A non-technical post: My tomato garden

Usually, I write about computer and engineering topics but today it's all about my tomato garden.

I'm not a great gardener, but I have good luck with tomatoes. For years, Early Girl, Big Boy, Beefsteak and Parks Whoppers (my favorite) have given us tomato sandwiches, tomato pies and ratatouille. It's not just a tomato garden but has eggplant, maybe some squash and cucumbers.

Even though Georgia has been droughty for several years, my tomatoes have been well watered and have flourished. We like big tomatoes where one slice gives you the perfect sandwich and cucumbers fresh off the vine. Over the years, the tomatoes have become tastier and tastier. We don’t buy those tasteless, hot house grown tomatoes and even at a restaurant the tomatoes are disappointing.

My husband is from South Georgia and insists that you have to put your tomatoes in on Good Friday for the best crop. This year I was late in planting, over a month late, so I bought some 3 and 5 gallon tomatoes to make up for my tardiness. Some of the plants even had little tomatoes on them. I carefully planted and tended them knowing I was going to have the best harvest ever.

This year my garden had big problems. Most of my tomato plants drooped away or dried up. Those little tomatoes already on the vine died and even my Parks Whoppers have only average size fruit. We had a few red tomatoes early and I taught my granddaughter to pick them, but when we ran out of red ones, she started picking the green. Any other year, she would have had loads of tomatoes to pick and wash. But not this year.

Usually, I start with seedlings, so I don't know if the problems this year are the larger plants or the weather. It is disappointing especially now that we are at the peak of the season and it doesn't look like a bumper crop. But it's not all bad - haven't had many bugs this year!

My tomato troubles this year, made me realize that there is more skill and technology to tomato farming than I thought. I am looking for advice and am going to find some blogs for tomato growers.

For technical notes and information go to: www.lansystems.com/technotes.html

If you have suggestions or advice, email me at: mary@lansystems.com.