Still...I've been thinking about your gardens and hoping you're gathering bushels full of delicious treats! I'll admit—I've been a little worried about your babies. Are they healthy? Do they get enough to drink? Are any bullies hassling them? By mid-summer, you should have happy plants producing gorgeous fruits and veggies...but sometimes our babies needs a little extra TLC this time of the year, just like we keep our human babies slathered with sunscreen, hydrated, and mosquito-repelled.
If your tomatoes look like this...
...go and make bruschetta, for goodness' sake! Don't waste time reading the rest of the article—just enjoy!
But if your plants look like this...
or your fruit looks like this...
...you might want to stick around. We've got some work to do.
IPM.
You all know I love nature. Really. Well, except for yellow jackets, because I'm allergic. (Nice career move, hmm? A gardener who can't get stung. Obviously, I like to live on the edge.) Anyway, I do admit to getting pretty ticked two seasons ago when the deer ate every single pepper. All of them. They didn't even have the decency to leave one Yellow Bell. Still—it was a bad drought, so I didn't stay angry for long. I love deer, even when they decimate my peppers.
However, there's one nasty critter that just really ticks me off:
The tomato hornworm.
OK, so it's pretty. And my daughter loves them and tries every year (unsuccessfully) to watch the metamorphosis in her creature keeper. Which is fine, because this critter will strip a tomato plant of its foliage faster than my 5-year-old strips to do his “naked-boy dance.” And that's pretty fast.
In the morning, you'll be gazing proudly at your gorgeous, lush, healthy vine—and within hours, you'll find branches completely denuded of leaves.
That's if you're vigilant about checking your garden.
If you have a more laid-back approach to gardening, you'll find that creepy crawler will have moved on to neighboring plants...and soon you'll be left with tomato stalks. Trust me. It's a very unhappy sight.
Tomato hornworms' coloration provides fabulous camouflage, too—those stinkers. Fortunately, if you see bare stems...you can usually find the hornworm with a bit of searching. If you have kids, send them on the quest.
So what do you do? Well, if you live ay my house, you get your 9-year-old daughter to pick it off the tomato vine. She'll do one of two things with it: put it in a creature-keeper, to see what it will morph into (it won't...it will die), or she'll take it down to our river to see what kind of fish comes to eat it. (This has been a favorite pastime this summer.)
Notice that no poisons are used in the demise of the hornworm.
Honestly, there's no point in spraying anything on these guys. They are easy to spot, and if you check regularly—you can pick them off before much damage is done. In some cases, you might even want to leave the hornworm—particularly if you find one with funky white “spikes” on its back. These little spikes are parasitic braconid wasps: Cotesia congregatus. Grossness alert: the larvae that hatch from wasp eggs laid on the hornworm feed on the inside of the hornworm until the wasp is ready to pupate. The cocoons appear as white spikes protruding from the hornworm's body. The wasps will kill the hornworm when they emerge from the cocoons and will look for other hornworms to parasitize.
This is a case when wasp action is a good thing, even for a coward like me.
Leave it alone. Let nature do its job, and you won't need to worry about tomato hornworms eating your babies.
The fancy term is “Integrated Pest Management (IPM).” Impress your friends with your new-found knowledge.
Cracking up...and down...or around.
We're all guilty. We leave those poor, defenseless tomato plants in the garden while we play on the beach for a week, then we come home and douse those poor babies with three hours of water. Sounds like that should help them recuperate, right?
But then--disaster. Those gorgeous, shiny globes are suddenly marred with cracks.
What happened?
Watering is an art...or at least it should be. Consistent watering is important for healthy plants and pretty, tasty fruit. When a tomato plant is deprived of water, either through neglect or drought, and then receives a sudden flood--the inside of the fruit expands more rapidly than the exterior skin. The skin bursts as the fleshy interior expands...and there, my friends, is the reason for those ugly cracks. No worries, you can still eat the fruit, cracks and all. But just to drive home the point about consistent watering...
Rotten tomatoes.
It happens to the best of us. We water, we pamper, we care for our babies. Then we reach into the vine to pluck a gorgeous, ripe tomato, with dreams of a beautiful calabrese salad...only to recoil in horror at the vile, black bottom of our precious fruit. It's just...so unappetizing.
You're not alone.
Blossom-end rot is a very common problem for gardeners. Gardeners of all ages, experience levels, and obsessiveness. (Where do you think the above photo is from? I hang my head in shame.)
Initially, you'll find a small, water-soaked spot on the fruit's bottom, which enlarges and darkens as the fruit develops. The spot might enlarge until it covers as much as one-half of the entire fruit surface, or it may remain small and superficial. The lesions become flattened, black, and leathery.
And just plain gross.
Fortunately, blossom-end rot doesn't spread from plant to plant in the field. Because it's physiological in nature, fungicides and insecticides are useless—plus we don't want to use those anyway, now do we? Blossom-end rot is a product of the environment—consistent supplies of water and calcium help prevent the uglies. The disease takes off when rapidly growing, succulent plants suddenly experience drought conditions. When the roots can't obtain sufficient water and calcium to channel up to the rapidly developing fruits, the fruit rots on the blossom end.
Blossom-end rot also occurs when soil surrounding the plant is cultivated—it destroys valuable roots, which take up water and minerals.
So, what to do? First—water consistently. Don't think you can let the plant go for a week and then throw a bunch of water on it to “catch up.” I know we all get tired of watering, but it's the price we pay for our yummy produce. Next—remember to have your soil tested at the beginning of the season. Lime is a good source of calcium, but you want to check your soil first (see the post about soil) before you run out and spread lots of lime in your garden. If you are experiencing blossom-end rot, you can sprinkle some lime or crushed eggshells around the base of the plant—but it takes awhile for it to be absorbed.
The good news is: sometimes plants produce fruit early in the season with blossom-end rot if they were planted in cold soil. The later fruit are typically free of the rot.
The other good news is: if it's just a small, superficial spot, you can still eat that tomato. Just cut out the spot and pretend you never saw it. It will still taste delicious diced with basil and made into bruschetta...
Oh, I'm hungry...
Although the next topic makes me lose my appetite:
Verticillium Wilt.
You do everything right. You use all organic methods. You pamper and coddle and whisper sweet nothings to your babies. You dream of their futures and the incredible meals you're going to bribe your hubby to cook. And then...
BAM!
(And not in a good Emeril-inspired way.)
Wilt? What wilt? One day this was a gorgeous, Yellow Pear-laden thing of beauty, and the next day—it was dead.
Verticillium Wilt is caused by a soil-borne fungus that can—here's the fun part--linger in the soil for many years. Crop rotation is crucial.
Logically, I know this, but my tiny bit of sunny garden space screams that I HAVE to plant there. We live in a forest—it's my only sunny place. So, I gambled--and look what happened.
Total frustration.
Well, OK—it's two plants out of 115. So far, everything else looks good. Please cross your fingers for me.
The dreaded symptoms include: wilting during the hottest part of the day and recovering at night; yellowing and eventually browning between the leaf veins, starting with the older, lower leaves.
Verticillium Wilt inhibits the plant's ability to absorb water and nutrients and, as you can see--it will eventually kill the plant.
So. Very. Depressing.
I hope you don't have this happen to your babies. This garden problem has only one solution—pull out the affected plant, do NOT compost it, and don't plant anything in the tomato family in that same spot next year.
I'm sorry. That's just how it is. Boo.
Fight the good fight...
Now, I know this was a bit of a bummer...but you are now armed and ready to combat anything nasty that tries to take over your garden.
Be vigilant. Be brave. Be careful out there.
And enjoy your scrumptious treats after your hard day of battle.
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