Fellow Floridians and other Hot/Humid climates - season '19-20

[Zone9b]

Barb, I'm curious do you routinely get better production from your Earth Boxes or your pouches.? Also, what are using as a growing medium in your pouches. Thanks Larry

[Barb_FL]

Originally Posted by Zone9b

Barb, I'm curious do you routinely get better production from your Earth Boxes or your pouches.? Also, what are using as a growing medium in your pouches. Thanks Larry

I thought last year (and prior years) that I had better production for large tomatoes in root pouches. For cherry tomatoes, I really prefer to use Earthboxes.

Ease of use (IE watering) goes to the EB handsdown.

End of year cleaning - the EB takes about 30 seconds to pressure wash, the root pouches seem to take 5 minutes each and much messier. - EB wins handsdown .

This year I started using almost exclusively EB, and just a couple RP. Then I added dwarfs, and some determinate tomatoes. The # of RP has grown b/c of the determinate varieties - I have replacements already in RP whereas the originals are not done yet.

For EB - I use ProMix and some coir - about 80/20

For RP - I used more 'reused' mix, added the large Coir Chips - Roots Organic brand, and some rice hulls, and then some ProMix / FoxFarm stuff.

I really tried to space everything out better this year and not have a 'wall of cherry' tomatoes like I did last year, hogging all the sun.

[Zone9b]

Originally Posted by Barb_FL

I thought last year (and prior years) that I had better production for large tomatoes in root pouches. For cherry tomatoes, I really prefer to use Earthboxes.

Ease of use (IE watering) goes to the EB handsdown.

End of year cleaning - the EB takes about 30 seconds to pressure wash, the root pouches seem to take 5 minutes each and much messier. - EB wins handsdown .

This year I started using almost exclusively EB, and just a couple RP. Then I added dwarfs, and some determinate tomatoes. The # of RP has grown b/c of the determinate varieties - I have replacements already in RP whereas the originals are not done yet.
For EB - I use ProMix and some coir - about 80/20
For RP - I used more 'reused' mix, added the large Coir Chips - Roots Organic brand, and some rice hulls, and then some ProMix / FoxFarm stuff.
I really tried to space everything out better this year and not have a 'wall of cherry' tomatoes like I did last year, hogging all the sun.

Thanks for a great explanation, Barb. I may try a few Earth Boxes in the coming spring. Another rainy day here. I'd like to see a bit of Sun.

[kilroyscarnival]

We had our first two ripe cherry tomatoes Saturday off one of the Jochalos micros - definitely a prolific little plant. I have six going and they are all laden with green tommies, a few just starting to go pale yellow. The ripe ones were a nice yellow-orange. Good flavor, a little tartness but also nicely sweet.

Here in Central Florida we've had a few days of almost nonstop drizzling rain along with a few bouts of heavy rain. It's not typical for this time of year as I recall. In addition to checking drainage and making sure I'm not getting mildew, I reapplied a light liquid fert/epsom mix and plan to do so again today. So far thankfully no issues with splitting skins, but I have so many green tomatoes on various plants, I really hope the rain doesn't mess with them. Really thought I'd have a ton of ripe fruit by now, but I'm sure I delayed things back when I coddled the seedlings keeping them indoors under lights. Next year maybe I'll be more aggressive.

I had just put out a bunch of lettuce seeds in the tower barrel and in another container. The rain possibly washed those tiny seeds down deep and I may have to start over? Waiting and seeing.

[teyger]

So on the subject of Hot/Humid climates. I am currently working on an idea that I started 2 seasons ago that has so far led to my best tomato season ever last year. I was considering starting my own thread but figured I'd post here first to see if there is any interest.

So I live in SW Louisiana. It's very hot and VERY humid with frequent afternoon downpours during the summer. My biggest problems have been, 1-disease (mostly blight or some other fungal), 2- Stinkbugs, 3- Fruits splitting. Between the near daily afternoon rains and the wet plants in the morning from dew, I hadn't even come close to maintaining the diseases. Also, I try to stay as organic as possible, which makes it nearly impossible to deal with the stinkbugs. The stinkbugs are so bad that all my tomatoes would end up completed discolored and inedible.

