My backyard is a harsh environment for plants, especially edibles. And I’m starting to wonder if it’s even possible to grow vegetables in it at all, much less organically. Take these creole tomato bushes below for instance. There are two in a huge container of perfect soil, and they’ve reached about 5′ high, but not a single tomato has grown on them. Why? Well, I couldn’t figure it out, then one day I see a bird land on one of the branches and begin pecking all of the yellow flowers off! Grrrrrrr. I mean, really, how do you fight that? Short of putting a thunderdome cage over my yard I just have no idea how to deter birds too. I’m already fighting caterpillars the size of hamsters, and rats the size of cats. I’m starting to think I should just stick with herbs and surrender the thought of growing veggies. Because seriously, it’s frickin’ July and I still have no creole tomatoes.
Here is a creole tomato flower that just opened today. I bet a bird eats it before tonight.
Roma tomatoes are only doing slightly better. This is my FIRST tomato of the season. In July. How pathetic is that?
This is also the first Patio F (container tomato) I’ve had grow this year. The plant is very compact and I had them do very well last year, so I’m baffled what went wrong this year.
Finally, my cherry tomatoes are doing the best. And I don’t know why. I’m out of ideas.
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Bird netting, yo!
I’ve never even heard of that. I can’t imagine how a plant would grow with netting on it, and if it requires jacking up netting around the plants then I may have reached my breaking point for quitting this hobby ;)
I feel for you. Cherry tomatoes are the only ones that I can seem to grow. I did manage some others last fall but they didn’t survive the first frost. I think that it’s that I don’t water them enough and am going to look into “self-watering” containers. I’m not sure that they will grow well in this heat right now anyway. Good luck!
Heh…the little guy brought a Cherokee tomato plant home a couple of months before school let out, and the plant is doing fine, but it ain’t making tomatoes. Friends have reported that those upside-down tomato growing apparati get them making some small bumper crops. I think that’ll be the next way to go for me. Oh, and, as Ben says, bird net it!
you may already do this, but capturing rain water and using it instead of tap helps tremendously…at least it did with my crop…i (well, the master gardeners in my area) put in a raised bed behind my classroom (i teach culinary at a high school) and the 2 tomato plants went BANANAS! i use rainwater, and can tell the difference when i have to use tap….i have heirloom and grape…of course that doesn’t keep the birds away…i wonder if the tomato production depends on some sort of fertilization process w/ insects? some plants do i think….
once the night time temp hits the 70′s the blooms on most tomatos won’t make fruit.
cherry’s and roma’s are the exception.
you gotta get a full days direct sun also (my main problem).
b.t. works great on catapillers.
also pick them maters at first blush and let them ripen on a shady counter if you dont want to share them with the birds.
good luck.
I thought creole tomatoes loved hot weather! Gah! They also don’t get a full day’s sun either. This IS the city. I don’t exactly live on an open farm ;) Thanks!
my guy in terytown has 17 acres down river in plaqamines parish.
i catch the algiers ferry and take the back roads to his stand in t. town on my day off to get my creole tomato fix.
it’s a nice way to kill a couple of hours when you dont have a huge honey do list.
growing is a big hasssle in the city because of sunlight.
at the same time i have found spots in my yard that have let thyme, sage, and oregano grow for three seasons now.
my annuals have become perenials.
hope your feeling better soon.
fall garden is coming soon.