I am getting a good number of tomatoes off my vines now and what is the most surprising is so many of them are large. Not xlarge or bigger like I sometimes get in the early part of the year but still quite nice. A few even a pound or more but not many. Most are running between 6 and 14 ounces. We are having daytime temps in the low 90s and nights down around 70 now and for the next 10 days or so according to the forecast. This has been one of those very hot and very dry falls except for one week where we got almost an inch of rain in mid September. What we have had is a few days with a tenth or two tenths so just enough to encourage septoria and gray mold along with the ever present EB. I figure at this point in time there is no sense in wasting time pruning and spraying so the plants will just have to look terrible until the end. This past week the varieties that have produced the most are Red Brandywitn, Arkansas Traveler, ISPL, Spudakee, Gary O' Sena, Margaret Curtain, 1884, and Limbaugh's Legacy.
My bells were putting out some really large peppers until the past couple of weeks when the dry heat has really been hard on them. The okra is loving it as long as I water it every other day and keep picking it every day.
This is turning out to be a very good season for fall tomatoes. If not the best it is certainly right up there with the best. For the normal fall plants this heat is not good so I am expecting a very late or nearly non existent crop of greens, broccoli and cabbage. I guess I will have to wait for winter and hope I can keep them covered if it ever cools down enough to plant. I have cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and etc waiting to go out but the weather is just too hot and dry.
Bill
|