After spending countless hours researching possible organic solutions that would apply to my garden, I finally stumbled across a publication titled "Rain Shelters for Tomato Production in
the Hot-Wet Season". http://203.64.245.61/web_crops/tomat...0season_A4.pdf .
I thought 'Wow! This may be the solution to all 3 of my problems'. The rain shelter would keep my plants dry to help with disease and splitting, and using bug netting on the sides would keep the stinkbugs off. I decided to put it to the test.

The first year (2 seasons ago) I set up a shelter over 1 small bed as a test using 1/2 emt conduit. Yeah, not very sturdy but it was just a test and I braced it well. It started well, but just as the plants were setting fruits a tornado hit and demolished it. No amount of bracing would have withstood a tornado. I was too disgusted to bother with it again that year.

The next season (last season) I built another rain shelter over my now larger test bed with side bug netting. As I stated earlier, it was my best season ever BY FAR. I had so many tomatoes I couldn't give them away fast enough. I was not prepared for that many because all my previous seasons were so short lived and so many tomatoes lost to splitting and stinkbugs.

Although I had an outstanding year, relative to all previous years, I am still looking to improve and looking for help/ideas with the rain shelter plus organic approach. This year I am upgrading my rain shelter to a high tunnel with high sidewalls. And yes, people look at me crazy when I tell them I am building basically a greenhouse in South Louisiana for my summer garden. LOL. The sides and ends will not be covered in plastic but in bug netting instead. I just wont be able to plant anything that needs pollinators, unless I want to manually pollinate by hand.

One problem with the rain shelter, as expected, was the increased temperature. Although it was ventilated due no plastic on the sides, it was still slightly warmer inside the shelter. My plants really started struggling in the middle of summer and soon after some disease started creeping in, but at least it wasn't blight this time. This year I will add a shade cloth when dog days of summer start. I am not sure how much the increased temp made a difference as opposed to the normal heat of our summers because I have never made it that far into the season before with healthy plants. Although wind passes through the netting, it does decrease the air flow a bit, resulting in higher temp.

Other than a shade cloth, I have been trying to find a good idea to cool my "greenhouse". I have considered geothermal air cooling. Having pipes run underground to cool the air, but I nixed that idea because I would assume with the high water table in my area it would not be feasible.

Of course another downside to the shelter is rain doesn't water the plants any more. So a lot more work to keep the plants watered. I am going to set up rain collection off the tunnel though, along with some automation with the watering system.

I did a VERY poor job of recording info like harvest quantities and dates and other notes. I will make much more effort to document this year.

I am open to suggestions from anyone. Also, to keep this post from getting too long I did leave out a lot of details on my gardening techniques so if you have any questions about my gardening feel free to ask.

I was going to post a few pics but I guess I deleted all but 1, and its just from the inside of the shelter showing some of the tomato plants. I'll post it once I get it uploaded to my PC.

[Barb_FL]

Kilroy - We've also been getting daily rains since the middle of December. Doesn't seem like the 'dry' season at all. I remember getting a ton of rain in January '19 and my tomato tops weren't pretty.

My lettuce seeds seems to germinate better when it rains a lot so don't give up. The mature lettuce is beaten down but then bounces back.

Teyger I'm glad you posted here. When is your season?

In much of Florida (I'm central east coast) we don't bother growing tomatoes in the summer. The nights are just too warm although October was really hot (with warm nights - high 70s (like 76-78) and I had a ton of fruit set and really early tomatoes even large beefstakes due to bees pollinating them. I had a ton of orchid bees endlessly going from flower to flower. The Vegibee or an electric toothbrush works well too but I'd rather the bees do the work.

Late last spring ('19) was my first encounter with the flat footed leaf bug. If they show up this year I'm going to spray with pyrethrin; Isn't that organic?

Keep us posted on your project.

