Brazos County Master GardenersTexas AgriLife Extension Service

Celebrating Tomatoes

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Stephen Brueggerhoff, CEA – Horticulture, Brazos County AgriLife Extension; published 6/09/2026

All images unless otherwise noted by Stephen Brueggerhoff

Ripe Tomatoes Image

I am delighted to announce that it is tomato harvest time, a season when homegrown tomatoes come to fruition and liven up our plates. A friendly reminder that you get to the harvest finish line with best practices – timed fertilization, strategic pruning of suckers, and most importantly consistent water application. Tomato availability and ripeness largely depend on the growth form and the specific variety.

Timing Is Dependent on the Variety

There are two basic growth forms called determinate and indeterminate. Determinate, or bush tomatoes, are varieties that grow between 3 to 4-foot tall and require modest staking for support. All fruits from determinate varieties ripen at approximately the same time. Indeterminate varieties will grow and produce fruit for a longer period. Cherry tomatoes like Sungold, Juliet or Sweet Million are indeterminate varieties that can be harvested well into summer. Indeterminates produce bountiful foliage, can potentially reach to 8-feet tall and often require a substantial cage or upright staking. We are trialing five determinate and indeterminate varieties at our Demonstration Idea Garden (The DIG) that include – Celebrity Plus and Tycoon (both determinate at 80 days); Independence Day (formerly known as Fourth of July, indeterminate at 55 days); Fred’s Tie-dye (dwarf hybrid beefsteak form, indeterminate at 75 days); and Green Zebra (semi-determinate at 78 days and trialed at our garden in 2025). Getting to know these two growth forms will help you make a better decision regarding future placement in the garden as well as predicting harvest.

Harvesting Ahead of the Leaf-foot Bug

Tomatoes ripening on the counter image
Tomatoes ripening on the counter

Your fruit may be forming up to its anticipated size, and you notice that your tomato patch is infested with the adult Leaf-footed bug or Stinkbug. There are limited methods of control available when these insects reach maturity. Pesticides are not a practical solution for homeowners as adult insects have formed hardened tissue over their body surface, are highly mobile and will have limited efficacy. You can surround your plants with a fine mesh screen, or row cover, to keep out these insects. You can spray kaolin clay mixed with water onto the developing and mature fruit. Kaolin clay acts as a physical barrier that deters insect feeding. Check your local retail outlet for availability. You can physically remove the insects and always wear gloves to protect yourself when considering using the TAF method – squishing between the thumb and forefinger. Thanks to Galveston County Master Gardener and tomato expert Ira Gervais for an explanation of TAF. There is hand-held vacuum devices specifically made for this gardening task. Once you get a collection of critters, simply dump them into a bucket of soapy water to bring them to a watery demise.

You can also harvest your tomatoes when you see a slight blush on the fruit, called the breaker stage. Slightly twist the fruit from the plant when they are at a 20 to 50-percent color change. Don’t fret because the fruit has developed its full flavor potential for finishing out on the countertop indoors. Do not store them in the refrigerator as they lose a bit of flavor quality at colder temps.

Attend the 2026 Tomato Tasting Event

To know them is to grow them, and our Texas Master Gardener Interns invite you to join us on June 13 starting at 9 am to 11 am for our Tomato Tasting Event at our demonstration garden The DIG, 2619 Hwy 21 West in Bryan. The program is free to attend, but seating is limited and we ask that you register on the Brazos County Master Gardener event webpage: txmg.org/brazos/event/2026-tomato-tasting-event.

This program features taste testing varieties from the research plots, a presentation on tomato culture, garden tours and review of ongoing research with select tomato varieties. The program will be held outdoors, tasting stations are placed around the garden and a mini seminar is under our pavilion. Brazos County Master Gardeners and yours truly will be on hand to answer your gardening questions and offer a smile and howdy back at ya. I know you have tomato pride, let’s share our knowledge and be a part of the alma ‘mater, and I’ll see you in the garden.

When a Stinkbug is Actually a Leaf-footed Bug

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Stephen Brueggerhoff, CEA – Horticulture, Brazos County AgriLife Extension; published 5/26/2026

All images unless otherwise noted by Stephen Brueggerhoff

Leaffooted Bug adult image
Leaffooted bug adult, Image by Texas A&M MARCOM

Our vegetable harvests should be in full swing at this point of early summer, and you may have noticed a gathering of insects we commonly call stinkbug on your tomatoes as well as bell peppers. Adult insects seem to appear from thin air on your veggies about mid-May and look like they are damaging your vegetables. I offer information that will help us understand the form, habit, function and potential control of these unwanted visitors.

