How's your tomatoes doing?

I've been here about 20 years. I'm from the San Fernando Valley in Ca and it gets really hot there too 107 is hot no matter where you are, but we didn't freeze there very often. Here the dirt is poor and there are SO many bugs.
Sapphire-care to share your tricks?

The best one that I know is one that if oft repeated around here. Right plants, right climate. Here, we need ones that are heat tolerant. Mulch, mulch, mulch... Water evenly. Build raised beds (we have black clay here and not much else). And don't neglect the water.

Now, I'm not a champion grower. I'm a considerably slow learner and I wish I had been listening more when he was alive and coherent enough to teach. I would also give anything to know what variety of flat bean he grew, because it was fabulous by the time it got to the table. :D

Lima bean

1lLisac : Do you sell tomatoe seeds. I read you have 60 varities. How much do you sell these seeds for?

Italian Flat Beans are good. They are popular in Tenn. I heard

behillman,
Italian Flat Beans are good.For some folks around here. The Case Knife & Pink 1/2 Runner are also very popular and are the Old School or Hairloom Green Bean and the Pink 1/2 Runner ... AKA October Bean (Type) is a good Bush Bean to plant when it is full we pull the bush up till the ground and replant with with more Pink 1/2 runners just caus Granny did not like to bend over you can get two pickens from one bush if you want. lol

behillman-I sell starter plants. Thank God the season is over, for now. I also have a slight addiction, I think. I love growing tomatoes that are different colors and shapes. I don't have the patience for seeds So far this year I've picked purple, pink, and red tomatoes.

Saphire - We lived in Bonita and Jamul and had moved there from San Pedro. After being on the coast in San Pedro where EVERYTHING grew (you saw cactus, pines, orchids, roses, etc growing in the same yard), we thought it hot in Jamul/ Now we are near Lake Elsinore and shy of living in Palm Springs, we get pretty darn hot. Yes, similar to San Fernando Valley. We do have some few freezing nights, but no 'hard' freeze. Couple winters ago, DD had to break the 1/2 thick ice in horse troughs. Tough year that one, 116 high in the summer, 22 low in winter. Everyone lost plants. Lived in Santa Barbara for teen years, plus. That is dream mediterranean weather. My family moved to Plano, TX when I was 19 and I remember reading an article that said ALL weather is in TX and meteorologically speaking, the best place to live was 6 feet underground. LOL. I am going there next week for 6 days for mom's 80th. You guys are further south, no?

This is what I had to deal with on my 'maters today... This sucker is about 6" long, and as you can see, fat & happy from munching on my 'maters...

Hey Kelly.... Yea those worms took out one of my experimental - e-bucket tomato plants. The e-bucket tomato plant was bigger than all my other plants and it had a later start too. ugh.

I took the whole plant and threw it into our tank / fish pond. I'm sure the fish appreciated those big and juicy worms. ugh... I can't stand to touch 'em actually... although my Dad used to pay me 25cents for every one that I found when I was growing up...didn't mind touching them back then. Ha!

we use to find them that big on backer plants back in the day .20 years ago had not seen any that size in a long time . you keep them critters in AZ Kelly .


So said the Sarg LOL

I found some big ones last year, but this guy takes the cake. Threw him in a bucket of water. Don't you know that bugger was still munching as he was drowning - lol...

Those things are just SOOOOOO ugly!! Give me the heebie jeebies!

LOL - I screamed like a girl (well, I am a girl - lol) when that thing was in my face! No use trying to pick those big ones off. They have a death grip. I usually cut them in half with the shears or cut off the branch and toss it in a bucket of water. I hate them too. They start thrashing around like a snake - creeps me waaaaaaayyyyyyy out!

I have a love/hate relationship with them now. Weird and devastating but yet really cool looking and interesting. I gave this one a San Marzano to munch on in the evening. The next day, 3/4 was gone with a big poop pile. They have bigger droppings than rabbits.

That's a cool picture Ray! Makes 'em look almost cool, doesn't it?

WAY too much information. I've cut them in two also, but until now I would never admit it.

Don't they become a huge moth when they're done with this cycle? and aren't they important night-pollinators?
We had a few last year, but before they became a bother the little wasp's or hoover fly's or whatever took care of them for us. That was kinda interesting to watch also. Within 2 days of spotting one they would start to wither and die as the larvae fed on them from within. Eventually they would just fall from the plant.
It might be interesting to capture one and bring it to fruition in a controlled environment.
I mean, isn't he just a bug doing his bug thing? I just don't think I could kill one. Relocate maybe...
I can't imagine what it was like gardening back in the seventies. When I was a child you'd see swarms of grasshoppers(locusts) and caterpillars and all kinds of stuff. You just don't see them like that anymore around here. We'd shoot them out the sky with the water hose! I remember dad had a big ole' tin sprayer that he'd pump up and spray the garden with. I don't remember him doing it more than once or twice a year though. Lord JesuAllaBuddah - who know's what we were eating!

Knocking on wood, I haven't had a horn worm this year. I didn't have but a couple last year. Anyone know what kid of varmint lays the egg.

