Keep good year of tomatoes growing

Cool, dry American summer has been good to tomato growers this year.

It’s been a great year for tomatoes. It’s been such a good year for tomatoes,
A spell of warm weather back in February got a lot of gardeners on the right track. The warmth was so conspicuous and so inviting, a lot more folks seemed to get the hang of planting their tomatoes at the right time for the Gulf Coast — before March 15, and preferably in that first week of March (now if they could just remember to do that EVERY year).
That means a lot more tomatoes are sized up and ready to start ripening right now, in the midst of American summer, when conditions are perfect for tomato growth, tomato fruit set and the development of rich tomato flavors.
What’s so great about American summer, that period from about the middle of April to just about the middle of June? Well, this period of warm to hot days, abundant sunshine, low humidity and cool nights provides a nearly perfect blend of weather conditions for superior tomatoes.
Tomatoes grow most easily and most luxuriously when daytime temperatures range from about 75 to 85 degree. And their fruit production peaks when nighttime temperatures are in the range of 60 to 70 degrees. That’s a nearly perfect description of prevailing temperatures this time of year.
I should remind you that temperatures won’t be so sweet for tomatoes after the middle of June, when we enter the first stages of Gulf summer. July temperatures rarely drop below 80 degrees, regardless of whether it’s day or night, so it’s not only too hot for healthy tomato growth, it’s also too hot for tomatoes to successfully produce any fruit. That’s why those who plant their tomatoes in April are inevitably disappointed — the tomatoes often shut down in the heat and wet of Gulf summer before producing their first fruit.
So American summer (the period from April through June) is always the best season for ripening tomatoes. But this American summer has been particularly good for tomatoes. And the reason, oddly enough, is the drought.
Tomato diseases and many tomato insect pests thrive during periods of high humidity and high rainfall. American summer usually provides a little bit of a break from the frequent rainfall and unusually high humidity that marks so much of Monroe County's gardening year. This year, American summer turned out really dry. And that means tomato diseases should be virtually non-existent, and tomato insect pests seem to be building up only slowly.
The lack of humidity is also pushing temperatures lower at night, even as it is maximizing sunlight during the day. The combination of those two factors helps maximize tomato ripening. And in my estimation, it also seems to produce exceptionally tasty tomatoes.
So, assuming you planted in the right season, all should be well, or at least better than normal. So what do you do now, to ensure that you kick your ripening red tomatoes softly across the goal line?
It should be obvious to you that you’re going to need to water. Your tomatoes are of a size now that they shouldn’t need water every day, but you should make sure you give the ROOTS a good deep soaking. When you’re finished watering, the ground should be wet 6 to 12 inches deep. If it’s not wet that deep, you haven’t watered enough. And if you do water that deep, you may not need to water again for a couple of weeks.
What happens if you don’t take my advice, and water a little bit every day? Why then, you’re very likely to end up sounding just like Mr. Holloway, the aforementioned food columnist, who even in a great tomato year always has a sad story to tell about growing tomatoes.
Mr. Holloway has informed us that one of his tomatoes died recently. It died suddenly, dramatically, in a matter of a couple of days. That’s a sure sign that tomato was suffering from a disease called bacterial wilt, which develops around constantly wet roots, then spreads explosively through the rest of the plant.
  It’s fairly simple to avoid bacterial wilt. Before planting, avoid areas where you’ve grown tomatoes recently and use rotted leaves to build a rich, deep, fast-draining bed of organic matter for your tomatoes to grow in. And remember that important rule for breaking the disease cycle: Water well and deep, but water infrequently.
While you water, particularly if you’re the type who waters too frequently, do all you can to prevent that water from getting on the leaves. If you keep your leaves wet for long periods with frequent watering, you’re naturally going to lose the immunity to leaf diseases that has been encouraged by this dry American summer weather.
A mulch of tree leaves will further help discourage diseases and retain moisture. Find some and spread them around your tomatoes. You’ll be surprised how much happier your tomato is, how much less water you’ll need, and how much better your soil will become.
Consider whether you’ve given your tomatoes enough fertilizer to develop the heavy load of fruits they’re about to bear. I can’t see into your soul and your soil to determine what kind of fertilizer you’ve been using and how much more or less you need to use. But if you’re using a chemical fertilizer, such as MiracleGro liquid fertilizer or 13-13-13 granular fertilizer, you’ll want to follow closely the directions on the package — using more than is specified is typically much worse than using less. If you’re using an organic fertilizer, and your tomatoes have grown well until now, they’re probably OK, but it won’t hurt to shovel some extra manure or blood meal or whatever ON TOP of the mulch, and let it filter in slowly. And while you’re admiring your tomatoes, look for bugs. They’re slow to come on, but don’t you doubt it for a minute, they’re definitely coming.
When you go out in the evenings to look to see how much redder your tomato has become, quickly inspect the new growth, those small leaves near the top of the plant. If you find a small egg or a tiny caterpillar, that’s a tomato worm. Flick them off with your finger, and you’ll save yourself and the tomato plant a lot of misery.
Next, drop down to the biggest and healthiest leaves in the middle of the plant. Look for leaves that have been chewed, and look for piles of gooey green on leaves beneath them. That’s a sure sign of the tomato hornworm. There are seldom more than one or two on a plant, though each will have a voracious appetite for tomato leaves. Don’t dawdle around looking for pesticides when you see them — if they’re big enough to attract notice, they’re too big for pesticides. Just knock them off the plant, or break off the leaf that he’s on if you have to. Then stomp him, throw him in the water, or feed him to the chickens (the chickens will be eternally grateful, or for at least as long as chickens are capable of being grateful).
The last of the bugs that stand between you and the 2011 tomato championship are the stinkbugs and leaf-footed bugs. You may notice clusters of the very young leaf-footed bugs crawling around your tomatoes. These immature leaf-footed bugs are thin-bodied and bright orange, with spindly black legs — and they are always conspicuously clustered. Get them now, while they’re young and easy to gather up, and you may well avoid the serious damage to tomato fruit done when they become adults and disperse.