Shoe, I actually have no idea how my 'maters are doing becuase I'm on vacation in Florida. But when we left a few days ago, the plants were getting big but not setting much fruit. We had only harvested a few cherry tomatoes. And the fruit on one plant had blossom end rot. The weather had been very hot and dry. In spring and early summer, we had cold with record high rainfall.

Now, we're on a beach vacation, 2nd day of rain. But a vacation of laying around eating, drinking, reading and sleeping isn't bad at all. We both love to read.

Karen

Congrats! Enjoy that retreat! I've spent my share of time in Florida growing up (or growing; never have grown up yet!)

And being on the water I'm sure you are much cooler than most of the country is.

Hope your plants are begatting tomatoes while you are gone!

Shoe

Shoe--Karen and I are fairly close, with very similar climates. It's been a really tough growing year. I grow my tomatoes in Earthboxes, with their own watering system. My plants are huge and healthy, but it's too hot/humid for blossoms to be setting much fruit. I'm finally getting a few ripe tomatoes from some that set earlier, but it's not going to be a good year for production.

Overall, the garden has suffered from a cool, unusually wet spring, and now unrelenting heat/humidity. Bugs and disease are loving this....it's too hot to try to spray with anything, so we're just trying to make the best of it. We've had several weeks now with temps in the 90s, and high humidity (heat/humidity index has been running well over 100).

There's always next year, right? (I grew up in Chicago--we learned this from an early age to say about our baseball teams )

I hear that, Linda...

Even down here we went thru that "season". Spring was great for many crops (onions, peas, lettuces, etc) but then we went directly to HOT HOT HOT. We're looking to get up to 100 and possible more this coming week again. No fair, eh?

All we can do is hang in there.

And yep, there's always next year!

Shoe

A friend told me it was 98* in Cincinnati yesterday. That's hotter than here in Fl. Some sun is peeking thru the clouds this morning, I'm hopeful for a good beach day. Lots of clouds around, though.

Also hoping to find something left alive in my yard when I get home.


Karen

Yes, it is that hot in Cincinnati again... and it's only going to get worse as we go along this week. get out in the morning, and do what you can, then back out after the sun sets, but with the humidity unrelenting, it's hard to even go out in the evening. the news stations are saying "Dangerous Heat" for today... the "feel like" is 105, but the actual is only supposed to be 97. My indoor/outdoor is reading 100 right now. I'm actually getting really decent production on my cherrys... they're pumping right along, but not getting much out of anything else except the Romas... but that is better than nothing. The humidity so far this week hasn't been as bad as it was a couple of weeks ago, I mowed yesterday and could still breathe. LOL

Tuesday we're supposed to get down to 90! JOY.

finally was able to eat a cherry tomato .. just one and shared another with the dogs