What ever it was apparently it didn't hurt you. My dad dusted with toxephene dust.

Yep! No apparent side effects! And BTW - No apparent side effects! :)

You southerners are killing me! It's a crap shoot around here if you put anything in the ground before Mother's Day! That's when we can be relatively sure we won't get another hard frost for the year. (No guarantee, though.)

My tomato plants seem to be doing well. My husband Jim picked out a Beefsteak when we bought some plants a few weeks ago at the local farmer's market. (They only have plants, not produce, this time of year.) His plant has several green tomatoes on it, but mine are catching up. Looks like the cherry and grape tomato buds exploded over the last couple of days. I'm sure it will still be a few weeks before we have anything edible. (Unless Jim can convince me to give another try a fried green tomatoes. They weren't as easy to prepare as my mother-in-law made it sound!)

:-)

We would just pick a tomato, rinse the poison off under the fawcet, grab handful of salt meat and a cold bisquit and eat it on the way to hoe cotton. Guess it wasn't to toxic, Dad lived to be 85 and Mom 101 and I'm 69 and still kicking. Just not to high.

I'm a tee total genuine red neck southerner but I can't stand fried green tomatoes. Okra and squash fried, now that's a different story.

I've learned a lot about your season this year. My son-in-law is gardening for the first time and asking for advise on what and when to plant. I didn't have a clue. I'd look through DG threads and find some in his general area and pass that information. A few hundred miles makes a world of difference. We've been eating tomatoes for the past three weeks. I picked 17 yesterday that will go at least a pound a piece.

Funny but the truth.

Jim - I'm 41 now and will turn 40 in September. And yes - I mean 40! Dad turned 87 on Sunday and Mom will be 82 in November. They got married the day after she turned 18!
while we're on the subject of critters I remember pulling some sort of caterpillar from a corn stalk when I was young and it stung the living fire out of me. My whole hand went numb!
and yep - I wash everything when it comes from the garden even though most will be gifted to others and I know I don't use pesticides.

I have never seen a catipillar like that on corn. In Caldwell Parish, central Louisiana, where I pastored for many years, they had a stinging caterpillar that would show up in the timber. Everywhere it touched you it would leave a mark.

You are blessed to still have your mom and dad. See them often and talk to them a lot, there is coming a day when you will wish you could.

I came along late, dad was 40 and mom 38 when I was born. My oldest sister (83) has children my age. I have four older sisters and was raised an only child. Bet you know how that feels.

LOL 40 in October

I'm a whippersnapper. :D I'll be 29 in September.

Quiltygirl-Yes, near Houston. And we do get every kind of weather. :) Minus the tsunamis (if you count those as weather). The crazy geologist in me actually misses the earthquakes in Cali.

This message was edited Jun 11, 2010 8:51 AM

I'll hit the big 40 in December - lol... I still have my parents and my grandparents on my Mom's side. Grandma will be 84 in October and still drives and is very active. Grandpa will be 82 in September. Not as active as he used to be and can't drive due to Parkinson's. He was a potato farmer most of his life. They will be married 64 years in November!

Back to the hornworm... I love this picture of the moth in plant files - there are some good ones.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/showimage/1169/

They are very important pollinators and the best thing you can do with the caterpillars is relocate them. In my garden that is not possible right now. Maybe next year I will plant some sacrifice plants just so I can relocate them and see if they complete their cycle into the moth. They are fascinating and creepy at the same time, no? The moth does it's work at night and unless you are out there actively looking you will not see it. It is fast and beautiful to observe.

Ok, since everyone's on the b'day thingy, I'll turn 54 in January. Most days I feel like 45.

And, when I get BACK into the gym and lose the extra 35 lbs I'm carrying (training to lift more 50 lb bags of Black Kow Manure), I'll feel like 40, look like 35 in my clothes, will be slinging 50 lb bags around like pillows, and growing more veggies than the law allows!

Linda

ROTF You go girl

Go Linda!!

I happen to think caterpillars are pretty, but I don't tolerate them in my veggie garden. The black wasps seem to keep the population manageable because I rarely see a caterpillar - although I did squish a green looper this morning, but I think that one fell out of my oak tree.

As to our ages: I'll be 66 next month.

Another cool pic - I think you have a hornworm addiction - lol... You're way braver than me though - I won't touch them with my bare hands - lol.

Oh the Cabbage Loopers get squished between the fingers. They don't get the relocation treatment. Too many and too delicate to remove. They pop easily when I try to peal them off a leaf.

LOL, I do think I have a Hornworm obsession. I feed them like they're my pets. They're just so photogenic.

I'm so glad to see that I'm not the only strange one around here. This is the first time in years I have seen a tomato worm. I forgot how quickly they eat. I have tried to get them to turn into moths, but have never had success. They burrow into the ground, which is so hard around here I don't know how they do it.

Here is the first sighting of tomatoes, on closer inspection this morning they are popping up all over. I am excited, I only have roma plants.

I just turned 27. I'm still a kid.