It is a little unusual these days to hear about crop failures in the United States, but that is just what I read about in the NYT article, Northeast Tomatoes Lost, and Potatoes May Follow.
Apparently a late blight fungus is wiping out most of the region's tomatoes. I talked to a friend in New Brunswick, Canada this week. While his tomatoes are not a failure yet, he is worried the September frosts might rob him of most of his crop. Their spring has also been cool and damp.
Closer to home, my relatives in Yadkin County, NC near Winston-Salem are reporting a less than stellar year with their tomatoes. Many of their tomatoes are very small, and some are showing blossom end rot.
While wandering around the Roanoke Market last week, there seemed to be plenty of tomatoes, but it is hard to tell their origin. At Jamison's Produce in Roanoke County, the prettiest tomatoes were from someplace in North Carolina.
With all this tomato trouble about in the land, it is something of an embarrassment to have more than we can eat from our four plants. Today we made fresh salsa and stewed tomatoes with corn. Every time we have a sandwich, even when it is not a tomato one, there is a tomato on it.
Still as you can see from the photo, we still have an impressive number of tomatoes even after an all out effort to catch up to the crop.
I know we have some Roanoke friends who would enjoy some of our tomatoes. Maybe the timing of our next trip to the mountains will work out a little better with our tomato production.
For now we are just going to enjoy having homegrown tomatoes and wish everyone better luck next year.




