One year I decided I’d attempt to grow a few tomato plants. I dearly love fresh, ripe, juicy tomatoes. One can’t find tomatoes such as these in the supermarket. At that moment, I lived in Phoenix, AZ, the desert. (This was before the entire valley has been paved over with asphalt). During the winter, it would be warm in the daytime and cool off during the night. Sometimes we would get frost. It appeared to me to be like temperatures in upstate New York where I’d lived for a time. Tomatoes were grown there in the end of summer and into early autumn.
Planing The Land Plot
My husband helped me fix a plot of land close to the home. We believed this would be the ideal place to reduce frost killing plants. I planted the tomatoes in January believing this time could be closest to New York state summer temperatures. To protect the plants from frost, my husband awakened an electric cable where I could place light bulbs. We believed that this would keep frost from that areal. If the prediction was for frost, I put sheets over the crops, and. Of course turned on the lights.
This arrangement worked flawlessly. The tomato plants grew, were healthy and didn’t get “frosted”. I had high hopes. I nursed the plants throughout the winter. They grew leaves and blossoms. When the danger of frost was gone, I took the sheets and light bulbs . Obviously, I left the plants discovered through the day.
Soon I had flowers and small tomatoes. The bees came and fertilized the blossoms and the tomatoes grew well. They eventually grew to the point where we could eat them. I was a happy camper.
Then! Disaster struck!
I discovered that the leaves and parts of the stalks of these plants were disappearing; SOMETHING was eating them. So one day I went out to look. Here were these horrible, rather big, nasty, yucky caterpillars. They’re called hornworms or tomato hornworms and they can undergo a tomato garden feasting on leaves in a really very short time. Eliminating them is rather simple, however. They are large enough to pick off; this is a fairly disgusting job, however. Also there are insecticide sprays which will also eliminate them.
Hope again, I did eventually eliminate the hornworms and was ready to enjoy my ripe, juicy tomatoes. We could eat a few. But..
Disaster again
The leaves were becoming all crumpled up and falling off. I could not see anything that was causing this. I eventually took samples of leaves into a colleague who had been a plant biologist. He explained that there was some sort of creature known as a leaf roller and they were causing the leaves for crumpled up. At that moment, there was no way to eliminate them.
Bottom line
After all my hard work, we enjoyed a couple of tomatoes, but most of our efforts were for nothing. Then I decided to stop trying to grow tomatoes; occasionally I was lucky and found home-grown berries in a farmer’s market.
Now I reside in Northern California that’s a fantastic place to grow most anything. I’m unable to work on a garden but I’ve an excellent yard guy who mows my lawn and generally takes care of my lawn, and grows tomatoes for me. Last summer I was lucky; my tomato plants did very well and I could eat all the fresh berries I desired.
