What's wrong with my Tomatoes?

I'm finally getting tomatoes from the vines (because it's finally been almost warm enough for tomatoes... still not warm enough for eggplant!)

And I've got a few problems with my tomatoes. Of course, having only grown tomatoes for a few years, they may not be problems, it may just be normal, but here goes. I'm a little panicky and I'd love for someone to tell me what is wrong and / or how to fix any problems you see. I've already decided that they are too close together (who knew that composted horse manure + too much rain = gargantuan tomato plants?) I don't spray with anything (yet) and I'd like to keep it as non chemical as possible (please don't make this a debate about to spray or not to spray, I just want some tomato advice. Fewer chemicals is a personal choice, I'm not judging anyone else's gardening style, just letting you know my preference.) I haven't fertilized since we added the compost to the soil this spring, I haven't watered more than twice all summer thanks to the constant overcast and cool weather.

Okay, so now that the disclaimers and what I'm doing is out of the way, the problems:

One of them has curled leaves really badly, but it's only one plant, which makes me think it might just be plant stress since this one is on the end of the row?

Spotted leaves - a few of them are getting this weird yellow mottled look to them and it looks nothing like the normal "this leaf is too old and I'm getting rid of it now" yellowing that the plants usually do.
Close up view of the spots - yellow and brown, is this normal?


A few of the plants have leaves that look like their edges are rusted and their middles are super shiny and raised, almost puffy.



A couple of plants have some leaves that are curing in, only not really curling so much as growing in an umbrella shape.


Then there's the fruit. I think this is BER, b/c I had lots of problems with that (too much rain earlier) but I'm not sure b/c of the white stuff.

And the other fruit looks sort of normal, but I've never seen the horizontal scaring before.

Any ideas? Any of this normal? Any of this need to be quarantined?

Anticipation Is a New Vegetable

Having never grown Kohlrabi before, I have been carefully watching its habits. 9 to a square for the square foot method seems to be adequate so far. And can you see it, there among the leaves?


The beginnings of a bulb of Kohlrabi!

I have no idea what it will taste like or how much longer before I'll be able to find out, but it is eating me up with anticipation (no pun intended). What a strange little alien looking plant.

Magic Peas

Planted on St. Patrick's day, I've been impatient for peas. in the past few days I have been rewarded with lovely white flowers that look like ladies in white bonnets glancing shyly over their shoulders. I can just imagine how pleased they must be to see a gentleman bee come a courtin'.

In the evening, when the light hits a pea pod in just the right way, it glows. I shall always think of peas as being magic because of this beautiful trick of the light.

Square Foot Salad

Salad lettuces, spinach interspersed, chard, kale, collards, peas, carrots, kohlrabi (never tried this before, I'm SO excited!), nasturtiums, a few beets, even some red cups full of slug bait! My favorite is a mixed green salad fresh from this bed with a little vinegar and olive oil, it just tastes like spring.

Cool season crops seem to grow so fast, this is only a week later!

Kohlrabi, Ruby Chard and Spinach

Tasty Lettuces and Nasturtiums

Frugal Cutworm Collars

You loving raise plants from seed. Or you buy them at a healthy stage from a nursery and bring them home and lovingly plant them. Either way, they are your little vegetative babies. So imagine your surprise when one morning you go out to survey your growing yummy goodness and you see one of your little darlings cut down! Chomped down is more like it. Cutworms are nasty little buggers that seem to delight in cutting down healthy little seedlings before their stems are thick and strong. They delight in making a meal not out of the leaves and flowers, just the stem. Just cutting down the whole plant. If you find such damage in your garden, pull away the first half inch or so of mulch and dirt in a 3 to 6 inch radius around your casualty. You'll probably find the culprit, snoozing off his stem feast. Squash him, otherwise you'll have another casualty the next morning.

To combat cutworms before they start their lumberjack ways, I use cutworm collars. Some folks like to use yogurt cups and cut the bottoms off to make a ring of plastic protection around the plants, others buy the fancy ones from garden supply stores. I've had good luck so far with something a little more prevalent and a little more lazy. I present the humble toilet paper roll.


I know what you're thinking: it looks awfully ghetto. However, I don't have to cut the bottom off of anything, I simply gently ease the roll around the seedling and press it into the soil about an inch. The beauty in my mind is that the rolls can be composted once they've served their cutworm protecting purpose. And I figure I KNOW I'll use, er, the other stuff that comes on a roll, so after saving them up all winter long, I have an abundant supply.

Raised Beds Revealed!

Ba bu bu BUM!!!! All of my cowboy's hard work is now planted!
Aren't they lovely?


The wood ones are last season's handiwork. The Trex ones are this season's addition to our garden space. All finished, filled with topsoil, mulched, planted, and trellised. He is such a dear, the only parts I had to be responsible for were the mulching and planting. We put up the U-posts and netting together, which made the whole process go much more smoothly.

Wildflower Alley

Wildflower Alley Update from this past week.

Daisy's and Wallflower (at least I'm pretty sure that the orange is wallflower)


Blue Flax is the feathery blue in the foreground. Can you imagine that in ancient times people made linen out of that? I sincerely hope it grows larger in Mesopotamia! The pink and red are (I think) Sweet William.


Dame's Rocket is just stunning, especially with the orange wallflowers underneath. I secretly love it when folks drive around the corner and slow down to see these flowers.

I've actually had a love affair with Dame's Rocket for a few years and never knew it. This lovely showy flower grows wild next to a creek along my drive to work. Every spring for the past 3 years, I've driven by them and thought "one of these days I should figure out what those are so I can plant them in my garden." I was absolutely thrilled when they started shooting up this spring!