Hi Ella,
Thanks for the compliment, but you'd probably think things were not quite so neat if you saw the rest of the garden
!
Yes, the CD's are up to deter whatever critters were either pecking or gnawing at the ripe fruit. I don't think they helped that much and I've been picking the fruit before it fully ripens.
Bill,
I've been reading your "southern doldrums" thread and it seems like we're in sort of similar situations in terms of the vines getting out of hand this time of year. Except it seems like you're running the extra along the top and I'm trying to drape the vines more towards the bottom to lower the fruit. Things have slowed down a lot in the hot weather, but I'm still picking about a dozen fruit a day and slowly starting to notice new blossoms here and there. Actually it's a bit of a relief not to have all the tomatoes to deal with!
It's so great to hear what wonderful success you've had with the grafting!! It really does make a difference apparently! As I've mentioned, I'm planning to use a "real tomato rootstock" next season, and seriously thinking about double or triple variety grafts. So I'll just have 3-4 main stems (with 7-12 varieties) per 16' row. And I'd like to employ the lower and lean method a bit less randomly than I'm doing now.
Anne