When I look at the condition of my tomato plants and make note of the date, I have no reason to complain. By the end of July, the wear and tear of summer in the garden is discernible in the texture and color of the leaves. Even healthy plants have a leathery look and feel to them.

Certainly, the unrelenting highs above 100 degrees last week did my plants no favors. But even if that were not the case, by this point in the summer Kansas tomato plants have seen better days. If mine could be reincarnated as rock stars, they’d all come back as Keith Richards.

What’s different this year is that the tomatoes are ripening later than normal. While I have loads of fruit on the plants, the tomatoes seem slow to ripen. I speculate that it’s a combination of the late planting and protracted periods of excessive heat and drought.

It’s hard to remember that in May we had a couple of weeks of rain accompanied by low temperatures that kept the soil in many area gardens too damp to work. As a result, many area gardeners did not get their hot-weather crops planted until late May, which was two to four weeks later than normal.

Had we received sufficient rainfall in June, this would not have mattered, as tomato plants can quickly make up lost time in early summer. However, hot and dry conditions handicapped tomato plants’ early growth. By now we should be carting vine-ripened tomatoes into the house by the bushel instead of just now easing into the harvest.

The dilemma here is that we need to keep our haggard plants going to support the fruit that’s still growing on them. By this time in the summer, I’m often done with watering. That may not be an option this year.

The other challenge is that late July is when the annual insect explosion happens on my tomatoes. The drought has made this an unusual year for bugs and predators. I have squirrels coming in and eating the lowest fruit, and during a four-day period in June I picked eight hormworms off my tomato plants. Ordinarily, I see a worm or two every other year. I’ve never seen squirrels in my garden before.

What I do see every year, like clockwork, are blister beetles. The scene unfolds in exactly the same way each summer. One day in mid-July I venture into the garden to find short streams of disgusting black crud on the leaves and fruit of a couple of tomato plants. These feces are the signature of the dreaded blister beetle. With steely resolve, I declare war.

If I investigate further, I will find a bug, but it’s usually not until a lot of eggs have hatched and the feast is in full swing that I see them in great number. I have learned through the years that the minute I see the black stuff, I need to haul out the poison. If I ignore these early warning signs, the insects will eat the leaves off the plants and bite chunks out of the fruit.

A reader left me a voice message the other day about sudden and extensive tomato plant damage, but he was so excited that I could not make out the phone number to call him back. I suspect that the problem was blister beetles.

If you want to stay organic, sprinkle the plants liberally with rotenone powder. If you go chemical, use carbaryl powder, which is also marketed under such brand names as Sevin. Back in the day, veterinarians advised sprinkling dogs and cats with carbaryl to control fleas.

Because you want to be harvesting tomatoes, it is important to use an insecticide that is not toxic to humans or breaks down quickly. With a 1 percent rotenone formulation, you can treat plants up to picking time, while the wait with carbaryl is usually three days. Be sure to check the label for cautions. Don’t use anything more potent if you plan to pick fruit soon.

You’ll want to repeat the treatment after a couple of days, so if you use carbaryl, plan to pick in between applications.