[b54red]

I will be starting my first tomato seed this week so I can start grafting in February. I started earlier last year and since we had such a mild winter and early spring I wasn't early enough but even if I was a bit late getting the first grafts out in the garden some of them lasted the whole season. I know it is great to get the plants out as early as possible but since grafting is a good bit of work and involves a lot of time and some expense I would rather not have a bunch of grafted plants held in the greenhouse way past the time they need to be in the ground. My most often used plant out date is either the first or second week in March but I have had to wait sometimes until late April due to late cold fronts. I will be staggering my seed starting until it gets too hot to use my greenhouse and grafting plants as long as possible into the summer.

Timing things down here between balmy Florida and the more normal seasons slightly north of my location is always a hit and miss thing. As a result I began staggering my plantings both of tomatoes and most of the other things I grow. I have spent a great deal of time and effort to develop techniques that aid growing successfully in the heat of summer which has resulted in me using the single stem lean and lower method with my tomatoes planted after early March. I still sometimes plant some of my earliest few tomatoes so they can have more stems supported by a trellis but they take far more time and effort to maintain but they have the advantage of producing more early fruit. I may try a few non-grafted plants early and hope the fusarium wilt doesn't wipe them out before they can make any usable fruit.

Bill

[b54red]

Originally Posted by teyger

So on the subject of Hot/Humid climates. I am currently working on an idea that I started 2 seasons ago that has so far led to my best tomato season ever last year. I was considering starting my own thread but figured I'd post here first to see if there is any interest.

So I live in SW Louisiana. It's very hot and VERY humid with frequent afternoon downpours during the summer. My biggest problems have been, 1-disease (mostly blight or some other fungal), 2- Stinkbugs, 3- Fruits splitting. Between the near daily afternoon rains and the wet plants in the morning from dew, I hadn't even come close to maintaining the diseases. Also, I try to stay as organic as possible, which makes it nearly impossible to deal with the stinkbugs. The stinkbugs are so bad that all my tomatoes would end up completed discolored and inedible.

After spending countless hours researching possible organic solutions that would apply to my garden, I finally stumbled across a publication titled "Rain Shelters for Tomato Production in
the Hot-Wet Season". http://203.64.245.61/web_crops/tomat...0season_A4.pdf .
I thought 'Wow! This may be the solution to all 3 of my problems'. The rain shelter would keep my plants dry to help with disease and splitting, and using bug netting on the sides would keep the stinkbugs off. I decided to put it to the test.

The first year (2 seasons ago) I set up a shelter over 1 small bed as a test using 1/2 emt conduit. Yeah, not very sturdy but it was just a test and I braced it well. It started well, but just as the plants were setting fruits a tornado hit and demolished it. No amount of bracing would have withstood a tornado. I was too disgusted to bother with it again that year.

The next season (last season) I built another rain shelter over my now larger test bed with side bug netting. As I stated earlier, it was my best season ever BY FAR. I had so many tomatoes I couldn't give them away fast enough. I was not prepared for that many because all my previous seasons were so short lived and so many tomatoes lost to splitting and stinkbugs.

Although I had an outstanding year, relative to all previous years, I am still looking to improve and looking for help/ideas with the rain shelter plus organic approach. This year I am upgrading my rain shelter to a high tunnel with high sidewalls. And yes, people look at me crazy when I tell them I am building basically a greenhouse in South Louisiana for my summer garden. LOL. The sides and ends will not be covered in plastic but in bug netting instead. I just wont be able to plant anything that needs pollinators, unless I want to manually pollinate by hand.

One problem with the rain shelter, as expected, was the increased temperature. Although it was ventilated due no plastic on the sides, it was still slightly warmer inside the shelter. My plants really started struggling in the middle of summer and soon after some disease started creeping in, but at least it wasn't blight this time. This year I will add a shade cloth when dog days of summer start. I am not sure how much the increased temp made a difference as opposed to the normal heat of our summers because I have never made it that far into the season before with healthy plants. Although wind passes through the netting, it does decrease the air flow a bit, resulting in higher temp.

Other than a shade cloth, I have been trying to find a good idea to cool my "greenhouse". I have considered geothermal air cooling. Having pipes run underground to cool the air, but I nixed that idea because I would assume with the high water table in my area it would not be feasible.

Of course another downside to the shelter is rain doesn't water the plants any more. So a lot more work to keep the plants watered. I am going to set up rain collection off the tunnel though, along with some automation with the watering system.

