I noticed something on my tomatoes in the blossom clusters.

I have seen this before, yet never had the time to find the cause. I tried to Google a cause and a remedy, but I could not seem to come across the right keywords or search words for the problem.

I grabbed my camera and decided to get some pictures of these tomato blossom “blossomless” stems and send them over to my county extension agent. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Here is what the “aborted” blossoms looked like:

aborted tomato blossom stems

On my tomato plants, there are several “clusters” of tomato blossoms. Some of them are all fruit bearing and doing perfectly well. But on the SAME plant, in another cluster area, there would be some tomato blossoms, and others that suddenly disappeared and left me with a stem that looked like someone had “clipped” it with a pair of scissors. No blossom, just the stem portion with the flower totally gone. There was a flower on each of those stems at one time. Just clipped off, just a tomato blossom stem with no flower. A flower that was once there.

tomato horn worm damage

Well, I remembered having read somewhere that sometimes a tomato plant will abort some parts of the fruit to give its food and attention toward developing the other tomato fruits. So maybe this was the tomato plant’s way of “aborting” fruit so it could develop the other fruits. But why only on certain clusters? Why not in every tomato blossom cluster area?

Just adjacent would be these perfectly luscious tomato blooms. Other than that, the plants were very healthy, well watered, no signs of stress. Luscious green foliage and beautifully formed tomato plants. No signs of any type of pest, I’m first thinking worm? But I could find no chewed foliage, and no sign of the dreaded tomato horn worm.

When I first described the problem to the extension agent over the phone, she thought it was the plant aborting some of the blossoms due to stress. Too much rain, not enough water, lack of fertilizer, too much fertilizer, anything causing stress to the plant.

After I sent her the picture, she said that is not aborted tomato blossoms. It is a tomato horn worm!

Well, when I first saw the problem on the tomato plants, remember I mentioned looking for a worm.

Most times when I find a tomato horn worm, the problem is easily caught when I see a tomato plant with chewed foliage. I check for this twice each day during tomato season on each plant. If you see chewed foliage, get your glasses and stare at that plant. The tomato horn worm is there, unless you have just a stem left cause you forgot to check this daily. He blends in so well with the plant, so he is very hard to see. Check undersides of leaves, look on the stem itself. The tomato horn worm can look just like a tomato stem! Look for where the last chewed area is, if he has not progressed further, then is most likely finishing up that area and getting ready to move to the undamaged area of the plant.

My problem is that I was looking for chewed tomato foliage. I was not really looking for simply a chewed off blossom. And it could be that I already found the culprit and picked him off and destroyed him, and that is why the problem ceased almost immediately after it begun.

I am going back out to do a more thorough inspection, and if I find the culprit, I will post his picture on this blog. She told me that before they go on a tomato plant eating binge, they can be roly poly sized and green. They are much easier to find when they have eaten half of your plant, but we want to find them BEFORE that stage.

When you have a garden, you have to check it daily. A tomato horn worm can destroy an entire plant in a day. When you find one, kill him. But do check your plants daily. If you are going to be out of town, spray your plants with an insecticide such as Sevin or ask a friend or relative to check them for you. You might also ask the friend or relative to water, also, especially if you live in the Deep South like I do. It is June 1 and the temperature today is already 90 degrees and it is not even noon here. Imagine this place in July and August. Yikes!

Happy Tomato Growing!
~ The Ranchers Daughter

Tomatoes and Garlic

Everybody grows at least ONE tomato plant here. Even my neighbor that rarely goes outside or gardens, even she plants one lone solitary tomato just outside her back porch.

One tomato plant. That is putting all your eggs in one basket. Livin’ on the edge. I could not survive with one tomato plant.

I guess that is because we have so many uses for them. We make our own pizza and spaghetti sauce and then pressure can batches to last through the fall and winter. We also make our own salsas. LB loves to pick fresh peppers and tomatoes, and he whips up the BEST homemade salsa. For supper in the summer, we often just have chips and salsa along with a taco or small salad. I’ll be sure to toss out some of those salsa recipes.

