LADYBUG: POOR TOMATO, POLE-BEAN DEVELOPMENT CAN BE BLAMED ON HEAT

If you have reluctant tomatoes and reticent pole beans in your mid-summer garden, blame the condition on the blazing heat and clinging humidity that has sent us all into our homes or businesses for the refreshing coolness of air conditioning.

This is a repeat of last summer's weather, if you remember. In both years the temperature has climbed, day after torrid day, into the mid-nineties and beyond. It is not a condition to endear itself to those of us who garden.

Our tomatoes are setting blooms, but large numbers of them fall off without producing fruit. We have used bloom set, and it has helped, but the weather shows. Low on the plants are good clusters of tomatoes, set during the cooler days of late spring. We are picking some for the table from among these. But from below mid-stalk upward, the tomatoes are few. They seem to become petulant in the continued heat.

Robert Dingwald of St. Louis in his monthly Horticultural News Letter notes that tomatoes will not set fruit when temperatures range above 90 degrees. He suggests that soil be kept uniformly moist and that a mulch be used to hold in moisture.

Blossom end rot, an ugly tough black scar at the end of the tomato, is another enemy of the fruit in hot weather. This can be prevented by watering and using one or two tablespoons of epsom salts per plant. A fertilizer light in nitrogen, but high in phosphorus is needed by tomatoes every few weeks. Spread it lightly about three or four inches from the root system, dig it in with a trowel then water. Epsom salts can be mixed with this, if desired.

We are sort of baffled by our beans. The bush beans continues to set blooms and now have been picked twice. The heat does not seem to bother them. However, immediately adjacent to them on a trellace made from a child's swing set, the pole beans climb and climb and dare us to find a bloom. They stand six feet high, the tops, having no further support, dangling downward. Not one single bloom, not one single bean. Over yeas of growing Kentucky Wonders, we have never experienced this problem, even in hot weather.

We don't think it was too much nitrogen in our fertilizer. This was applied lightly with a high proportion of superphospate. Having nothing else to blame, it must be the weather. We have heard, however, that others are experiencing this problem.

Let's move on to more pleasant things. Everything else in the garden seems to be doing well. No complaints here. The harvest is in full swing and all of that work in the spring is paying off with fresh produce from the garden ending up as delectable food on the table. You can buy them at the stores, but nothing can compare with vegetables just picked from the garden. That's when it all becomes worthwhile. Do you realize that millions of people have never tasted a really, really good fresh picked tomato?

Cucumbers are coming on like gang busters in most gardens, squash have been in the picking stage for some days now, beets are a welcome addition to table fare, okra lovers are getting early pickings and cole crops are at their peak or a little beyond.

Gardeners need to watch, however, for insects, those great destroyers of a garden patch. There is nothing more disturbing than to go to pick cucumbers and find that overnight, wilt has set in. This is caused by the cucumber beetle, which poisons the plant with bacteria and causes the wiling. Little can be done once the plant has been infected. Prevention is the best cure. Dust at the base of the plant with sevin, a safe pesticide. If you do this regularly, it will keep these pesky bugs at bay.

The same must be done with squash plants. If bores get in the stem, they can wreck havoc. So can squash bugs, which seem to appear overnight. These flat, black bugs multiply rapidly. Keep squash vines and the ground around the stems well dusted with sevin. If you prefer the liquid sevin, it also will do the trick. Be sure to renew application after rain or watering.

Many people are now digging their potatoes. Others, like us, planted late and just now getting new potatoes, which have a fine affinity on the table cooked on top of green beans. Watch for the Colorado potato beetle on the plants. These can either be picked off by hand or the plant can be dusted with sevin. You gather by now that we favor this garden chemical over the others.

One more word. It is now time to begin thinking about your fall garden. It very often outshines the spring crop because it has the advantage of the cooler fall months and a long growing season.

Some fall crops can be planted in early August. Others need to wait until mid-August, while a few more can hold off until early September, lettuce and radishes, for example.

You need to think about the crops you must remove from the garden, their mission completed, and where your fall seeds or plants will go. Cole crops can go in mid-August and you need to find a source of plants. There are not as many in the fall as in the spring, but they can be obtained locally for transplanting.

It's mid-summer and the spring plantings are being used, but the season is far from over. Take advantage of it, and the cooler weather to come that will make gardening more pleasant.