Hows your tomatoes?!? [View all]

Last edited Thu Jun 27, 2019, 10:06 AM - Edit history (2)

Well in the past few we've had terrible el nino drought years and this year it won't stop raining long enough to take out the hay or get all the corn planted here in Illinois. I'm worried by fall prices will be through the roof and we may see $7 corn. It seems like these extremes of precipitation are becoming the norm not the exception in our climate changing world unfortunately. But all that can't be controlled. One way that I always judge a summer independent of all that big stuff is how's my tomatoes. Its something so many people love to do all it takes is a few extra feet of yard.

I plant about a 1/2 acre couple hundred for my wife to sell at the market come late July. Usually by late June the early birds in southern Illinois are bringing some down there. No-one's got anything in these parts I suspect because even if they got em in the dirt in early May as I did, they spent 3 weeks just sitting there in mud puddles and not growing. Now I have a few hundred greenies but they are barely bigger than ping pong balls and I don't expect to have any ripe by the 4th. Plants however are big and green and lush about 4' on average and I've managed to fight off the fungi for the most part despite the soggy weather. Water bill looks good I've only watered once!

Just curious how others are doing. My dad used to quote his own grandpa ..."The only two things money can't buy son are true love and home grown tomatoes."