Leaf-footed Bug in our Garden

Juvenile stage of Leaffooted bug image
Juvenile Leaffooted bug, image by Stephen Brueggerhoff

An insect that we commonly call a stinkbug is identified as a leaf-footed bug. Stink bugs retain a body shape that resembles a shield throughout their development from an immature stage, called a nymph, to adults. The Leaf-foot bug nymph is soft-bodied with orange to red coloring and what looks like two small black bumps on their backside. You will often see them clustered while feeding on your vegetables. Leaf-footed bug adults are almost an inch long with a gray to brown colored body and a distinctive white band across the front wings. The adult’s hind-legs will have prominent leaf-like bulges, a feature that gives the insect its common name. All stages have piercing-sucking mouthparts through which they suck plant juices, and feed on a wide variety of developing fruit that includes cotton, peaches and tomatoes, as well as seeds such as bean, black-eyed peas and sorghum. They have been known to feed on stems and tender leaves of some plants.

Leaf-footed bugs overwinter as adults in protected areas, such as in woody brush, barns or other buildings. They lay eggs in spring as the weather begins to warm, nymphs emerge after one week and then begin to develop into adults within five to eight weeks. There are typically two to three generations from the spring through summer. Adults migrate from weedy and brushy areas into vegetable gardens and landscapes, and often when the fruits of your labor begin to ripen.

Visible Cues of Damage to Vegetables

Leaffooted bug damage to beefsteak tomato image
Leaffooted bug damage, image by Stephen Brueggerhoff

Their damage is like that produced by stinkbugs: on soft-bodied vegetables like tomatoes, the damage initially appears as discoloration to the surface, depression or blemishes on the fruit. As a result of this activity, you may notice the skin of your tomato plants becoming a little corky or tough. The action of puncturing the fruit also allows secondary pathogens access and may be the cause of fruit decline or rotting. Small fruit may abort from the action of feeding, a potential problem for cherry tomatoes such as Sun Gold or Sweet Million. While damage can be a serious issue for commercial fresh market and processing businesses regarding visual appeal and marketability, home gardeners may be able to tolerate minor damage.

Scouting and Habitat Management is Key to Control

Use integrated pest management (IPM) principles to monitor for their presence. IPM principles are practical, easy-to-use investigative and action steps: observe and learn the pest/host life cycle, monitor or sample for pest population, determine an action threshold (economic, health, aesthetic), choose appropriate management tactics, and evaluate the results of your actions.

Leaf-footed bug populations can fluctuate from year to year due to natural factors such as hard winter freeze that disrupt overwintering, predation of eggs or adults from parasitic wasps, and predation from birds, spiders and assassin bugs. Pre-emptive control can be obtained by removing overwintering sites such as weedy areas. You may also use row covers to keep the critter from accessing the vegetables. Physical removal is also an option especially when the populations are just starting to build. Wear gloves when handling these insects because they will emit an unpleasant odor when crushed or provoked. Insecticides should only be your last line of defense, and are most effective against small nymphs. Broad-spectrum pyrethroid-based insecticides such as those containing peremethrin can be effective for these insects. These products, however, are toxic to bees and beneficial insects and should be used sparingly. Always follow pesticide label application information to the letter, observe the days-to-harvest period indicated on the insecticide label, and always wash the fruit before eating.

Don’t let a stinky situation get you down, learn more about best gardening practices for a fruitful harvest and I always look forward to seeing you in the garden.

Registration is full – Tomato Tasting Event

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Thank you, and we have reached full registration for the 2026 Tomato Tasting Event. Find out more about future BCMG sponsored programs at: https://txmg.org/brazos/events/.

Brazos County Master Gardeners invite you to a Tomato Tasting at The DIG, our demonstration garden in Bryan. Free with registration (form below), and hosted by our Texas Master Gardener Interns and featuring:

  • Judging best in show of slicers, roma and cherry tomatoes!
  • Seminar on best practices cultivating home grown tomatoes
  • Self-guided tours of our gardens
  • Report of our tomato research project

The DIG, 2619 W Highway 21, Bryan, TX 77803. For more information, call the Brazos County AgriLife Extension office: 979-823-0129

Persons with disabilities needing accommodations for effective participation in the program should contact the County Extension Office at least one week prior to the program or event to request mobility, hearing, visual or other assistance. Phone: 979-823-0129

The event is free with registration. Fill out the form below to register for the 2026 Tomato Tasting event.

