Aimee,
I forgot to put the pickled okra recipe in for you. I'll post when I get home tonight.
Hope your having a great day!
Kristi
Assasin Bugs on Tomatoes
Aaaaaaahhhhhhh! I just got home and my tall tomato plants have completely toppled over. Cages and all. We must have had some bad wind here today. I'm going to need hubby's help getting them back up. But I'm scared of all those stinkbugs!!!!!
Had a thought driving home. Maybe my terrible infestation is due to the open pasture next to me. It's quite wild and gets pretty overgrown. There's also a big pond out there with big bull frogs (had one in my garage the other day) and I'd even bet there's a gator or two. Lord knows I get the water mocassins.
knolan,
I had the same problem - got them back up now - tied off to more lines to trip over. Oh well.
Sprayed the leaf-footed critters, then it rained again - can't win.
Anyone want some grape toms? Really producing now; gave away a bunch at the fish-fry, but have a bowl full on the counter and need to go harvest another this morming.
Hi Bubba,
We were able to save them with a lot of string. I lost several branches and had to pick about 30 green tomatoes (guess what we're having for dinner tonight) but all is salvaged. Interesting enough I was able to see the full extent of the damage from the stink bugs. Several tomatoes had turned completey black and to mush. Guess I'll be getting that pyrethrin after all. No more contemplating....time for action! I needed an excuse for a nursery visit anyway.
Grape tomatoes sound really yummy.
I've never known of tomatoes turning "black and to mush" from stinkbugs (leaf-footed bugs). They just make little hard spots on the tomato. Are you talking about blossom end-rot? The end of the tomato furthest from the stem turns black and then the area gets bigger and bigger until it encompasses a large portion of the tomato....
I predict the next problem on the horizon to be lots of rot and disease if this 'bombay-like' weather continues...
Dear God,
Please let it rain exactly 2 inches per week, and preferably not on a weekend. Thank you.
Amen.
cj, that sounds more like what happened to a few of the maters. There are lots of hard black spots from the buggies but the mush must be the rot.
Just got back to the office and bought a new digital camera. Yeah! Now I can take those pics.
Are these hard black spots raised?
no, they're more like little indentions that are hard "plaques". Sometimes they're black, sometimes brown.
Kristi,
We can't live very far apart - we are in Lake Olympia.
I agree, it is time for more powerful treatment. I don't have stink bugs, but sure have a growing population of feaf-footed bugs. So far they have only been on the grapes, but since the wind tangled some of the others together and leaned on the grape cages, no telling where they have spread.
Guess I have been lucky - I do not see any damage on the grape 'maters themselves.
And they are wonderful - having pasta tonight - should use quite a few. Were good with the hot-wings for lunch.
Debbie & ceejay, I wanted rain, but enough is enough - right?
Bubba,
You're very close to me. I'm right past the Sugar Land airport in Village of Oak Lake (W Airport and Hwy 6). Lived in SL most my life!
Bubba,
Y'all have had it worse than me. A little over 1 1/2 inches the night before Memorial Day (and the morning of) then it stopped, and we actually used the swimming pool that afternoon. A little bit here and there since, but not enough to even measure. And no winds, thank goodness. One of our two tomato plants is over 7' tall and we ran out of cage a long time ago.
CJ
Knolan - Just asking questions to make sure there wasn't something else going on. The blossom end rot is caused by a lack of calcium at a critical point in the growth of the fruit. Usually caused by uneven watering. The water isn't present at the critial time when the plant needs to uptake the calcium for the tomato fruit formation.
I think you hit the rot right on the nose. I usually water with a garden wand rather than a sprinkler so it's highly possible that watering was uneven. I thought it was interesting, after yesterday's topple, how many problems it would appear I have. (I'm only in my 4th year so I'm really learning alot). 1) My cages were too flimsy and I should have used them in conjunction with string 2) I planted too close together (the ones in the center that I couldn't see were the rotted ones) 3) I have stink bugs AND Assasin bugs.
My soil is in excellent shape so I don't think that has anything to do with the infestation. Wish they'd fly over to my rose bed and eat the aphids!
I'm not complaining about the rain, because when it stops....
knolan,
Were you using those store bought cages? They just don't make them big enough. We make our own. I notice in Debbie's pictures that she uses some neat-looking spiral thingamabobs that the tomato plants wind around. What are those things anyway, Debbie? They sure do look like they work! And neat in the garden, too. Since I plant my tomatoes in my flower beds, the cages look a little out of place until the tomato grows through it and hides it. (Actually, they look awful until......)
CJ
yup....store bought. I need a better method. How do you make yours?
Here's a pic of the damage. I threw the really bad one away yesterday. Tried to take pics of the buggies but they cam out really blurry (gotta figure the new camera out).
Kristi
Bubba - hope your tomato sauce came out good. My fried green tomatoes were deeeeeelicious! I'm going to make sauce and can it when I getabout twice this many.
