u/sammille25

For the past few days I have been finding random maggots near some tomatoes ripening on the counter. I went through all of them and saw no signs of rot. This morning I noticed all these holes in a tomato and suprise more maggots! They are coming out of the the tomatoes. What in the actual fuck! The only markings on the tomatoes are the round scar spots in the 3rd picture posted. I read about the tomato fruit fly that lays its eggs in unripe fruit but it hasn't shown up in the US so what else could it be?

I have had this in the works for months and it is finally happening! I have a stockpile of pots if anyone needs them to put plants in

Register for your free ticket here: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/bringing-ecology-home-presentation-by-preston-montague
More information on the Roanoke Region Wild Ones website.

My daughter loves sweet cherry tomatoes so I tried out some new varieties. I don't like cherry tomatoes so I tried some smaller bush varieties to prevent tomato overload. I picked up some sungolds at a farmers market for her to do a taste test and here is the ranking from a 5 year old palate

First place- tiny temptations red (middle of first photo)

Second place- sungold (top of first photo)

Third place- orangeto (bottom of first photo)

Tiny temptations is a fun little plant to grow. I will definitely grow it again. It tops out at about 18 inches. Brix rating is 10-12. I had to pull them out of the ground and put them in a pot because flea beetles were destroying them.

Orangeto is a beast. It broke the tomato cage that I originally had it in and I had to prune it like crazy to get it staked up again. It is rated as 10-13 brix but it doesn't taste super sweet. It does have a smokey, savory flavor to it that is nice. Its 4 feet tall but incredibly dense foliage.

I started with 2lbs of potatoes that I got at a local farmers market. There are 3 plants I left in the ground because they were still pretty green. I have never gotten this many potatoes before!

This is my first time growing determinate paste tomatoes. I chose these varieties for their early ripening time. Late summer I struggle with stinkbugs so I was trying to beat them but they still showed up. All plants are planted in ground with same fertilizer and watering. I would attach a picture of the actual plants but they have fallen over and don't look very pretty at the moment.

Kuzco- 63-68 days to maturity

Large tomatoes with thick walls and minimal seeds.

Peeled easily. Makes a nice thick sauce. Rich flavor

No splitting or BER

Sunrise sauce- 55 days to maturity

Roma size with thinner walls and more gel

Peeled super easy. Cooked down fast

More watery sauce. Tangy flavor

One plant struggled with BER and one plant had significant leaf curl and produced no fruit.

I am making a display for our local bee festival on native bees and I have a super cool demonstration on buzz pollination. The only flower I can think of is blueberry flowers and google keeps telling me non native flowers

I have had a chip drop sitting in my driveway since November. The temps are in the 90s all next week so perfect time to kill some bermuda grass. I am still keeping a 6 foot grass buffer zone between my yard and my neighbors. Hes a lawn guy so I dont want to risk anything getting sprayed.

My senna and milkweed have reseeded everywhere and I don't have enough places to put them

Bonus dog for scale.

When I make salsa I normally use the top third of the cilantro bundle. I had already used the tops in a different recipe but I wanted some salsa so I used the mid stem area and the flavor is so much better than using just leaves.

2 cans fire roasted tomatoes

1 small onion

1 cup sugar rush cream peppers

4 cloves garlic

3 tablespoons white vinegar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vegetable bouillon

1/3 cilantro bundle

I am making these for a friend and they seem so lumpy. If I set a cup on them its all wobbly. Its acrylic yarn so I know it would need to be low heat. These are also my first coasters so this is all new.