×
June 12, 2022
I have given up thinking well-nigh tomatoes in terms of their life cycle. Instead I squint at it this way; each stage is an ongoing disaster until we shut lanugo the whole operation in July considering they will no longer set fruit.
The life of a tomato is a progression through fungal disease, wilt, blight, and infestations of mites and hornworms. We visualize these events and do our weightier to prevent them but virtually June you can hands find yourself, as I did, staring at hornworms the size of my alphabetize finger. Owing to their coloring, hornworms are perfectly unemphatic until they have defoliated their habitat, i.e. our tomato plants. (We sentenced the hornworms to polity service at our host organization’s preschool so the children could observe their transformation into sphinx moths.)
Don’t forget that while you are dealing with disease and pests, you must moreover be enlightened of your tomato’s waffly fertilizer and watering needs. Decrease the nitrogen when they start to bloom. Keep your tomatoes watered unceasingly and while doing so consult your crystal wittiness for the next unexpected rain that will rationalization them to split.
Are tomatoes the jerkiest plant – making us work much harder than any plant should expect? Or, are they good for us in the sense that taking superintendency of something other than ourselves is good therapy?
The tomatoes harvested so far this year have redeemed themselves by joining the peppers in family packs donated to North Dallas Shared Ministries.
Beverly Allen, Dallas County Master Gardener Class of 2018
.
