Tag Archives: tomatoes

Logbook Entry: First harvest and more

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First harvest on 7/19.  Four eggplants and a cucumber.  Cuke taken from the one in the cages which is doing well.  Eggplants from caged position 2.

Possible blight on Big Boy tomato in caged position 10.  Eggplant in caged position 9 doesn’t look well.  Instead of pulling entire eggplant, took off all blighted leaves and removed all blighted stalks from tomato.  It looks like a small and isolated outbreak.  Never seen blight on eggplant before.  IMHO, the outbreak seemed to originate from the eggplant which shares its container with a Cleome (unaffected).  That eggplant has some healthy new growth so I let it be for now to see if the problem is over.

Caged Positions 11 and 12

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Caged position 11 (left) Celebrity tomato, position 12 is a cucumber from that guy in the Menards parking lot.  He usually has quality seedlings and this cucumber is doing well.

The tomatoes bounced back from yesterday.  The curled leaves are reduced in all tomatoes.  It just rained this afternoon.  I suspect the curled leaves are due to under watering and not over watering after results from an experiment done the last two days.  Will fertilize tomorrow.

Caged Eggplants on Main Roof

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Caged position 2 (left) and 3 (right).  Celebrity tomato in position 2, two eggplants in position 3.  These eggplants are the largest so far of the 8 planted this year.

Update: I usually plant 3 eggplants in these 20 gallon tubs but only put 2 in this year.  From the looks of this container 3 would have been too crowded.

Tomato status

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Caged positions 10 and 11. Position 10 (left) is a Better Boy. Position 11 (right) is a Celebrity. All other tomatoes of similar size at this time. Pic taken on 6/25.  Celebrity and Better Boys are the only types of tomatoes planted this year.

Tomatoes in morning light

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This photo shows the tomatoes at around 7:30 am on 6/3.  They’re still shaded nicely.  Sunrise is around 5:16am so they get over 2 1/2 hours of morning shade.  The south side of the roof gets no shade.  The debris clump in the sunlight is suffering from drought.  We’ll see how these fare this year under drought conditions.  I have identified two leaks in the roof that need repair — exact location not completely known.   I do not suspect the debris clumps however.  The tomato patch and two corners are the only things growing up there this year giving me room to do some roof repairs.  Much of the roof needs that silver paint.  I might look into white instead.

The following is for log book purposes.  The 14 caged positions have been planted with the following:

1 – two Cleome  2 – Celebrity 3 – two eggplants 4 – Big Boy 5 – I’ll fill this in later.

Tomatoes planted

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All tomatoes were planted last evening. This shot shows the 5 new caged slots. This year there are a total of 14 caged positions as opposed to only 9 last year. Each 3 cu ft. container got about 1/2 cu. ft. of mushroom compost. To help thwart another outbreak of blight from ruining the entire crop, tomatoes will be separated. Of the 14 positions, tomatoes take only 8 — the other six will be something else. At least two will be Cleome which gets huge and attracts bees. The tomato layout is as follows.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
O T O T T O T T O T T O T O

I put Os at the ends because in past years I have noticed the tomato at the end of the line on each side would suffer from something.  We’ll see how well this works.

Also note that the construction of these cages was done ad hoc on site without a square using mostly recycled wood.  Although things look crooked and not up to usual carpentry standards, the cages themselves are very sturdy.  Nothing penetrates the roof BTW.  In a few years when parts wear out I might replace them with cages prebuilt on the ground and at perfect right angles.  For now they work.  No one but me ever sees these up close anyway.

Blight Observation

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This is container #12, a Celebrity tomato planted in a smaller container as an experiment.  It was more or less healthy throughout the summer albeit a little smaller (most likely due to container size).  It caught blight from container #11 which supported another variety that struggled all summer and should have been pulled and replaced after the first week.  Celebrity tomatoes have been hardy as demonstrated with this plant.  Even though the bottom half is devastated by blight, it has second growth and may produce a second crop of tomatoes.  Celebrity tomatoes are a nice size too.  It is important to figure out what types of tomatoes can grow in a rooftop environment.  So far, Celebrity tomatoes top my list.  More on Early Girls and Brandywine, the other two main types planted later.

Blight Continues

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Containers 2-6

I took these pictures after clearing blighted branches as best as possible.  The blight hit each of the 12 tomato plants.  This is a note to future Mark when he reads this next July, the moment you see what looks like blight pull the entire plant and get it off the roof.

Container 2 is the left most container.  It’s a Celebrity brand tomato and it suffered 1/2 loss.  Container 3 is some heirloom from Gesethemane and it was one of the first to develop symptoms.  It is completely gone.  I should have pulled this plant without mercy a week ago.  Note to future Mark, no heirloom tomatoes.  Container 4 is a Brandywine and doing OK — about 1/4 loss. Containers 5 and 6 are Early Girls.  Tomatoes are small about 1/3 loss to blight so far.  Leaves yellowing and little second growth.  Note to future Mark, don’t plant Early Girls next year.

Containers 8-12

This picture shows containers 8 through 12.  Container 8 is left most container.  It supports an Early Girl that lost 1/2 its branches to blight.  Container 9, a Brandywine, was a complete loss.  Container 10 is a Celbrity, 1/3 loss but good second growth.  Container 11, first container off the rails, is a Celbrity and almost (will be) a complete loss.  This was a weak plant from the beginning.  Note to future Mark, do not let weak plants grow.  Pull them and replace them.

Theory: The risk of blight increases with weaker plants of any variety and the introduction of unknown heirloom varieties.

Container 12 is in a smaller container and I think it’s a Celebrity or Early Girl.  Its prognosis is grim.  Container 7 (not seen) is doing OK.  Container 1 (not seen) is like Container 12 but in better condition.  Both containers 1 and 12 used smaller pots as experiments.

Lost Island

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Lost Island in morning light casts a shadow upon the western two year old debris clump.  The tomatoes are to the right and you can start to see the blight from this angle.   Even if the tomato crop fails again, at least I won’t have to work as hard doing all that canning.  The debris clumps look nice.