What Are Some Tips for Successful Gardening?

[turbo]

Ooh, I should ask our technician over. She's going to house and cat sit for me next month when I go on vacation, and by then, there should be tons of tomatoes for her to enjoy while staying here. She would have a vested interest in keeping them healthy (she was the one who watered them when they were still babies in May and I had to go to a conference, so I think she's already hoping for some tomatoes).

There you go! You get a vacation and she gets to eat nice fresh tomatoes. What a nice bribe! She gets to eat all the tomatoes that ripen while you're gone. Mmmm! I LOVE sandwiches of fresh tomatoes, fresh cucumbers, Cain's mayo, and fresh leaf lettuce on rye bread. I can't wait!

 

[turbo]

Garden update. The humid heat has jump-started much of the garden, and luckily, the rain has been light and intermittent this week. The bell peppers are setting on fruit and are continuing to bud.

The Hungarian wax peppers continue to grow and the plants are setting on more buds - should be a good crop.

The jalapenos were stalled for quite a while, but they're looking better, too.

The buttercup squash vines are so thick and lush that it's hard to get between the rows. Luckily, with the fence on the sunnier side of the row, the vines are training themselves to it pretty well. We're getting lots of blossoms, and I notice that the bumblebees are hanging out more.

Last but certainly not least, the tomatoes. I shot a couple of the sparser (leaf-wise) plants to show the fruit better. Some of the lusher plants have more tomatoes, but it's hard to see them.

 

[Evo]

Turbo, I am so jealous! Those look great! I hope I might be able to have a real garden again someday.

Look, I got my first bee this morning! Of course all of the open blooms were male.

I hope he comes back! I'm thinking of going to a nearby field and digging a plug of clover to plant to entice him.

 

[turbo]

Turbo, I am so jealous! Those look great! I hope I might be able to have a real garden again someday.

Thanks, Evo! I was getting pretty worried for a while. The garden was looking very crappy, and we rely on it for a lot of staple foods.

Cool weather and a couple of weeks of daily downpours forced me to replant beans, cucumbers, squash, etc. Luckily, I had a few extra seeds and was able to scrounge up some extras from a local greenhouse that buys in bulk.

The habanero plants have not yet begun blossoming - they were small to start with (greenhouse started them too late) and the cold wet weather didn't allow them to grow much, if at all. Those are the latest chilies to ripen, so I hope that I have enough hot weather to get at least some ripe ones. Red habanero relish is precious, and I'm almost out.

 

[turbo]

About the bees - consider planting bee-balm (and clover like you suggested) and some stuff that flowers before your vegetable plants, so the bumblebees will establish a habit of visiting you. I let flowering weeds like milkweed grow to maturity, too because bumblebees like them. Bumblebees are buzz pollinators, and they are very effective with large blossoms like squash. We never get honeybees around here, so we have to rely on the tiny bees like the solitary mason bees for the small blossoms and bumblebees for the bigger ones. I made a nesting post for mason bees (lots of holes drilled in a non-pressure treated 4x4) and screwed an old brass sundial on the top to provide rain protection. Quite a few of the holes were plugged this year, so they are being nested in.

 

[turbo]

Here is my nesting post for solitary mason bees. It's in a sunny spot near the corner of the garden. A few of the holes have remained plugged, so I'm assuming that some of the larvae did not survive the winter. We had very deep snow, and it's possible that water leaked into some of the lower nesting chambers during the spring melt.

 

[rewebster]

My tomatoes are looking worse even after two sprayings. I'm going to try a spray followed by a dry powder Sevin dusting with a sprayer.

I did pick a couple peppers for a snack tonight.

 

[Moonbear]

I got my tomatoes straightened out (after they toppled again last night with another storm). One sustained a lot of damaged branches, but the rest seem okay breakage-wise. But now I have bugs on them (some sort of mite or aphid thing). And a bird pecked open the one tomato already ripening. I spritzed all the plants with my alcohol and detergent solution (I wouldn't dare spray an insecticide on now since they're all flowering and fruiting). Not surprising that a few nights of lying on the ground gave them a chance to pick up bugs. They were doing so well until this week too. Hopefully I'll get the bugs under control with the simple remedy, and give the poor plants a chance to recover from all the insults (some of the lower leaves are yellowing...maybe the bugs, but I suspect too much moisture from the excessive rain and the plants lying on wet ground).

