Why plant a new fall crop?

[happychick]

I've been looking around online, reading message boards and articles and everyone in long season areas talks about planting a fall crop, even when they're growing mainly indeterminate plants. Obviously, I understand why you'd want tomatoes in the fall. What I'm confused about is why you'd have to plant a new crop if you're already growing indeterminates. I understand that most of them will stop producing well when temps get too high, meaning you could have a plant that's 6 feet tall and only makes 2 tomatoes in 3 months, but is there some reason that plant needs to be yanked up and replaced? Like will the plant die if it isn't setting fruit? Or do people just not like leaving them in the ground for a few weeks when they aren't doing much?

[Vince]

It depends on the health of the plant. If it is plagued by fungi, vascular disease, root knot nematodes of some other problem, then IMHO it is better yanked. If you want to try new cultivars this would be another reason to plant a fall crop. Moreover, in hot areas like where I live you likely will get zero fruit, not 2-3, over the summer months on many cultivars. I kept a few last summer and most of them did great. I think BW and Bigbeef were the ones that did well as holdovers.

Vince

[shelleybean]

I believe because in some parts of the south, the temps and humidity are so high, tomatoes can't successfully be raised in the hottest part of the summer. I think doing two plantings is easier than trying to keep plants going through the summer. And that way people can try more varieties, as well.

[nctomatoman]

Because my plants completely poop out by early August thanks to the assault of diseases! I've never done the second crop thing before, but it may mean we can actually can some tomatoes this year (and provide lots more data for our dwarf breeding project!).

[feldon30]

Our plants practically burst into flames in August.

That's if they don't die of Early Blight, Septoria Leaf Spot, Spider Mites, etc. first.

[Worth1]

Yellow pear is the only tomato plant I have grown down here that goes from February to November like nothings going on.
Heat,cold, rain or shine it puts out tasteless fruit all spring summer and fall.
If you let them get dead ripe (orange) they do have a rather sweet flavor.
I have found that some of my plants are putting on fruit in the heat now.
But it isn't 110 degrees yet.
Fall crop, Black cherry and maybe Something else late in the year.

The trouble with where I live it can stay up into the 90's until late October.

Worth

[Deer Park]

Here in Houston area the cost in time and energy to try to keep plants healthy is just to great and IME domed to failure.

What can work is to take suckers from healthy plants and replant.

I have found here that new seedlings that are healthy have a much greater chance of staying healthy for a longer time. So I pull everything on or about July 4 with the rare exception that a plant may have fruit still clinging on.

Michael

[Suze]

In general, I prefer to start with fresh plants for the fall. Why?

Watering, effort, resources - I'd rather not get out in that hot weather and spend my time using up a bunch of water trying to keep plants alive throughout the summer when they aren't even producing.

Disease - As others have indicated, some pests/diseases can just plain wear out or kill the plant. As for foliar fungal diseases and bacterial spot (what I mostly see here in Tx), vigor of the plant can be permanently affected, even when you can get the disease under control. Also, by leaving in affected plants, one is leaving spores and bacteria in the garden to multiply. What I would rather do is get those affected plants pulled, remove the mulch, and turn the soil.

Pests - They hang around if the plants are still there, and have a place to continue to lay eggs. By pulling spring plants, it encourages them to go elsewhere.

If you leave some plants in (and I would encourage you to experiment), pick the healthiest ones and cut them way back when they stop producing. In general, cherry types respond the best to this sort of treatment.

[happychick]

Ooooohhhh. That makes sense - especially disease and watering for no reason. I hadn't considered the watering or that most plants would have some disease or another by the end of summer. It's usually still in the 90's a few days here and there through September and sometimes some of October where I live as well (this spring has been unusually cool...it's catching up to normal now, though) so I guess I'll pull mine up, too. So, when do you normally plant the fall crop?

[natural]

hey Feldon,

I like the "burst into flames" description. That is exactly what I thought of last Summer when I walked out to the garden one day. It did look as if someone had torched my entire garden of tomatoes overnight.

[FlipTX]

My spring-planted tomato plants look like the botanical equivalent of the Crypt Keeper by the end of June. I tried last year just cutting them most of the way down and letting them come back up, but they never really recovered.