I did a VERY poor job of recording info like harvest quantities and dates and other notes. I will make much more effort to document this year.

I am open to suggestions from anyone. Also, to keep this post from getting too long I did leave out a lot of details on my gardening techniques so if you have any questions about my gardening feel free to ask.

I was going to post a few pics but I guess I deleted all but 1, and its just from the inside of the shelter showing some of the tomato plants. I'll post it once I get it uploaded to my PC.

Most years we have the same type weather you describe. I too have tried some of the things you are talking about and had similar results. I finally found the thing that worked best for me without the tremendous amount of work involved in protecting the plants with covering to prevent insects and stopping rain from delivering diseases to the leaves. Almost all my tomatoes are open to the elements but they are single stem plants that I lean and lower. I regularly alternate applying a copper spray and Daconil to lessen diseases and unless the rain is excessive for a long time the results are good. The single stem allows for better coverage when spraying and far more air flow so the plants dry faster in the mornings and after rains which means they are less likely to develop most of the diseases that plague our type of climate. This system requires a bit of work setting it up but it is far less work to maintain and more plants can be grown in a smaller space.

I like to be as organic as possible but I don't hesitate to put a stop to pest like stink bugs and leaf footed bugs as soon as they appear with Permethrin and soapy water. It is a fairly mild poison and if used late in the evening doesn't appear to have damaged my ever growing bee population.

Despite my best efforts, short of stopping the rain from hitting plants, I don't know if there is any way to totally prevent Early Blight from affecting some of my plants. If I keep them sprayed and remove affected leaves it can usually be controlled enough to still have decent production from the affected plants. Early Blight is like thrips bringing in TSWV; I expect some of it every year and I also expect some loses due to these problems and plant a few more plants to make up for it.

Good luck with your experimenting and I hope you find something that works for your garden. Keep us posted on your results.

Bill

[teyger]

Originally Posted by Barb_FL

Teyger I'm glad you posted here. When is your season?

In much of Florida (I'm central east coast) we don't bother growing tomatoes in the summer. The nights are just too warm although October was really hot (with warm nights - high 70s (like 76-78) and I had a ton of fruit set and really early tomatoes even large beefstakes due to bees pollinating them. I had a ton of orchid bees endlessly going from flower to flower. The Vegibee or an electric toothbrush works well too but I'd rather the bees do the work.

Late last spring ('19) was my first encounter with the flat footed leaf bug. If they show up this year I'm going to spray with pyrethrin; Isn't that organic?

Keep us posted on your project.

Barb, last frost date for my area is March 15, but I usually gamble a little and get plants in the ground no later than March 1st. I have yet to do a fall tomato planting but I plan on it this year. Especially now I will have a high tunnel to extend further into winter.

I have resorted to using permethrin for stinkbugs in the past and it works GREAT. They always start to return after about a week though. The thing is that although I see some people claim it to be organic... I just don't feel it is. I haven't seen any official statement of it being organic.

Originally Posted by b54red

Most years we have the same type weather you describe. I too have tried some of the things you are talking about and had similar results. I finally found the thing that worked best for me without the tremendous amount of work involved in protecting the plants with covering to prevent insects and stopping rain from delivering diseases to the leaves. Almost all my tomatoes are open to the elements but they are single stem plants that I lean and lower. I regularly alternate applying a copper spray and Daconil to lessen diseases and unless the rain is excessive for a long time the results are good. The single stem allows for better coverage when spraying and far more air flow so the plants dry faster in the mornings and after rains which means they are less likely to develop most of the diseases that plague our type of climate. This system requires a bit of work setting it up but it is far less work to maintain and more plants can be grown in a smaller space.

I like to be as organic as possible but I don't hesitate to put a stop to pest like stink bugs and leaf footed bugs as soon as they appear with Permethrin and soapy water. It is a fairly mild poison and if used late in the evening doesn't appear to have damaged my ever growing bee population.

