by the roots and burn 'em on the beach. Fire is cleansing.
Anonymous: The tomatoes with the worst blight are the ones I started from seed. The only varieties I bought were the Romas and San Marzanos. If they had had the blight when I bought them, they would have died much sooner. I'm afraid the fungus was just carried on the wind to my garden. No one to blame. Dammit.
Good for you - don't believe those Cornell people - you have Blackrock tomatoes - that counts for something.
Glad you're not totally devastated by The Blight.
I don't look forward to this event in my garden. This weekend, the corn goes.
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