Quote:
Originally Posted by tedln
"What the northerners don't know is that we really don't have the long growing season they think we do. We have two short seasons: Spring and Fall/Winter. Summer is so brutal that most folks plan on their gardens being done by July 1. Take a break, and start germinating again in mid-August. That's what we do, and we've been very successful."
It's about the same in North Texas with germination started around New Years day and plant out in very early March (be prepared to protect them from late frosts into April). A few varieties produce a few tomatoes through the brutal heat of mid summer. Others are cut back to new green growth for regrowth when the first slightly cooler weather arrives. Some simply die in the heat and are replaced with seedlings started in late June or early July. Every year has two distinct growing seasons. I grow some spring veggies that won't grow or produce in the fall and some fall/winter veggies that struggle in the spring.
For me, the fall crop of stink bugs, leaf footed bugs, aphids, and spotted cucumber bugs are more destructive than the spring crop. Squash vine borers are usually gone by fall so they don't seem to be a problem. The grasshoppers have grown from 1/2" long to 2" long and one grasshopper can eat the top off a tomato plant.
Ted
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Ted, I used to think I could only grow tomatoes in the spring and fall too; but when I started staggered plantings in my attempts to beat fusarium I found I could usually have tomatoes all summer. Through trial and error I have found that many of the varieties that do so well early are terrible in the mid summer heat but a few can do quite well despite the heat and pests. The tomatoes are fewer because of the lower fruit set in hot weather and they tend to be smaller. I have found that many of the black tomatoes and some of the reds are much more successful during mid summer while most of the large pinks do very poorly. The hardest thing is getting them to live through the initial plant out stage. Heat and bacterial wilt can devastate new plantings once it gets really, really hot and humid.
Bill