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It's canning time

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Friendly reminder for visitors from the fedverse - this is a vegan instance. Don't provide tips on "pest control", aka murder.

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The weather was absolutely perfect this weekend. I did a tonne on Monday too, but didn't take many photos.

Potato, tomato, beans and greens (dill) all from the garden.

Hummus and burgs store bought.

The link is just to the image dump, all the info is in this post.

I have a very turbulent relationship with growing tomatoes. They have excellent germination and transplant success, and start to grow very well, but if I don't keep on top of them or if there are a lot of bacterial issues, we don't get a lot of fruit. My climate is very hot and humid in the summers.

Here are some links to reputable websites about diagnosing tomato issues:

• Texas A&M Extension Office
• University of Maryland Extension Office
• Ontario Integrated Pest Management - Tomatoes
• Some fertilizer company with really good diagnostic photos - sorry!

Okay, on to my tomatoes. Here are a few photos of their general appearance and growing conditions. These photos are mostly after clean up. I am growing a few varieties of plum tomatoes as well as Super Sweet 100s which are a cherry tomato.

They are woven into the trellis as they grow and we try and keep them airy by removing suckers and pruning. Another priority is keeping the bottoms of the plants clear to minimize slugs.

The following photos are of some of the problems on the plants and what I think they are, based on the above links.

I think this one is pretty clearly powdery mildew. These are "extra" plants in a different bed than the ones I showed above and they are crowded and not pruned well.

I need to make sure they are being watered from the bottom and not splashing the soil.

I'm not sure what the issue is here. The tomatoes are falling off before ripe, but the stem is yellowing. It is starting at the fruit, versus at other parts of the plants like a disease might. If you have any thoughts, please do share!

I think this is blossom drop, which the ontario site says is due to stress. In addition to weather stress, nutrition deficiencies and disease/pests, the plant might be carrying too much fruit already.

These leaves are just slightly yellowish and slightly curled. It looks like it could be a nutrient deficiency, or the early stages of a disease.

I should probably test the soil.

These leaves are a little further along in being hecked up. I am going to guess these are either Verticillium wilt or Bacterial spot, but I am leaning towards the wilt. I will need to investigate varieties that are resistant, as crop rotation is somewhat challenging for us.

I started typing this all out in a post I am writing about tomato problems, but I thought I would make a separate post to share some observations about my local weather for the past 4 years. I'm sharing this as an exercise in looking at weather data, not really as a diagnostic or making conclusions based on it. The 2024 growing season isn't complete and chose to not look at max temp which is another important indicator, because I am too sleepy and lazy.

I got my data from government of canada weather stations. I live not to far from one. Your government might publish such data, or you could try sites like Weather Underground which collects data from personal weather stations.

I downloaded CSV files and used conditional formatting and pivot tables to get the data I wanted.

2021

• Last frost: May 1st
• Last day with a low of 5 degrees: May 31
• First frost: October 22
• Growing days (between 5C and first frost): 144

2022

• Last frost: April 30
• Last day with a low of 5 degrees: May 25
• First frost: October 2
• Growing days (between 5C and first frost): 130

2023

• Last frost: May 18
• Last day with a low of 5 degrees: May 26
• First frost: October 23
• Growing days (between 5C and first frost): 150

2024

• Last frost: April 26
• Last day with a low of 5 degrees: May 11
• First frost: N/A
• Growing days (between 5C and first frost): N/A

Some charts:

If I am going to draw one conclusion, it's that I feel justified in waiting until June 1 to transplant sensitive plants (tomatoes and peppers) but need to be on the ball to direct sow cold weather crops by mid April (peas, leafy greens, beets, radishes). 2024 might have been an outlier in terms of how soon the season started, and I don't want to risk the sensitive plants because they take so much work starting indoors. It's hard to come back if they fail to thrive.