Sacramento Digs Gardening Article
Your resource for Sacramento-area gardening news, tips and events

Articles Recipe Index Keyword Index Calendar Twitter Facebook Instagram About Us Contact Us

Has this happened in your garden?

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED JUL 31, 2020

This near-dead Sungold plant still has ripening

tomatoes. (Photo courtesy Pauline

Sakai)

Tomato mystery: Sudden Sungold death

What happened to this Sungold?

Gardening issues can be a mystery; usually reliable varieties refuse to bear fruit -- or just die.
That's when friends come in handy. Through sharing experiences, together we can determine (maybe) what happened -- and how to avoid that problem in the future.

This summer, some Sacramento area gardeners have experienced early decline and death of Sungold and other cherry or small-size tomatoes. Or they've had little to no harvest from what are usually bountiful vines.

Instead of producing week after week, the plant just stops, calls it quits and dies -- as if it was November instead of July.

This happens with determinate varieties; those tomatoes are bred to have all their fruit at one time. It makes it easier to pick mechanically. But most cherry-size varieties are indeterminate; they keep growing vine and setting fruit until frost.

That includes Sungold, one of the most popular cherry tomatoes in America. Considered bulletproof by most gardeners, Sungold ranks among the sweetest tomatoes grown in Sacramento (it's won many local taste tests) and bears abundant fruit, even in heat.

But some Sungolds had an off year.

This report comes from Pauline Sakai, a longtime Placer County master gardener, who has a lifetime of tomato-growing experience:

"I thought maybe I was the only one having problems with my Sungold tomatoes, but two other gardeners told me that their plants were acting like they were done for the season," she writes. "I thought maybe my Sungold became a determinate and has decided to die after just a few months of production.

"My friend Gerrie said that her yellow pear tomatoes are doing the same thing; her plant is still green but no more fruit production. All my other tomatoes are fine, i.e. Better Boy, Early Girl and Big Beef.

"Do you know if this is a disease problem?" she adds. "It happened last year, also. My plant looks like it doesn't have enough water since the plant is almost dead, but I know that isn't the problem. I follow proper practices and let the plants dry out a bit between watering; my dad was a tomato farmer. Once I pick the Sungold tomatoes ready to harvest, that'll be it for the plant this season.

"I'm thinking this is a common problem among your readers who would like to know, 'what gives?' "

The disease possibilities, such as blight, could be devastating for many gardeners -- and California agriculture. But late blight, for example, needs super-humid conditions and mild temperatures; that's not what we experienced this summer.

It's likely not some form of wilt; Sungold is resistant (though not impervious) to those fungal diseases.

Most likely, it is weather related. Sacramento is on track for the most triple-digit days in its history. We've already had 22 days topping 100, as many as we usually have in a full year -- and we're just now heading into August.

So, here's the question to our readers: What's happening with your tomatoes? Have your Sungolds already thrown in the towel? How about other cherry varieties? Or full-size tomatoes?

Along with your garden reports, include a few details including planting date and if your transplants were grown from seed or purchased (and if so, where). Email your tomato tales to: debarrington17@gmail.com .

Then we'll follow up with a snapshot of our overall Sacramento tomato health.

We may not be able to do anything about the weather, but at least we can better understand what caused this little mystery.

Comments

0 comments have been posted.

GENERAL GARDENING

An article about gardening.

Keywords:

tomato problems tomatoes gardening Sacramento California crops summer vegetables vegetable gardening summer weather

Newsletter Subscription

Sacramento Digs Gardening to your inbox.

Taste Winter! E-cookbook

Find our winter recipes here!

Thanks to Our Sponsor!

Local News

Sites We Like

Garden Checklist for week of Jan. 19

Dress warmly in layers – and get to work:

* Apply horticultural oil to fruit trees to control scale, mites and aphids. Oils need 24 hours of dry weather after application to be effective.

* This is also the time to spray a copper-based oil to peach and nectarine trees to fight leaf curl. The safest effective fungicides available for backyard trees are copper soap -- aka copper octanoate -- or copper ammonium, a fixed copper fungicide. Apply either of these copper products with 1% horticultural oil to increase effectiveness.

* Prune, prune, prune. Now is the time to cut back most deciduous trees and shrubs. The exceptions are spring-flowering shrubs such as lilacs.

* Now is the time to prune fruit trees. Clean up leaves and debris around the trees to prevent the spread of disease. (The exceptions are apricot and cherry trees, which are susceptible to a fungus that causes dieback if pruned now. Save those until summer.)

* Prune roses, even if they’re still trying to bloom. Strip off any remaining leaves, so the bush will be able to put out new growth in early spring.

* Clean up leaves and debris around your newly pruned roses and shrubs. Put down fresh mulch or bark to keep roots cozy.

* When forced bulbs sprout, move them to a cool, bright window. Give them a quarter turn each day so the stems will grow straight.

* Browse through seed catalogs and start making plans for spring and summer.

* Divide daylilies, Shasta daisies and other perennials.

* Cut back and divide chrysanthemums.

* Plant bare-root roses, trees and shrubs.

* Transplant pansies, violas, calendulas, English daisies, snapdragons and fairy primroses.

* In the vegetable garden, plant fava beans, head lettuce, mustard, onion sets, radicchio and radishes.

* Plant bare-root asparagus and root divisions of rhubarb.

* In the bulb department, plant callas, anemones, ranunculus and gladioli for bloom from late spring into summer.

* Plant blooming azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons. If you’re shopping for these beautiful landscape plants, you can now find them in full flower at local nurseries.

Taste Spring! E-cookbook

Find our spring recipes here!

Taste Summer! E-cookbook

Find our summer recipes here!

Taste Fall! E-cookbook

Find our fall recipes here!