 

[turbo]

Sorry to hear about the misfortunes of your patio garden, Moonie. If you have lower leaves that are yellowing, I recommend nipping them off close to the main stalk so that the plants can concentrate on new growth. Use an anvil-and-blade style pruner to pinch the stems to minimize the loss of fluids and nutrients. I have an old pair of Snap-Cut pruning shears with a blued steel blade pinching against a brass anvil, and they are so small that you can toss them in a back pocket and grab them quickly when you see a plant that needs help. Yellow=no chlorophyll=net energy loss for the plant to try to support the leaves. Good luck!

 

[Moonbear]

Thanks for more tips, turbo. I'll be pruning back those bad leaves in a day or two (today's chore was just getting them all propped back upright again and killing bugs). I want to remove them anyway, just so they don't attract mold or more bugs to further infest the plant. I have the type of pruners you're talking about, so will find them and use them rather than just snapping by hand.

So, who has green tomato recipes for the ones on the broken branches that I don't think have enough attachment to the main plant to survive? One branch that snapped was close enough to the base that it actually has little rootlets on it. Maybe it'll survive if it can root itself (I'm giving it a chance to do that since it's such a large branch, but not holding out a lot of hope just yet).

 

[Evo]

Oh No Moonbear! That's so sad, but on the bright side, the tomato plants will come back bushier and you might end up with even more tomatoes in the long run.

My grape tomato plant was so top heavy that it snapped, but was not broken off, I immediately taped the break to a stick and then moved the entire plant to a trellis and tied it to the trellis. Although it has a nasty open gash in the stem now from the break, it healed enough to get water and nutrients through. I saved about 100 baby grape tomatoes, I'll show you a picture tomorrow, so do whatever you can. you might be surpised. The healing properties of plants is amazing.

 

[turbo]

Moonie, if you have vegetative tomato branches that have broken off, plant them deeply in a separate pot and water the living hell out of them. Keep a LOT of stem underground and water them heavily until they can develop enough root structure to start supporting themselves with more normal watering. You may salvage some of these, yet. If some of the damaged branches have tomatoes on them, I suggest removing those so that your attempt to re-root the branches will have a better chance of success. BTW, Fried Green Tomatoes is not the only use for those little critters. You can use small green tomatoes instead of tomatillos, and process them with jalapeno, onion, garlic, cilantro, etc, and make some wonderful fresh green salsas.

If you have broken tomato branches, use your anvil-and-blade pruners to pinch them off close to the trunk of the plant. Torn and/or broken tomato branches can severely diminish the transport of nutrients to the remaining healthy branches because they rob the plant of hydraulic capacity until the damage is sealed. You've got to pinch off the damaged stems in order to give the plant a chance to heal them off and concentrate nutrients on the healthier growth. Pinching damaged stems off with a blade-and-anvil pruner is far better for the plant than cutting off the stem with a knife or snapping it off by hand.

 

[turbo]

Bad news on the garden. I just got back from filling the bird feeders, and on my way out there, I startled a very large, fat groundhog that was hiding under my smoker eating a branch from one of my wife's ornamental shrubs. This is not a good development.

 

[Evo]

Oh no, are you going to trap and relocate them?

 

[turbo]

Oh no, are you going to trap and relocate them?

If I get the chance, it may succumb to lead poisoning. I have a live trap, but it would be a tight squeeze for that lard-butt. It's better suited to squirrels.

 

[rewebster]

If I get the chance, it may succumb to lead poisoning. I have a live trap, but it would be a tight squeeze for that lard-butt. It's better suited to squirrels.

back in the 60's, the one county that I knew about gave a 25 cent bounty on the ears

 

[turbo]

For those that are wondering when to harvest peppers, here is a guide that seems pretty useful and accurate.

http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/pepper/2002072024032752.html

They recommend using shears or a knife to harvest peppers, since the stems can be brittle. I recommend using blade-on-anvil pruning shears if at all possible. Get a small light-weight pair so you won't mind slipping them into your back pocket when gardening. These are pretty cheap-looking, but as long as you are not pruning woody growth from fruit trees, for instance, they will last a LONG time in a home garden.
http://www.terratech.net/product.asp?specific=jqesfrj0

 

[turbo]

back in the 60's, the one county that I knew about gave a 25 cent bounty on the ears

Back then, trappers were getting lots of money for fisher pelts, so the over-trapped them, and the porcupines, free of the only predator that could easily kill and eat them, reproduced and spread prolifically. We could get 25 cents for bringing in all 4 feet of a porcupine. My friend got the smart idea to find out where the guy who paid the bounties disposed of the feet, collect the feet and bring them back for more bounty-money. He was soon busted, though - that old fella was no dummy, and had probably seen that trick before.

