tomato update again and finally
I anticipate losing my tomatoes soon, so this is it. The verdict: upright tomatoes in containers did better than upside-down ones this fall, for vigor and yield, for me. On the other hand, if you’ve got a nice triangular frame, it’s much easier to cover the upside-down tomatoes without breaking branches. On the other other hand, with all those containers hanging well off the ground, covering doesn’t protect from frost nearly as well as insulating ground plants would.
At any rate, the San Marzanos have produced a very modest crop, none of which have time to ripen before a hard frost, probably–I’ll pick them green when I have to. The Sweeties started earlier but are just now really setting large numbers, and I doubt we’ll see any of them red either. I broke one large branch of the upright plants while trying to cover them last night, and discovered two other branches that had broken without my help. Given a heavier yield and longer season, the upside-down plants might have shown themselves ultimately more competitive by breaking less. I think I’ll repeat the whole experiment in the spring and see how they fare in the heat.
Most interesting to me, the two upside-down plants reoriented themselves a while back– seemingly overnight but about five days apart–such that one afternoon they were silly-looking things growing out of the bottom of buckets and then turning sharply upwards towards the sky, and the next morning they drooped gracefully downward. They were not weighed down heavily with fruit, and in fact the smaller plant turned first. No breakage or damage. I want to know how they do that.
But mostly I want to eat my tomatoes.
done is better than perfect
Hurrah, I took my own advice and gave myself enough time, and these are done with a week to spare. Most unusual for me. I forced myself to agree to no torch time until they were ready to go, very painful indeed.
They’re all just as high-gloss as the last one. And Envirotex is so forgiving. There were a few air bubbles under my papers that would look awful with successive layers of varnish building them higher and higher–but with self-leveling resin they are completely invisible.
Then again, Envirotex will turn around and bite you now and then. Paper colors will sometimes react, leaving unpredictable blotches or spots; I’m still experimenting with sealers and techniques to see if I can prevent that. One of the black & white papers on the yellow box here gave me fits, but I decided it wasn’t a fatal flaw. I also had glue/paper fibers float up into the Envirotex after it sat a while, on a box that used torn paper. This is messy and looks like dirt, but fortunately can be picked out of the resin just like dust, if you notice it soon enough.
As my sewing mavens say: done is better than perfect. It’s not reasonable to demand perfection of this finish. You can put infinite painstaking care into it and still not be able to control that one last flaw: a few bubbles, a little blip from a spitty straw, a paper fiber here or there. Get over it, ’cause it’s going to look perfectly gorgeous anyway.