Basil is the King of Herbs

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Stephen Brueggerhoff, CEA – Horticulture, Brazos County AgriLife Extension; published 5/12/2026

All images unless otherwise noted by Stephen Brueggerhoff

There are several culinary herbs that are staples in my kitchen such as basil, rosemary and thyme. All are often stored in dry form and sometimes neglected until we come upon a recipe that requires their attention. Fortunately, herbs retain essential oils when dried and bring spark to a home cooked meal at a moment’s notice. Depending on storage conditions, the shelf life of a home-dried herb can remain viable for up to one year, while commercially dried herbs are estimated to be useful for up to two years. I find basil is best used as a fresh cut herb, imparting a familiar flavor and scent that you cannot replicate in dried form.

A Royal Herb with Ancient Origin

Basil 'African Blue' image
Basil ‘African Blue’

Basil (botanical name Ocimum basilicum) is a semi-woody annual used for its aromatic leaves as a foundation for pesto or to spice up your pizza. While basil has worldwide use and appeal, evidence of its origin is complex. According to Rutgers University through the US Basil Consortium website, usbasilconsortium.rutgers.edu/, estimates of origin are the African continent and India, eventually migrating to ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. The species name basilicum is traditionally interpreted from the ancient Greek term for king, imparting a royal presence in the garden.

Basil is herbaceous and varies in height, form, leaf texture, color and scent. We often start them from seed indoors about a month prior to the last anticipated frost. Sow about one-quarter inch deep in seed-starting media in a tray and provide bottom heat through a horticultural heating mat. Cotyledons, the primary leaf-like structure of a seedling, will emerge within ten days. Basil is a warm season plant and responds to sowing directly in the ground when the soil temps are consistent in mid-spring.

Basil is Bold and Beautiful in the Garden

Cardinal Basil image
‘Cardinal’ Basil

Cultivars can be bold in stature and flavor, and exhibit large, sweet anise-flavored leaves measuring 3-inches long by 2-inches wide. Most of these types are generically named Sweet or Green-leaf basil, and the preferred of the large-leaved varieties is one named ‘Genovese’. Bees and other pollinators are attracted to the wands of flowers and, depending on the varietal, flowers vary in color from white to bright purple. One outstanding in its field of the Genovese types is ‘Cardinal’, offering clustered deep purple flowers that form a bouquet and draw your eye to the landscape. Consider height as some of the basil’s previously described provide a canopy up to 2 feet tall. On the opposite end of the spectrum is a small-leaved, uniform and compact basil ‘Boxwood’, coming in at 10 inches in height and more appropriate in the edible landscape as a garden border.

A variety with promise and disease resistance released within the last several years is called ‘Everleaf Emerald Towers’. This herb is a tall drink of water, columnar in growth and averaging up to 3 feet tall and retaining the pleasantly bold taste of a ‘Genovese’ basil. While most basil will focus energy on flower and seed production within a month of growth, ‘Emerald Towers’ is delayed in bloom later than standard varieties, the advantage is continual harvest through the summer. If you like a bit of bite out of your basil, try ‘Perpetuo Pesto’, a variegated form with lime-green foliage and each leaf expressing a thin, white color along the margin.

Basil 'Perpetuo Pesto' image
Basil ‘Perpetuo Pesto’

‘Perpetuo Pesto’ grows in a somewhat bushy, columnar habit to 2-feet tall and can be found as a 4-inch container start. Companies offering this plant for sale market it as sterile and not producing flowers, which means the plant you purchase has been vegetatively propagated. The variety I grew out a few years ago wasn’t paying attention to the rule book and expressed delicate mauve flowers but did not produce seed. I found the foliage perfect for making pesto, its spicy flavor reducing the need for excessive garlic. If you are steadfast in deadheading your basil to reduce loss of foliage flavor, take heart that you can grow out variety ‘African Blue’ and cultivate it as a pollinator plant. ‘African Blue’ is grown not so much for its flavor, more for the aesthetics of the dark-purple leaf veins and stems, and primarily for profuse wands sporting pink flowers that attract bees and other flying insects to the bounty.

You can tell I love to grow herbs for use in the kitchen as well as for my garden pleasure, and I will focus future articles on the variety of different types of herbs that you can incorporate into your home landscape. Aggie Horticulture provides Easy Gardening fact sheets cultivating herbs from our website: aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/vegetable. The Herb Society of America – Pioneer Unit is an outstanding regional chapter that meets regularly in Brenham, Round Top and Burton and hosts monthly educational programs. Find more info about their activities at: www.herbsocietypioneer.org. Speaking of education, Brazos County Master Gardeners are offering a free seminar Creating Keyhole Gardens and Raised Beds on May 16, starting at 10 am at the Clara B. Mounce Public Library in Bryan. This is the first of our Learning at the Library series, a great program designed to help your gardening success. Find out more from the Brazos County Master Gardener website – txmg.org/brazos. Let the spice of herbs bring flavor and health to you and I look forward to seeing you in the garden.

