Things are not well with the tomato plants. There are at least two fungal infections running rampant in Bed Two right now. Up until now, the plants were all growing enough leaves and stems to replace those lost to disease, but I am afraid that the Early Girl will be a lost cause once the tomatoes that are on it now are ripe. It’s not growing fast enough to keep ahead of the diseases, and neither is the Better Boy. What’s really interesting is these two plants, the only two I bought at a nursery, are supposed to be resistant hybrids not prone to getting these diseases, and yet, they have been the worst hit. In fact, they were the first to show signs of trouble, and I highly suspect they were the vector by which disease was brought to my garden. I think going forward, I will not be buying anymore plants and only start things from seed, even if they are hybrids.

The tomatoes on the Early Girl look like they will begin turning pink today. While I wouldn’t normally remove a tomato from the vine until it was fully ready to eat, I think in order to let the plant put more energy into growing leaves to stave off death, I’ll pick these soon and let them ripen in the kitchen window. If that plant doesn’t show improvement soon, I’ll probably have to go Darwin on it and toss it in the trash. Somewhat heartbreaking, but it’s going to give me more than the $2 I paid for the plant in tomatoes, so I guess it paid for itself.

In other tomato news, there seems to have been some cross pollination between the pear tomatoes and some other tomatoes in the bed. The first three pear tomatoes, which are supposed to be pale yellow when ripe are turning a fairly obnoxious shade of orange. Hopefully not all the pear tomatoes crossed with other tomatoes. I’m sure they’ll still taste fine, but as far as saving seed goes, I’m a little disappointed. I wanted a pale yellow cherry tomato. I’ll probably save some of the seed from a few of the orange ones though for future experimentation. Who knows, they might end up being interesting. Or not. Guess we’ll find out soon, because I do believe we will be eating the first of them tomorrow night.

I’m sort of unhappy with the garden right now. If it were a hobby garden, I’m sure I’d be pleased, but it was supposed to be feeding us. I don’t think that’s going to happen this summer, and I’m really disappointed. Maybe it will still rally and be productive, but it’s already June. Once the intense summer heat sets in this month, a lot of stuff is going to have problems producing at all. I’ll probably end up going Darwin on a lot of things and getting an early start on fall stuff. Maybe I’ll have better luck with fennel and garlic.