 

[Moonbear]

Bad news on the garden. I just got back from filling the bird feeders, and on my way out there, I startled a very large, fat groundhog that was hiding under my smoker eating a branch from one of my wife's ornamental shrubs. This is not a good development.

Uh oh! Poor groundhog thought he was the envy of all his friends with such a lush backyard to enjoy. Little did he know that he'd get the death penalty for poaching turbo's veggies!

 

[turbo]

Uh oh! Poor groundhog thought he was the envy of all his friends with such a lush backyard to enjoy. Little did he know that he'd get the death penalty for poaching turbo's veggies!

Groundhogs are cute, but they are incredibly destructive to vegetable gardens. The one living here is about the size of this one, and I don't want him roaming around, taking little bites of this and that. I wouldn't mind so much if they would eat one item, finish it, and move on, but groundhogs don't do that.

 

[rewebster]

Two of my grandfather's ponds were severly damaged due to them burrowing into the levees, and most of the water drained out when water when through the burrows instead of over the spillway when the water rose to the level of the burrows after rains filled the ponds. I've seen ponds that did completely drain.

Funny, I just remembered, one made its home in my backyard for about a month when I first move here --and I live almost in the middle (edge) of town. It really liked the mulberries (that I have since cut down).

 

[turbo]

Two of my grandfather's ponds were severly damaged due to them burrowing into the levees, and most of the water drained out when water when through the burrows instead of over the spillway when the water rose to the level of the burrows after rains filled the ponds. I've seen ponds that did completely drain.

Funny, I just remembered, one made its home in my backyard for about a month when I first move here --and I live almost in the middle (edge) of town.

They won't be able to drain my ponds because my ponds are are ground-water level and are not really dependent on rainfall. One or two fat 'hogs like this could decimate my garden, though, so I'm going to treat them with extreme prejudice. We need that food for next year.

 

[rewebster]

let see,... spare ribs, hog shanks, bacon, ham...



they'll almost a cross between that and a rabbit

 

[hypatia]

I used a M-80 to convince my groundhog to move, it didn't kill him, but I noticed he now uses sign language.

He moved to the house behind mine, and won't step foot in my yard.

 

[Evo]

Don't you dare hurt that poor little thing!

Anyway, here is the picture of where my grape tomato snapped over, completley doubled over, but luckily one side was not broken. Believe it or not, that skinny stem is the main stem and all of the tomatoes were above it. As you can see, the tomatoes and leaves above seem normal and there has been new normal growth and more blooms since the break. I was really afraid of what turbo mentioned about the plant not getting enough water and nutrients above the break, it's one tough little plant.

Has anyone grown grape tomatoes before? Are they supposed to be that spindly? My other tomato plants are all thick and compact, this one is really more like a vine.

the break

growth above break

 

[turbo]

I used a M-80 to convince my groundhog to move, it didn't kill him, but I noticed he now uses sign language.

He moved to the house behind mine, and won't step foot in my yard.

I wish I knew where the burrow is. I have almost 10 acres, and he could be wandering over from a neighbor's property. I would gladly drive to NH to pick up a box of really powerful firecrackers to rattle the 'hog's nerves, if I could find out where he lives. As it stands, my best chance is to catch him out in the open and ventilate him.

 

[turbo]

Don't you dare hurt that poor little thing!

Anyway, here is the picture of where my grape tomato snapped over, completley doubled over, but luckily one side was not broken. Believe it or not, that skinny stem is the main stem and all of the tomatoes were above it. As you can see, the tomatoes and leaves above seem normal and there has been new normal growth and more blooms since the break. I was really afraid of what turbo mentioned about the plant not getting enough water and nutrients above the break, it's one tough little plant.

Has anyone grown grape tomatoes before? Are they supposed to be that spindly? My other tomato plants are all thick and compact, this one is really more like a vine.

I haven't grown grape tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes seem to thrive here, and they keep producing well into the season, so they are the default crop for shish-kebab tomatoes. I have grilling baskets that are great for making vegetable medleys (anything in-season) with spicy sauces, and cherry tomatoes hold up well under such treatment, too. I may have to try them at some point for salads, but for now, the cherry tomatoes with thicker, crisper skins are great for cooking.

