Texas Gardening: New to Houston Gardening - Looking to Learn , 1 by dmj1218

dmj1218 wrote:
I don't have a big problem with them because I scatter my tomatoes around the property. I don't have any 2 plants next to each other. I also don't use earth boxes or containers for tomatoes.

I am, however a commercial bulb grower in a coop--two of my 5 partners do vegetables, certified organic by the state of Texas--my 2 growing fields are on their property in Bellville and Magnolia (not very different from Houston, the Bellville location is less than 15 miles from me). They don't have a big problem either--but again, no monoculture there either. Tomatoes are such a fast crop in spring that by the time the problems really set in, the season is over anyway. They will sometimes use insecticidal soap--one of them doesn't have a lot of time (we also own 2 other non-agricultural businesses as a group) so I sometimes do that for him.

This is one tomato plant--that's a 10' wide bed of LA Iris from the brick path to that short 3' fence on the left. Its sprawled all over the LA Iris (going dormant for the summer), my daughter's patch of "funeral parlor glads" (another story there), and behind it, its sprawled against a Hibiscus coccinea for added support (not intentionally). See a problem? I don't, and it will be gone by about the first of July.