Mother Nature has opened the blast furnace door on west central Missouri. I recorded this quick episode on the fly in the gardens to share with you a little wisdom about what our plants are doing in the heat and how to avoid further damage to things like tomatoes by overwatering. Let's dig in!
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Hello, my gardening friends, and welcome to this Focal Point
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Friday of the Just Grow Something podcast.
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I wanted to pop on really quick today just to talk to you
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because Mother Nature has opened the blast furnace door here in
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West Central Missouri, and our heat indices over the next week
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or so are going to be topping out at about 100 and 10111
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Fahrenheit. That's a little over 43 Celsius
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at the top of my head. And you know it's going to be
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relentless. And this is the time of the year
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when people start to send me questions like, why are my
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tomatoes not ripening? And why has my plant stopped
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growing? And there are very good reasons
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for this. The first being that especially
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with your tomatoes, they like to have a very specific set of
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circumstances in order to ripen. Off the top of my head, I want
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to say it's anywhere between 70 and 85°F.
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OK, future Karen here. I was absolutely incorrect about
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the optimal temperature range for ripening tomatoes.
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It's actually 68°F to 77°F or 20 to 25 Celsius.
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So cooler temperatures below that 68 are going to cause lower
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ripening, higher temperatures are going to cause more rapid
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ripening, and anything that's below 50 Fahrenheit or above 85
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Fahrenheit is basically going to cause them to stop.
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So now that we've corrected that, back to past me.
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Any time you get over that temperature, then they are not
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going to want to ripen. And if you get below that
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temperature, they're not going to ripen either.
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So that is number one. So if you have a lot of big
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beautiful tomatoes that are sitting on the plant right now
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and they are just not turning colors, they're not ripening.
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It's nothing that you're doing wrong.
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It has everything to do with the temperatures.
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The second part of this too is plants just not growing or
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thriving. If you have late plantings, late
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succession plantings of things that you put in the ground that
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have just kind of stalled out, most of your plants right now
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are just trying to conserve their energy.
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Once the temperatures get really, really hot, they use a
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lot of their energy to just sort of fend off that heat and all of
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their other physiological processes are just going to
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start to shut down. So you might have beautiful,
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healthy looking plants, which is good, but they may not be doing
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anything. They may not grow or visibly,
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actively be growing. They may not be flowering very
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well. If there are flowers, they may
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not be producing any fruit, or they may even be dropping off.
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This is all having to do with the the heat, so don't stress.
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Now, if any of these symptoms started prior to a heat incident
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like this, then maybe you need to look at what's going on in
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your soil. So if this has been something
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that's been going on for most of the gardening season, it's not
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just because of the heat right now.
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Then you may want to do a soil test and see if there's things
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that you want to amend for the fall in order to be able to help
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this problem out a little bit. So again, if you've got leaf
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curl going on, that likely is due to some heat stress.
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The second thing that I want to talk about though, is the whole
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watering situation right now, especially when it comes to your
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tomatoes. If you go and start watering
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your tomatoes more frequently right now than you normally do
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because it's hot and you start panicking that maybe they're not
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getting enough water, you are actually more prone to those
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tomato fruits splitting and cracking.
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So if you've been sticking to a regular watering schedule, I
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would not change that right now unless your plants really do
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look like they are suffering. Remember, if you have leaf curl
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or if you have wilting during the day, that is normal.
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That is the plants way of protecting itself by shrinking
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that leaf surface area in order to reduce transpiration.
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If that that wilting though doesn't bounce back after it
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starts to cool off in the evening or into the overnights,
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then you you might think, OK, maybe they need a little bit
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more water. Always check your soil moisture
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first before you start additional waterings.
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Make sure that you've got plenty of layers of mulch and then
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don't start adding on to more water because if your plants
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start to take up specifically your tomatoes, if they start to
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take up more water at once than what they've been used to, that
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is going to cause those fruits to swell.
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And so when they swell, they're going to pop their little skins
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and they're going to crack. This is especially important
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when we're talking about cherry tomatoes because you know,
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they're so much smaller, but our full size tomatoes will do that
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too. So try to avoid over watering at
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this stage of the game if you don't want to damage those
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fruits, especially if they're not actively ripening right now,
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because they're just going to kind of sit there and stasis and
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if they keep taking on more and more water, then they're going
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to be more likely to crack. OK, future care in here again.
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All that was to say that I always preach that less
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frequent, more thorough waterings are better.
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But now is not the time to be changing the way that you
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actually water your plants. Because if you start to water
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them more than what they usually do, then they may take up too
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much water and they're going to have that cracking.
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So try to maintain an even soil moisture until you get through
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the worst of the heat. All right, back to past me.
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So just real quick thing today because it was on my mind and I
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wanted to make sure that those of you who are also experiencing
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these fabulous heat events, if you're having problems and
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you're seeing things that just don't quite look normal, 90% of
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the time right now it's because of the heat.
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If you still have questions, feel free to reach out to me.
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You can reach me on DMS or via e-mail.
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However, you can reach me or if you happen to be local, stop by
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the farmers market, ask me questions.
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I'm fine with that and hopefully we'll just kind of get through
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this heat together and come out the other side with some nice,
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ripe, beautiful fruits and some very healthy plants.
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Good luck to you and I will talk to you again on Tuesday.
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Thanks for joining me on this Focal Point Friday.
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I'll be back again on Tuesday for another regular.
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Episode of. The Just Grow Something podcast.
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So until next time, my gardening friends, keep on cultivating
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that dream garden, and we'll talk again soon.