 

[rewebster]

I used a M-80 to convince my groundhog to move, it didn't kill him, but I noticed he now uses sign language.

He moved to the house behind mine, and won't step foot in my yard.

m-80


--hmmm---five times bigger than a m-16

 

[turbo]

And 80 times bigger than an M-1 (Garand .30-06)

 

[rewebster]

yeah but m-80's are turbo charged firecrackers though

 

[turbo]

Don't you dare hurt that poor little thing!

You're not up to Maine matchmaker standards, Evo. You should be looking at him and thinking "How many meals can I get out of that rascal." And you should be thinking of creative ways to cook him. If we were in some primitive or post-apocalypse stage (due to some really nasty circumstances) you'd have to think about growing food, protecting that food from herbivores, and perhaps incorporating said herbivores into your diet. If deer and rabbits started attacking my garden, venison and bunny-parts would be on the menu pretty quick. Deer are really plentiful in the southern and coastal counties that restrict hunting. Funny how that happens.

 

[Astronuc]

Groundhogs are cute, but they are incredibly destructive to vegetable gardens. The one living here is about the size of this one, and I don't want him roaming around, taking little bites of this and that. I wouldn't mind so much if they would eat one item, finish it, and move on, but groundhogs don't do that.

They are a nuisance. I had to relocate a family of them to a nearby forest area. I used a Have-a-heart trap with lettuce and carrots as bait. Once I got rid of the mom, there were no more groundhogs.


Last night our dog had a run-in with a skunk, and she got squirted in the face. My son had let the dog outside, not knowing the skunk was lurking at the bottom of the stares, apparently just out of site. I warned my son just last week to check the backyard for skunks and other critters, who frequent the yard at night. Well, he didn't listen. When the dog was going after the skunk, he jumped down the stairs and grabbed, but after she got hit in face. He brought the dog back inside and let the dog of the lead, and she promptly ran through the house rubbing he face on anything soft like the couch and carpet.

I was lying in bed and started smelling eau d'skunk, which was surprisingly strong for inside. I briefly wondered if a skunk had come into the house, but then dismissed that. Then my daughter knocked on the bedroom door and informed by wife and I that the dog had been sprayed by a skunk. I opened the door and got the pungent aroma of skunk. If you wonder how pungent, just spray some onion juice in your nostrils - it was that pungent. The dog was standing in the hallway, beside my son who was trying to clean the carpet with spary and paper towels. I immediately picked up the dog and headed for the kitchen sink. My wife did some quick research on-line and we found the directions to a solution of 1 qt H₂O₂, 1/4 cup baking soda, and a tablespoon of dish soap. It worked to get the skunk spray of the dog. I had to clean her nostrils, since she must have had her nose right up to the business end of the skunk, and it was in her nostrils. After spending about 45 minutes cleaning the dog, I think proceeded to clean the carpet with Odoban and another solution of LOC/Pursue (Amway products). Now it's a matter of finding isolated spots where the dog walked and the rest of use stepped after dealing with the dog. I went to be again after 0200.


As for the breaks in tomato stalks, I've just tapped them up, and make sure they are supported at more points along the stalk. I've found tomatos do best if allowed to grow along the ground, which may not always be feasible (but I have a hill they can grow down), or build a frame shaped like a quonset hut or semicircle for them to grow over. Otherwise they need a frame to support them after they fruit. I've seen some people let tomato plants hang. Being a tropical fruit, that's probably what they do naturally.

 

[turbo]

They are a nuisance. I had to relocate a family of them to a nearby forest area. I used a Have-a-heart trap with lettuce and carrots as bait. Once I got rid of the mom, there were no more groundhogs.

My trap is a bit small for a 'hog as big as this, and I doubt that I would be able to lure a 'hog into it with succulent vegetables that came from my own garden where he could get fresher, crispier stuff with a few second's walk. Darn.

Sorry to hear about the skunk incident. They are cute little guys, and a bit of vigilance and respect can give them free rein to clean up a lot of grubs (think Japanese beetles!) and other pests. Personally, I love skunks, and would be very glad to find a mother denning up and and producing litters of kits every year. They are very effective insectivores and they are deadly against grubs.

 

[lisab]

Wow, Astro - what a pain in the neck!

I sort of like a faint skunk smell. It reminds me of the little town where I grew up...there was a skunk smell at least once a day there in the summer.

But what you describe sounds horrible - and I feel for your dog, too.

