The tomato season was short. It was too cold, cloudy, and rainy in June for early fruit and too cold in the evenings after Labor Day for the fruit to ripen. Time to pull plants.
It was a good season as my use of straw on the underlying beds almost eliminated any diseases that are all too common among Solanum lycopersicum. I needed to spray with Neem only once.
August more than made up for June as Juana made vats of tomato soup and salsa every week. But now the tomatoes will need to ripen in the darkness of paper bags (instead of the brightness of the sun) with an apple, whose ethylene gasses accelerate the process.
All of this year’s four varieties of tomatoes–orange banana, pink princess, Paul Robeson, and Magic Mountain–produced well leaving us with close to a bushel of produce. I think we will be eating tomatoes from the garden well into November. 😋
