Neil Sperry
·5 min read
Is there ever a “normal” year for growing tomatoes here in North Central Texas? One spring it’s a late freeze. Another year it turns hot really early. And then there’s been this year, when the hornworms and aphids have been pairing up two by two with their umbrellas.
Just what is a gardener to do? It seems like we face nothing but hurdles. So, let’s address them one at a time.
▪ Wilted plants. You’ve probably already noticed them. It might have been last week when the rains came day after day. If your plants were standing in water, their roots might have literally drowned. All the pore spaces in the soil might have been filled with water instead of oxygen. They couldn’t take up the water fast enough to meet the plants’ needs. You may even have noticed those adventitious roots forming along the bottoms of the plants’ stems — roots that were thrown out in the plants’ efforts to save their own lives. As we’ve been discussing, planting in raised beds will normally help for future crops.
Then, once the rains let up and the sun came out, the plants started to wilt. They simply weren’t used to that much sun on their dark green foliage and they wilted for several hours during the heat of the day. In most cases, the plants will recover from that sort of wilting.
▪ Not setting fruit. If you find that your tomatoes are blooming but not setting fruit, you might try thumping the flower clusters early in the mornings several times a week. Tomato flowers are pollinated by vibration (not by insects), and gentle thumping equivalent to propelling a wad of paper across a tabletop will usually cause pollen to drop within the flower. It can make a dramatic difference in the quantity of fruit you get from each plant.
Do remember, however, that large-fruiting varieties like Beefsteak and Big Boy generally stop setting fruit when temperatures start to climb into the 90s. We’re already there, so their productive season may already have finished. Those big slicer types were bred for the Midwest. They’re not well suited to Texas temperatures. You’re much better off with small to mid-sized varieties. As extreme examples, the cherry types such as Super Sweet 100s will set fruit clear into mid-summer. Other good types for you next time around include Yellow Pear, Red Cherry, Porter, Roma, Super Fantastic, and Better Boy. (Hang onto that list for a few paragraphs. It’s going to come in handy again.)
▪ Early blight. This fungus is hitting tomato plants currently. Lower leaves will develop large yellow blotches, then quickly turn brown and crisp. The problem will progress up the plants until they’re virtually bare. General-purpose garden fungicides will control this late-spring disease that is made worse by water on leaves.
Spider mites. Watch for spider mites to show up on your plants as the weather warms and rains subside. Lower leaves will develop fine tan mottling. If you thump one of the damaged leaves over a sheet of white paper, you’ll be able to see the nearly microscopic mites moving about. General-purpose insecticides will do a reasonable job of stopping them, but be sure you spray the bottom leaf surfaces as well as the tops. Spider mites also attack beans, eggplant, cucumbers, marigolds and many other flower and vegetable crops.
▪ Blossom-end rot. This problem looks like an awful disease, but it’s primarily caused by major fluctuations in soil moisture levels. (In sandy, acidic soils it can also be caused by a lack of calcium.) It’s especially common when we grow tomatoes in containers, particularly when the pots are smaller than they should be.
Many of us learned the hard way that 5-gallon pots are just too small for a mature tomato plant. It dries out within hours. The blossom end of the fruit is the point farthest from the roots, so it’s first to get dry and last to get water. Just like the tips and margins of leaves, that’s where you’ll see browning and dying of fruit tissues. The easiest ways to solve the problem: water more often and plant into larger containers.
▪ Ripening problems with fruit. Fruit cracking and splitting. If you have tomatoes that crack open before you harvest them, or if you’re seeing sunscald of the ripe fruit, or perhaps if the mockingbirds are finding the fruit before you do, all of these are inviting you to harvest the fruit just before it starts to turn red. It’s been found that tomatoes that are picked just as they start the change from green to pink, then allowed to finish their ripening on a towel or newspaper on a counter indoors, will lose none of their flavor or nutritional value. Try it! You’ll be amazed at their quality.
▪ Fall tomatoes. Finally, we’ll talk about it again in a few weeks, but this year try a fall crop of tomatoes. Plant them around Independence Day and they’ll mature all through October and up to the first frost. Those same varieties I mentioned earlier will be the ones you’ll want, because they also set fruit in cool conditions better than the big slicers.
And one other fun fact: tomatoes are easily rooted from cuttings. If you have plants that are still healthy and vigorous from your spring crops now, this is the time that you’d want to take cuttings. Root them in loose, organic potting soil just as you would coleus or wax begonias. Keep them in the shade until they develop their roots and cover them loosely with dry cleaner’s plastic to hold in the humidity. You may surprise yourself.