Thinking now about my hometown and dogs, the dog we had then loved to roll in cow patties and feces of other animals. What a dog. He would really reek sometimes...nothing like a skunk, though!

 

[Borek]

No skunks in this part of the world... No groundhogs too. Either they were never here, or we ate them much earlier.

 

[Astronuc]

turbo, I love skunks too, and they are useful as you mentioned. Like lisab, I sort of like the faint odor - outside - but the pungent aroma inside the house was a bit too much.

Our dog look pretty sad while I was washing her face in the sink. Hopefully she'll be more careful, but when I let her outside last night and this morning, she starts sniffing around about where that skunk was walking.

And, I hope my son learned a lesson here as well. When I warned him about skunks last week, he claimed not to know what they looked like nor what the smell was like. I was skeptical about that claim. Anyway, hopefully, he'll be more careful.

I'm more concerned about the dog encountering a raccoon, which we get from time to time. I saw one last fall passing through the yard. It tried to get into the upper garden (which is surrounded by mesh), but gave up. A few years ago, I saw a gang of 4 large raccoons next door in the neighbors driveway.

 

[turbo]

Well, my garden is a mud-hole once again. Rains came today at about the time I rolled out of bed and between 6am and 2pm, we've been hit with showers punctuated by intermittent calm. Some of the showers have been torrential, and we have picked up more than 2" of rain in that time, with more forecast for tonight. We are told to expect heavy thundershowers with high winds and damaging hail. I hear on the radio that some parts of Oxford County had tornado trouble today, and the storms that spawned them are headed our way. We may dodge the worst of that, though. The clouds are thinning a bit and the lower deck is moving from South to North. I don't even want to go down to look at the garden - the pounding rain has likely knocked off lots of delicate blossoms.

 

[Evo]

turbo, how's the garden? I hope not as bad as you thought!

Hail has got to be the worse thing. I've had so many gardens destroyed by a severe hail storm. I hope that other storm is going to pass you by!

 

[Moonbear]

Well, my garden is a mud-hole once again. Rains came today at about the time I rolled out of bed and between 6am and 2pm, we've been hit with showers punctuated by intermittent calm. Some of the showers have been torrential, and we have picked up more than 2" of rain in that time, with more forecast for tonight. We are told to expect heavy thundershowers with high winds and damaging hail. I hear on the radio that some parts of Oxford County had tornado trouble today, and the storms that spawned them are headed our way. We may dodge the worst of that, though. The clouds are thinning a bit and the lower deck is moving from South to North. I don't even want to go down to look at the garden - the pounding rain has likely knocked off lots of delicate blossoms.

Good luck! That sounds like the storms that hit here a few days ago have made their way East.

 

[Evo]

Oh No, we are under a tornado watch now. We are also about to have severe thunderstorms tonight, tomorrow, tomorrow night...

Time to drag in what few plants I can still get through the door. This is really getting old. I was up at 3am moving plants during a violent thunderstorm the other night.

Moonbear, how are your poor tomatoes?

 

[turbo]

turbo, how's the garden? I hope not as bad as you thought!

Hail has got to be the worse thing. I've had so many gardens destroyed by a severe hail storm. I hope that other storm is going to pass you by!

The pepper plants are flattened! Luckily, the soil had been thoroughly saturated before the worst of the winds came through, so I might be able to save them. I'm running out of stakes to prop up plants, but a white ash that I cut down a while back is sprouting LOTS of suckers out of the stump. Tomorrow morning (weather permitting), I'll head there with my big bypass pruning shears and cut new stakes to prop up my peppers. PLEASE, no huge hail tonight!

 

[Evo]

I will keep my fingers crossed for you, Once you get the peppers propped up, they should snap back.

 

[Moonbear]

Keeping my fingers crossed for you too! Hopefully they're just lying down in soil too moist to support the roots, and not truly smashed. Looks like this storm is causing all of us trouble.

 

[turbo]

I just got back from tending the peppers. It's not blistering hot out there yet, but the 80% humidity has knocked the stuffing out of me. I cut at least 60 stakes from the white ash saplings and I needed every single one. Some plants I managed to right by gently standing them up and tamping the soil. A few branches on the pepper plants were broken beyond repair and I had to prune them off, and some peppers were dislodged by the shock of the plant hitting the ground. I estimate that we had gusts in excess of 70 mph. We had already gotten more than 2" of rain (the rain gauge was running over) before the big evening storm. I suspect that by evening we had gotten over 3" of rain since 6am.

