The Season's First Bite

It seems we've made it through the first cold snap(s) okay ... Overall, I had a little bit of leaf burn and some browning, but it wasn't all that bad for the tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, cucumbers, herbs or strawberries. The peppers are another story [draws finger across throat].

But today is good for more reasons than the return of warmer weather. It's always kind of a momentous day when you get to harvest and eat your first fruit of the season. Delayed gratification has never been my thing, so the whole idea of working at something and waiting for three months ... well, let's just say it's not the most natural posture in the world for me.

Today, I finally harvested and ate my first tomatoes of the season, and they were yellow pears. Actually, not only were they my first tomatoes of the season, they were also my first yellow pear tomatoes ever and HOLY CRAP, THESE ARE GOOD! They are juicy and tender, and easily one of the sweetest tomatoes I've ever eaten. It's not hard to picture people eating these things out of a bowl like candy ... they're that sweet. The only problem I can foresee is we won't have enough of them. I enthusiastically recommend these little guys.

I've also started my second planting of the season, and I'm hoping to get them outside in the next week or two. This time around, I'm doing Early Wonder (an early harvest variety, about 55 days from planting to harvest) and I'm doing another round of Brandywines. I've got lots of plans for the Brandywines this go round, but I'll save that for another post. I've been talking to some professional tomato growers, and let's just say my thinking is evolving on certain issues. If anybody is having success with Brandywines, I'd love to hear how you're doing it. So far, I've set one measly tomato on the two Brandywine vines I'm growing. So a quick word to the squirrels, caterpillars and rats: touch that tomato and die. You can have the paste tomatoes, the Big Boys, even the yellow pear and Cherokee purple (which are setting fruit like maniacs). But paws off the Brandywine.

Anyway, my final thought: in the interest of experimenting, I'm going to plant this next round into homemade self-watering containers. I poked around the Intrawebz and found some basic plans for EarthBox-like containers, and honestly, it doesn't look like rocket science. Let's just say the whole principle of the thing isn't too complicated. I think all it will take is a few buckets, a few pieces of PVC, and a drill. I'm on it. I'll post pix and plans when I'm done.

Finally, thanks to everybody who has written me. I'm ridiculously envious of some of the growing set-ups I've seen. We're all dealing with the same thing down here—frequently poor soil with nematodes, cold weather protection, and lots of disease. So it's pretty cool to see all the ways people have figured out how to deal with it.

Going Ninja

The last few days have been a frenzy of black spots on my young tomato plants. But before I get to methods to control these, it's worth trying to figure out what they are exactly.

There are a number of organisms that can cause black spotting on tomato leaves, especially when the plant first sets fruit. They include Septoria leaf spot (a fungus), bacterial spot (Xanthomonas campestris), bacterial speck, and few others. In general, these are controllable, while some of the more terrifying wilts and blights are killers.

Most of these conditions are caused by the rapid spread of an infectious organism among your tomato plants. Just like in people, these little buggers like warm, wet conditions, so the early part of the season is especially dangerous for us as it's typically still hot and muggy—perfect weather for a bacterial or fungal infection.

In this case, I'm guessing I have Septoria leaf spot, which is characterized by wet lesions on the underside of leaves that develop in black spots with gray centers. Septoria is a fungal infection caused by warm, wet conditions. It is pretty much always present in South Florida, so ... you know, hard to avoid.

I always hate seeing this happen, even though it happens every year.

To control these kinds of diseases, start with prevention. Plant tomatoes in fresh soil, leave them far enough apart that the organism can't easily jump from plant to plant, and never water from overhead.

After you get it, this is what I do: apply a copper fungicide spray according to the label directions (weekly) and religiously remove any affected leaves. Copper fungicide is rated for organic growth, so you can use it on your plants and still have organic tomatoes. So obviously, it's not the strongest fungicide on the market—if you really want to go ninja on fungal diseases, you can switch to a much stronger product such as maneb or mancozeb. These are commercial-strength products.

Personally, I don't use 'em. I cut away leaves, slow it down with the copper spray, and hope the temperatures and humidity break in time for the plant to outgrow the infection. This has worked for me well enough, and I can avoid the stronger fungicides.

As a side note, I'm still really looking forward to the yellow pear tomatoes. EVERYONE loves them. But, man, me and yellow tomatoes have a rocky relationship, and this year is no different. These things are driving me crazy—leaf roll, fungal diseases, and of course, the tomato leaf curl virus. If anyone out there has experience successfully growing yellow tomatoes in South Florida, I'd love to pick your brain ...