No Poison, no Tomatoes

I think it's time to admit defeat and kill my hanging Beefmaster tomato plant, as well as the other plant that managed to produce a tomato. The biggest tomato on these two plants is the size of a golf ball, and it just started turning pink. I assume that means it's done growing. It should be more like a grapefruit.

Damn that yellow leaf curl virus to hell. That is one tough virus to beat.

I may as well slaughter all of my container tomatoes, except for the isolated Dr. Wyche's that doesn't seem sick. The whiteflies have gotten to almost every plant, and once they find it, the virus follows.

It appears that imidacloprid is my only hope. I'm going to hammer the entire yard with it one more time before moving my transplants outside, and I'm going to drench the dirt under the transplants. "Drench" is a powerful word for a few drops of poison in a gallon of water, but that's what I'm going to do.

It's annoying that growers are allowed to pound their crops with imidacloprid and I'm not And it's kind of insulting that they will sell me the chemical for the lawn and shrubs, as if I can't figure out that it's the same stuff and use it on tomatoes. I'm not sure I get it. If imidacloprid is bad, and it's a systemic, and if most Miami lawns have fruit trees, why sell a lawn product that contains imidacloprid? Won't it find its way into the roots? If it's not bad, why not admit it and sell it for use on fruit and vegetables?

Just wait until yellow leaf curl gets to your area. You'll be as mad as I am. You're going to go outside after weeks of work and find little yellow leaves popping up on your plants, and that will be the end of your growing season. And it's on the way, unless you live on Mars. Google and see. I finally waded through the Happy Shiny Hippie Organic bullshit and found some sites that told the truth. The only answer to the epidemic. And here it is: IMIDACLOPRID! IMIDACLOPRID! IMIDACLOPRID! Spray it! Drench it! Swim in it! That's good enough for the giant farmers, so it's good enough for me. Apparently I also need something called thiamethoxam, to rotate with the imidacloprid. I'll get it. I don't care who I have to kill.

Damn hippies. They take the good stuff off the market, and then they fill the Internet with bullshit about ladybugs. Why? Because they don't eat vegetables. The only eat cookies, because they always have the munchies.

In other news, my gorgeous Jamaican hot chocolate peppers are finally turning a glorious brown.

I have a couple of people asking for white habanero seeds, even though my white habaneros seem to be suspiciously yellow. So I've been slicing pods open and removing the seeds. I wore a nitrile glove on my left hand. I have learned to respect the white habanero.

It's actually a good thing I planted tomatoes in the wrong season. It taught me about the whiteflies and the imidacloprid and the blight and so on, on a batch of tomatoes that were not likely to do well, regardless. I'll be better prepared when the real season gets underway.

I WILL have tomatoes. You wait and see.