Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Bt-(Bacillus thuringiensis) is a gram positive, soil dwelling bacteria. Many crops these days are being bred with Bt to be pest resistant. I had a struggle for a few years with wanting to use it, but got sick of losing my tomatoes to hornworms and my kale to cabbage loopers--little forkers!

Cheapest product out there to get it is called Safer Caterpillar Killer. A little bottle of concentrate retails for about $8-12, and will last you a few gardening seasons. Mix the concentrate in a spray bottle with water and apply early in the a.m. or at dusk.

Of course, you can buy it from me at Worm's Way: 1-800-274-worm. You'll get a better shipping price if you call. Ask for Jen. If I'm not here-(I work M-F 9-2:15) just tell Clint or Levi that you're from the PPK gardening forum.

I love your tomato set up, Kittee!

I'm thinking of doing lots of pickled green tomatoes soon.

Ahhh!
I think if my plants looked like this I'd cry! (With happiness)
haha

Holy crepe, the tomatoes in this thread! I am about to post our first cherries in the harvest thread. So exciting.

Update: I was talking with one of my colleagues about blossom end rot this summer and he told me about an article that he read that excessive heat causes the plant to not use the Ca/Mg efficiently and will lead to BER. I just thought I would bring this up because it seems like many people are struggling with this issue this gardening season. High temps=BER makes sense, I just had never made that connection myself.

Here's another good article BER and other tomato problems:
http://www.tomatodirt.com/blossom-end-rot.html

I picked (and ate) my 1st two red merlot grape tomatoes last night. There are a couple more that will be red in the next few days, and a lot of green ones. (I still have to upload the pics)

Unfortunately, it definitely has late blight (or septoria, whatever it is that makes the leaves turn yellow and brown). It is progressing quickly up the plant. So much for totallytomatoes.com saying it was blight resistant!

At least on the upside, the mountain magic tomato plant right next to it really does seem resistant, and only has a touch of yellow on a leaf or two so far. I think my 1st tomato from this plant will be ready for harvest early next week.

auby, where did you purchase the seeds?

Mountain Magic (good one) http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-8480-mount ... ic-f1.aspx

Merlot (yellowing leaves) http://www.totallytomato.com/dp.asp?pID ... rid+Tomato

So I never found that Bt stuff, and then I found a shitload of forking snails on one of my plants. The stake broke on this one, and despite my best efforts to split it, it's pretty low to the ground so snails are like, "fork yeah, slimin' up your tomatoes!" The other one that is getting tomatoes eaten off of doesn't appear to be slimy, but what do I know.

Bt doesn't work with slugs. You can hand pick them off, bait 'em with cups of beer, or use Sluggo. I pretty much like Sluggo, it works!

I hand picked them off, my father-in-law has some cheap beer that he drinks at the rate of one bottle every three months, so he won't mind if some goes missing.

Make a beer pit with the beer: put it in the lid of a jar, or soda pop cap. The set up should look like a little swimming pool. The snails will get to the beer and be so drunk they can't get out.

So much for the mountain magic tomatoes. They've got the yellow leaves now too. *sigh* At least it isn't too bad (yet), so I'm getting some nice red tomatoes now. Hopefully they won't succumb too soon!

Yellowing Merlot leaves:

Did you treat the soil or foliage with actinovate, or did that not work for you? I'm pretty much sold on growing my stuff in containers.

Stopped by and discovered the plant that I thought was a gold medal tomato was actually a brandywine. I picked a HUGE fruit that had not completely ripened because it was weighing the plant down. I harvested two striped romas that covered the entire span of my hand-(my hands are tiny, but that's still a big assed tomato).Will post pics tonight or tomorrow.

For this being a wacky summer in IN, and relocating all of my containers I'm getting decent results. I am having split fruit issues from the hot dry conditions. Next year I'm either going to amend my medium with soil moist or get a drip system on a timer so the watering is consistent.

DSCN4072 by jewbacca2011, on Flickr
Blasto holding one of the giant striped romas


DSCN4071 by jewbacca2011, on Flickr
Blasto holding a brandywine


DSCN4070 by jewbacca2011, on Flickr
Vin holding brandywine. His hands are pretty big. So are his shoes.


DSCN4069 by jewbacca2011, on Flickr
regular roma on left. Gigantoid striped roma on right.


DSCN4068 by jewbacca2011, on Flickr
yesterday's tomato haul.

Finally getting some color!

Yay for tomato season!

I sliced the brandywine for sammies this weekend and used the romas for a lasagna. I thought the romas might be watery because they were so huge, but they were both incredibly fleshy with super bright red color. They were divine!

Our summer has been so cold, I'll be surprised if my tomatoes ripen before november.

Kittee, if time runs out and they're still green you can wrap your tomatoes in newspaper and store them in boxes. They'll ripen on their own. I had to do that with my bumper crop last year.

good to know, but brrRRrr!

So many green babies in my yard! I may have to try the newspaper idea.

Awesome tomatoes everybody else!

I shouldn't have taken this photo with an angle favoring my hand here, but it was so bright I couldn't see what I was taking a photo of. So anyhow, here is a tomato that is bigger than my fist, and still growing!


Today's tomato haul! Also Ginny :D

My tomatoes have been soooo good and well behaved! Best summer ever.

Holy Tomato, Mars! That is huge! Bonus points for the Pekingese! Makes me miss one of my childhood dogs, Suzi.

Great haul, Isa! Isn't tomato growing so much fun?