Tomatoes do great things: they make things like

• just plain sliced and salted
• sliced and salted and dipped in mayo
• halved, balsamic vinegar, basil, and mozzarella melt
• sliced on a plate, sprinkle with salt, basil, and vinegar, let marinate, then EAT
• tomato sauce
• spaghetti sauce
• relish, jam, chutney
• stuffed tomatoes
• tomatoes and cottage cheese
• homemade ketchup
• macaroni pasta and fresh tomato sauce
• tomato bread
• baked or broiled halves with mozzarella or asiago cheese
• gazpacho ( I LOVE fresh gazpacho!)
• quiche
• pizza sauce
• The Rancher’s Daughter Tomato Sandwich
• My Liver Cheese Sandwich
• Great Salads
• Sliced and Totally Alone
• marinara sauce over angel hair
• Fried Green Tomatoes
• Pica de Gallo
• Homemade Salsa
• Chili Mix in a Jar
• chili, stew, soup, gumbo
• Chow Chow
• Piccalilli
• Mexican and Tex Mex

THIS could go on forever. Tomatoes are wonderful; I don’t want to go into the “is it a fruit or is it a vegetable” issue cause I’ve read up on that on BOTH sides, and right now I just don’t care.

We have a Bonnie’s Sweet 100 on the back patio growing in a pot. I meant to plant that one in the garden tho. I just got so excited when I planted them, around Easter I think,you know getting my hands in the dirt and thinking of all the gardening glory to come this summer, that I had already stuck it in the pot and watered it, and did not want to move it.

Reason is, those are not determinate, they are really indeterminate and last year I first got LB to make me some tall stakes. I put them in the pot, staked the plants, but those things grew almost to the roof. Finally I got him to put a nail on the fascia and I just tied them up that way.

Determinate plants: easier to work with, shorter, bushier, more compact, they set fruit once then they stop. Don’t require as much staking, so LB likes them. LB does not love gardening as much as I do. He does it, tho, cause I ask him to help sometimes and we like to do things together.

Indeterminate: require staking, they sprawl out all over the place, these will keep putting out fruit until the frost comes, so I like those. These give you a longer growing season.

If you are container gardening, probably best to stick to determinate varieties. Or you can be stubborn like me and plant an indeterminate in a pot anyway. I’m not talking about some little bitty pots here. They are not HUGE, but they are pretty large. They are on roller trays so we can move them around freely.

We have both, about half and half I’d say. I usually put the determinate tomato plants in the pots and the indeterminate varieties out in the garden. I move those pots on the back porch around a lot so once they are tied to the roof, that is where they’ll stay.

Anyway, the Sweet 100 is already covered in green fruit, it has always been a big producer for us. Those are those small little tomatoes for salads and plain snacking.

My Bush Goliath has some really pretty green tomatoes on it already, they are looking very healthy.

A note about plant varieties: there are varieties of vegetables that might work well in my area, but not in yours. Usually, your local feed and seed is a great source of information. Use varieties that perform well in your location. We have really hot summers here, often with hardly any water.

Tomatoes needs lots of sun and plenty of water. If it does not rain, I have to hand water. I don’t mind it, tho, it is just more time I get to spend around my plants. What I do hate are the mosquitoes, and we have plenty of those here. They need fertilizer too.

The only real pest we have with our tomatoes is the big green tomato horn worm. These suckers are ugly. They can eat a lot of foliage in a very short time, and even take a bite out of your fruit. They can be PRETTY hard to see too, they blend in really well with the tomato vine colors.

When I see evidence of one, which is pretty obvious, (chewed leaves, stressed plant), I just stare really hard and take my time, eventually I’ll see him, and just get rid of him, kill him right then and there. You know those pictures in the newspaper, where you look at it and see one thing? And you are supposed to stare at it and hopefully eventually see something else? I don’t know what you call those pictures. Anyway, finding a tomato horn worm is like that. Just stare, keep refocusing, you will see him. He is really sneaky.

I just check my plants daily, sometimes twice, but at least once, and as Barney Fife says on the Andy Griffith Show, “Nip it in the bud. Just nip it!”

More tomato fun later.

We’ll be picking tomatoes really soon. During the times we are waiting for our tomatoes to come in, we are really lucky to know the Harman Family, and that is a story to be served up all by itself. It is a great story, don’t miss it.

Happy Memorial Day! the Rancher’s Daughter