As you might imagine, physics was working against me. The biggest, lushest plants had the most leaf surface and they all got flattened by the wind. The plants with the most peppers on them were top-heavy, so they were all laid over, too. Some of the sparser pepper plants that had not yet set fruit survived intact. Fingers crossed - I hope they all bounce back.

 

[Evo]

First Moonbear, then you turbo. I don't think there is anything (to a gardener) then to see your labor of love wiped out in a few minutes.

The storm last night went through without damage, I had either carried inside or pulled to the back of the covered patio all plants except the grape tomato which is tied to a trellis and can't be moved. Luckily the location it's in is against a stone pillar and that helps. If we get hail or intensely strong winds, well, I won't think about it.

 

[Borek]

Fingers crossed on both sides of Atlantic.

We are past several days with thunderstorms and temperatures in the 20 deg C range, but it is changing fast - and there is already around 30 deg C. With high humudity after these rains it is not too pleasant, luckily my home is not that hot yet. Hopefully before it will get hot inside air will be much more dry.

 

[turbo]

First Moonbear, then you turbo. I don't think there is anything (to a gardener) then to see your labor of love wiped out in a few minutes.

The worst part is the helplessness when you're watching your garden getting whipped by heavy gusts. There's nothing you can do about it. The pepper plants are sturdy and could have survived some steady heavy wind, but in these heavy downdrafts the gusts change direction constantly, and there was no rhyme nor reason to the directions in which the peppers were knocked down.

Well, it's an expensive lesson, but next year, every single pepper plant will be in a welded-wire conical cage just like the tomato plants. Hopefully, we'll find them on sale somewhere at the end of the gardening season. It would be expensive to have to buy so many of them at full price. Failing that, I'll stake them early and keep them tied up. Option 2 is cheaper, but more work.

 

[turbo]

Here are some shots of the damage. The peppers have been staked up and supported for hours, but the tops of the plants are still drooping. I suspect root damage since there is plenty of water in the ground to provide the hydraulic pressure to straighten the plants.

Here is a tomato branch that was folded over a wire support by the high winds/gusts. I have since staked it and supported it against the wire basket and hope that it will heal.

Because I can tomatoes and make salsas, I need the tomatoes to ripen at about the same time, and not ripen gradually. Because of this, I grow indeterminate (bush) varieties, not vining varieties, and I need to provide the bushes with baskets to support the weight of the plant and the fruit. In this instance, the wind used the basket as a handy fulcrum to fold this big stem.

 

[turbo]

The garden is looking better this morning. The pepper plants have straightened up considerably and may all survive the ordeal (minus some branches/peppers). The leaves on the badly folded tomato branch are still dark and firm, so that branch may heal, too. Time will tell.

 

[Moonbear]

The garden is looking better this morning. The pepper plants have straightened up considerably and may all survive the ordeal (minus some branches/peppers). The leaves on the badly folded tomato branch are still dark and firm, so that branch may heal, too. Time will tell.

Glad to hear it's healing!

Any suggestions for something good to treat some sort of mold/fungus attacking tomatoes? I've lost quite a few tomatoes this week that seem to have developed a fungus/mold/rot on the bottoms of them (the fruits themselves), and then the bugs invade. I don't know what's safe to apply at this stage with fruits and flowers on the vines. I've been picking off every infected tomato and already pruned the yellow leaves (not sure if it was related or not at this point) to try to keep it from spreading, but since they're not in any cluster, I don't think that'll be sufficient. I'm suspecting mold or fungus just because of the timing of it starting up right after the plants were lying over on the ground and with all the heavy rain that they aren't getting a chance to dry between "watering."

I do think I got rid of the "bugs" at least (the mite sized things that were crawling all over the plants when I uprighted them). After spraying a couple days in a row with the alcohol/water/dish detergent solution, I haven't seen a return of them. Of course, I suppose the rotting tomatoes could be ones that the bugs got into before I killed the rest crawling around externally. Though, I mostly see opportunistic insects in the rotted tomatoes...in other words, it's not the same insect every time, so it's just whatever ones found the rotted part and crawled in (one day it was a very tiny fly, another day it was fruit flies, other times they weren't flying insects at all, but something wingless, etc.) If I saw the same insect every time, I'd be more inclined to believe it was the insect causing the damage. ALL of them have been rotting from the bottom side, around where the remnants of the flower or scar from the flower is located.