Despite my best efforts, short of stopping the rain from hitting plants, I don't know if there is any way to totally prevent Early Blight from affecting some of my plants. If I keep them sprayed and remove affected leaves it can usually be controlled enough to still have decent production from the affected plants. Early Blight is like thrips bringing in TSWV; I expect some of it every year and I also expect some loses due to these problems and plant a few more plants to make up for it.

Good luck with your experimenting and I hope you find something that works for your garden. Keep us posted on your results.

Bill

Bill, I used the single stem lean and lower in my rain shelter last season. I actually tried both the single stem lean and lower and multi stem trained up a round cage in my never ceasing quest for maximizing yield. My results were inconclusive. I had great yield from both. One downside to the cage is I can't lower the stem to allow more grow, but the individual stems in multi stem grew slower and by the time they reached the top the season was nearly over anyway. I will be more diligent in record keeping this year to try to figure what give me the most yield per square foot of bed space.

Here's my 1 picture from inside my shelter. You can see the round cages in the far end of the. All the other plants were single stem trained up some bailing cord.
*anyone know why my pic is rotated 90 degrees?*

[Zone9b]

Seemingly good weather for Broccoli. The come again heads have already started on many plants when I cut the first head. Castle Dome F1 is the variety.

[kilroyscarnival]

Originally Posted by Barb_FL

Kilroy - We've also been getting daily rains since the middle of December. Doesn't seem like the 'dry' season at all. I remember getting a ton of rain in January '19 and my tomato tops weren't pretty.

My lettuce seeds seems to germinate better when it rains a lot so don't give up. The mature lettuce is beaten down but then bounces back.

Thanks, Barb, yes, so far so good. I picked a few cherry tomatoes yesterday morning that were a tad short of fully ripe, but no splits or mars. They can bask in a little countertop sunlight today. Thankfully the larger tomatoes (Neptune, Boets, Dwarf Purple Reign, Dwarf Pink Passion) are all still solidly green and hopefully will not be in as rainy a situation when ripening. And, the lettuce seeds are indeed coming up. Plus somehow a few sprouts from an old (2012?) packet of cilantro that I strew in a planter box just for the heck of it. However, it looks like my Thai basil may not make it all of a sudden. They were still pretty small and young; not sure what happened but they look sickly while the herbs around them are all fine.

We're talking about making a setup in the kitchen with the two 24" T5 lights I have, where we can grow some tender greens through the hotter months indoors, so we'll always have salad at the ready, and I also plan to grow some microdwarfs year-round as well.

[kilroyscarnival]

Finally getting at least a few ripe cherries and salads nearly every time we check. My BF said to me, "I think we ought to grow some more of those next time" indicating the prolific little microdwarfs, Jochalos and Lille Lise. I've already started more Jochalos for spring and if it gets too warm, those will come inside possibly. Such tidy little plants and so laden with cherries.

Picked my first of the paste tomatoes off the Boets/Boetz plant. I had poor luck with germination, with only one healthy seedling and something of a runt (I don't sow thickly) but for a container tomato it's pretty prolific so far. Everything's slow to ripen but I have to remind myself of the weeks of drizzly weather plus the shorter sun-hours this time of year.

Only one plant has shown any serious pest damage - some sort of wormy thing ate into two of my Neptune tomatoes (still green) but seems to have died inside the second one and since I removed those holey ones, so far so good.

My latter bunch of seedlings don't look nearly as good as the summer batch, but I have to remind myself I did a lot more babying back then, versus tending them during the holidays. They are all probably due for some of the aspirin-water that I applied to my first bunch.

I'll probably have to get us both involved in more serious pest prevention for the spring cycle.

[beefyboy]

Very interesting thread! It has been awhile since I posted on here. Having a great year in Port Charlotte on the Gulf coast. I do Pest control for a living and have a degree from UF in Pest control Technology and also Entomology. We are the Capital for insects here and are cockroaches are big enough to put a saddle on them and take them for a ride. HAHA

[kilroyscarnival]

Cold out tonight in North and Central Florida! Is anyone covering up their plants/bringing plants inside? I'm seeing a low of 37 for Orlando but that's close enough to make me not want to chance it.

[Zone9b]

This is my first ever harvest of Malanga Blanco. I was surprised at how much better they tasted direct from the garden than from the store.