The drought is widespread, across Missouri and well beyond. Oklahoma and Texas are suffering even more than Missouri gardeners, which is hard to imagine. Here at Long Creek Herb Farm, in the Ozarks, we are watering 8-12 hours a day but with 100-106 degrees daily for the past two weeks, plants just won't produce. Tomatoes and peppers have ceased setting fruit. And the pests! Red spider is a problem on the 100 tomato plants we have, a problem I've not encountered before. Army worms, tomato worms and stink bugs are all attacking the tomatoes. Squirrels are trying to carry off not-yet-ripe tomatoes, raccoons, too. And the armadillos dig anywhere the soil is moist and the earthworms are near the top of the ground.

So one has to wonder, is there anything good to be found in this disastrous garden season? Yes, I think there is. Butterflies! I'm not sure I've ever seen so many black swallowtail butterflies. There are hundreds of them flying over the highways as I travel. It's impossible to avoid hitting a dozen or more, just in a 20 mile drive. Where do all these butterflies come from, you may wonder? From those beautiful caterpillars you've been finding on your parsley, dill and fennel.

I recommend not killing these caterpillars. They only eat a couple of leaves before they're big enough to turn into a larva, where they hang by a thread for a week or so, then hatch into the beautiful black swallowtail butterfly. Don't kill them, they aren't going to kill the plants they're on. It's like you and a chicken dinner, you only want what you need, you don't have to eat the entire buffet. Let the caterpillars live in peace and you will get to enjoy the amazing bounty of butterflies this otherwise disparaging garden season.

Happy gardening! even in tough times.

Tomato grafting isn't new. It’s been done commercially in New Zealand and Japan for many years, but it just in the beginning stages in Missouri. What is new is growers, like Territorial Seed in Oregon, are making the grafted tomatoes available to home gardeners. Johnny's Selected Seed is offering seed for commercial grafting rootstock, as well. There’s considerable labor involved in the grafting process, making the tomato plants more expensive, but tests have shown the stronger plants and longer production make it a good investment. With the increasing interest and popularity in growing heirloom tomatoes, people have begun to realize that many of these old varieties have little resistance to fungus and virus problems. The grafted tomato holds great promise for growing the best-flavored heirlooms, without the hassles of wilting diseases.

I visited Bear Creek Farm, a certified organic commercial farm in Central Missouri recently, where friends grow for both farmers markets and Whole Foods stores. They are conducting their own trials with grafted tomatoes to see if the claims about production yields are true. They’ve planted 4,000 non-grafted tomatoes, in the same field with 2,000 grafted ones and are keeping detailed records. If the grafted tomatoes live up to their reputation, these folks will move to using all grafted tomatoes next season.

Log House Plants in Cottage Grove, OR has been testing grafted tomatoes for several years, attaching such varieties as ‘Big Beef,’ ‘Brandywine’ and ‘Sun Gold’ to the roots of reliably stronger, disease resistant root stock. Their testing has shown an average of 30% increased tomato production, without the disease problems. In their growing trials, Log House Plants planted grafted and non-grafted tomatoes of the same varieties side by side, in exactly the same growing conditions. The results were dramatic. The grafteds produced larger, healthier plants with more pounds of tomatoes per plant than the non-grafted ones. Additionally, near the end of the season when the non-grafted tomatoes had ceased producing, the grated tomatoes continued producing fruit right up to frost.

What’s this mean for us little gardeners? It means if you like the flavor of heirloom tomatoes but are tired of the virus problems that often come with them, you may want to consider ordering some grafted tomatoes next year. I’ll be reporting more about my own small trials with Territorial Seed grafted tomatoes as the season progresses, along with the trials of the friends who have the 2,000 grafted tomatoes.

To see more on tomato grafting field trials in Missouri, visit my other garden blog, jimlongsgarden.blogspot.com

Happy gardening!