Friday July 10

About two weeks ago I posted on the wet weather and it's effects on the vegetables.  I thought the worst was over.  I was wrong.  There has been little relief.  Two days without rain is infrequent, and then a new wet pattern sets in.  There haven't been any torrential downpours, just repeated rains, an inch or two one day, followed by several cloudy days with intermittent drizzles, and then one or two days with some sun, then the pattern is repeated.  The result is ground that is saturated.  Walking in the yard feels like walking on a wet sponge.

It's taking its toll on the tomatoes.  One bed has two cages of slicing tomatoes and they look terrible.  The plants just stopped growing a few weeks ago, but the blight hasn't stopped, and the only way the plants produce is if they can outgrow the blight.  It doesn't help that this is the shadiest spot in the garden.  It doesn't come out of the shade until midday.  Add to that a lack of sunshine and soil that is too wet and you get tomato plants that look like this.  Cages that should be thick with foliage are open.

I planted only one Big Beef plant in the cage on the right since this variety has a reputation as a vigorous grower.  Turns out it is the spindliest tomato of all of them.  There is a Grandma's Pick tomato that is actually ripening in the left cage.  All of the plants are spindly, not much foliage.  At this point I'm getting worried.  If we don't get some 'normal' summer weather soon I don't think they will make it.  The blight will take over.

In the adjacent bed just to the south the Super San Marzano tomato plants are doing much better.  They were not as affected by the blight.  After an episode of blossom end rot at the peak of the rainy weather the tomatoes that have set since then look fine.  If I had to choose I'd rather get sauce tomatoes than slicing tomatoes.

Last evening I found a carrot that had rotted into its core.  First time I've seen that.