Tomatoes & Peppers: Looking ahead to 2012, 1 by JoParrott

JoParrott wrote:
Wow Carolyn- thanks so much for your info! You are one busy-and extremely helpful person. I just joined Tville and read that often, too. But being more familiar with DG- keep coming back here.
Now- let me see if I can tell you anything useful about my own little climate zone. First I am in the Columbia Basin High Desert- pretty alkaline soil, not much rain (I have inground irrigation,and also use drippers and hand watering). I have been here almost 4 years and the weather has been different each year so far! This year we did not reach 100, but got close. Lows get to maybe 15 in the winter. My beds are all raised and heavily amended. At the moment I am collecting leaves to grind and add for next year. We have many periods of strong winds, so I have to use strong supports for my verticals-which most of my plants are.
This year I grew about a dozen tomato varieties and have chosen several to eliminate- mostly because of too many seeds. Those that did very well are New Big Dwarf, Early Wonder, Oregon Spring, Bush Early Girl, Livingston's Beauty (seeds from Russ Martin),Medford & Bush Beefsteak. Not happy with Silvery Fir Tree, Black Krim (because of the interior color), Florida, Hilltop & Mr Stripey.
Here is my garden all cleaned up and ready-we just had our first freeze two nights ago. All I have is 18 heads of Buttercrunch Lettuce in cinder blocks, some Tristan strwaberries a,d some Cutting Celery and carrots growing.