Conserving Water in the Lawn

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Stephen Brueggerhoff, CEA – Horticulture, Brazos County AgriLife Extension; published 4/14/2026

Images by Laura McKenzie and Michael Miller, Texas A&M AgriLife Marketing and Communications

Fresh water is a necessary and limited natural resource that we all can play a part conserving by adjusting our landscape irrigation practices. According to the US Drought Monitor (drought.gov/states/texas/county/brazos), Brazos County is bisected undergoing Extreme Drought (southern region) and Severe Drought (northern region) conditions, applying stressors that affect us daily and into the future. I encourage you to make a difference and offer a few resources and tips to conserve this precious resource.

Estimating Water Application Rate

Lawn irrigation image by Laura McKenzie, TAMU Marketing & Communications

Calculating your watering rate is specific to the site itself, the grass species that make up our lawn, as well as fluctuating environmental conditions. There is a resource offered by BVWaterSmart (bvwatersmart.org) developed in partnership between Brazos Valley Groundwater Conservation District, cities of College Station, Bryan and the Wickson Creek Special Utility District with consultation from Texas A&M University. BVWaterSmart offers interactive maps of the Bryan/College Station area displaying weekly water schedule recommendations based on rainfall and plant water needs. The program also provides links to irrigation tips and assessment tools to guide neighbors toward best water conservation practices. You can fill out a form on their website to receive weekly watering recommendations via email and based on weather in your neighborhood. AgriLife Extension also offers an online application called Water My Yard (watermyyard.org), an app that helps take the guesswork out of when and how much to water. Advice offered is also calculated from real-time data collected from a network of local weather stations, rain gauges and plant biology. You can download an app to your mobile device for ease of use. Once at the website, you create a personalized account and set up your irrigation profile that includes the type of irrigation used such as oscillating, in-ground spray, or drip. Then based on your location, experts send customized weekly water application advice to your email or via text.

Timing is Key to Fertilization

St. Augustinegrass image by Michael Miller, TAMU Marketing & Communications

Turfgrass such as Bermudagrass, St. Augustinegrass and Zoysiagrass are actively growing with the warmup of early spring. While they are not truly dormant in summer, performance and root growth is not as vigorous. Because of this kind of biological activity, fertilization of turfgrass should be applied once in the spring, and if needed once in the fall. A good rule of thumb for scheduling spring fertilizer application is an estimated 4 to 6 weeks after the last frost date, basically the second time you have mowed your lawn and estimated mid-April for the Brazos Valley region. Like most plants, grass utilizes several available nutrients in the soil for growth, and nitrogen is the nutrient required in the highest quantity. My recommendation is to commit a soil test to determine if there are any potential nutrient deficiencies. Urban soil tests are administered for a minimal fee from the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Soil, Water and Forage Testing Laboratory in College Station. Forms can be found online soiltesting.tamu.edu or visit our Brazos County Extension office for forms. You will receive a report with recommended landscape application rates and based on said deficiencies.

The general formula for annual application is 1-pound of the percentage of nitrogen in the product per 1,000 square feet. Example: a bag of fertilizer has a 21-0-0 ratio (21 percent nitrogen.) Divide 1-pound by 21-percent to apply 4.75 pounds of product per 1,000 square feet. Don’t forget to measure the square footage of your lawn to put advice into action. I offer reconsidering products containing a combination of herbicide and fertilizer. Pre-emergent herbicides and fertilizer should be applied individually and specifically to an identified lawn weed or nutrient deficiency. The best method of weed control is encouraging optimal lawn health with scheduled watering, maintaining appropriate mowing height and sensible fertilizer application.

Visual Cues and Commonsense

You can visually inspect your lawn for initial signs of water-related stress prior to automatically watering. A simple method for checking on water-related stress is to walk across your lawn and look for a reduced leaf bounce-back; grass leaves don’t immediately bounce-back and your steps leave an indention. Time to water on! Extension offers a general statement for watering – one to two times per week for a 1 to 2-inch total application during hot and dry weather. However, it is prudent to include technology and data with observable conditions to avoid overwatering. There are excellent local water conservation programs supported by the City of College and managed by Water Resources Coordinator Jennifer Nations. Jennifer hosts a weekly program on KAMU-FM 90.9 called Waterful Wednesdays airing at 7:42 am available on KAMUs website. You can also check out my live call-in garden show Garden Success airing weekly on Thursdays at 12 pm on the same radio station and chat about best gardening practices. Conserve water when you can, my fellow Brazos County residents, and I’ll see you in the garden.