Kristi
Yes, you have stink bug damage. Looks like a couple of bird pecks to the green one too. Have you used any herbicides in the area - like on your lawn - as in weed and feed?
We make tomato cages from concrete reinforcement wire that comes in rolls about 6' wide. You'll want the diameter of the cage to be about 2 1/2 - 3 feet. That's about 7-8 feet long. Use a wire cutter to cut it to the proper length. On one end, cut the vertical wires out, leaving the horizonta wires - you'll bend the horizontal wires to make hooks to connect the two ends of the cage together. To have something to push it into the ground, you can either cut the horizontal wires on one end and then push the vertical wires into the ground, or tie two stakes to the cage 1/2 way round from each other. Push those into the ground. I wish I could draw a picture for you.
CJ
No herbicides at all. The lawn is only getting by from doggy droppings. I know some were splitting from too much water (I think?).
Thanks for the info.......gotta let my hubby read it now. He's great at building stuff. Here's the bird house he built me for Mother's Day. (I'm not tall enough to get a good pic).
ya give a girl a camera......
Yeah, too much water too fast can kind of make them go kablooey! LOL
Neat birdhouse. Did you get any purple martins, or was it too late?
Haven't seen anything nesting in there yet. My daughter painted it and I think the paint/human smell needs to subside a bit before I'll see any activity. It's right outside of my office window so I can keep an eye on them. Hope it's tall enough to keep the cat's at bay.
the upper tomato suffers from radial cracking--not insects
too much water?
uneven water--most likely due to all this rain
Some varieties are alot more prone to it by nature--I have it on one of my varieties but not the others.
This message was edited May 31, 2006 10:32 PM
Well, don't get discouraged. It's probably too late this year for martins. Mine have been feeding babies for awhile now. But sometimes there's a latecomer just a-looking for a home. You never know. Keep the sparrows and starlings out in the meantime.
The height looks fine in the picture. How tall is it? Looks to be about 20 feet. I've never seen a cat jump that high yet....
It's 15', I had to BEG to get it that tall. With the pecans and my conniving, ferocious cats, it was the only way.
I also have a cardinal family that's been with me for over 10 years. They nest in my Lady Banks and wake me up at the crack of dawn!
That should be high enough. I haven't seen a cat jump 15 feet either. LOL
Love the cardinals. (Well, love most all of the birds!) A rose bush would be a good place to nest. We have cardinals in a rather large ligustrum hedge along the north side of the house that preceded me. Honest - I didn't plant it! Makes a good place for the birds to nest. Always something in there.
Kristi,
The pasta sauce was wonderful. Sweated some onion with a mix of garden herbs (used a small food processor to shop the parsley, sage, chilipequin, and red onion), added a couple of bison patties, then some Paul Newman's, and finally a bowl of the grapes cut in half. Waited until the pasta started to cook to add the grape tomatoes.
Served with some Circle-S-Vineyards wine. Ever been there? Rignt here in Sugar Land.
Between rain showers I checked on the bugs - still there. We will really get aggressive today - they gotta go!
Debbie,
I am concerned about splitting with all this rain at once. Think I should harvest and let ripen inside, or just take my chances?
I would let ripen inside anything that's turning. Start thinking fall tomatoes.
Debbie
Sounds wonderful. I didn't know about the vineyard. Where are they located?
Good luck on the bugs.
Circle-S-Vineyards is at US90A and Dairy-Ashford (Sugar Creek) - behind everything. Enter from Sugar Creek. Website - www.circlesvineyards.com
Well, it would appear I have quite a bit of blossom end rot out there. Bummer.
Also, last night I as I was preparing dinner I noticed that a lot of my tomatoes were red on the outside but hard and green on the inside with green seeds (some seeds were black). And the flesh was really hard. Had to toss them. It's only the small tomatoes. Could they ripen on the outside but not on the inside? Really weird.
Bubba....think I'm going to have to visit that winery. After you sent the link I do remember reading about it in one of our local area mags. How'd the bug spraying go?
Did you plant any heirloom tomatoes?
Better Bush (these are the ones wth the problem) and Beef Steak. I'll try to plant heirlooms this fall......now that I've learned a little more.
Spent some time assembling a new sprayer - the other one is dedicated to Round-up. Sprayed everyone I could see and lightly on the green fruit on all of the plants.
Checked this afrernoon - found several deadon the ground, but saw more - hit them dead in the face - flew off - way off towards the front yard. Smashed a couple before I got the sprayer going.
The good news - I do not see any red or grey young ones - just adults now.
The winery was written up in the paper - that is how we found it. They have a wonderful jalapeno wine - available only once a year, tho.
Jalapeno wine! I assume it tastes like jalapenos? I can't imagine!!!!! Maybe if I send an SASE....
CJ
Jalapeno? What do you serve with it? Is it a red, white or blush? VERY WEIRD.....I like weird. Made a jalapeno, chocolate, walnut and fig tart once. Different but so good.