How is your growing season so far?

My plants look absolutely fantastic this year. It has been a really nice tomato growing season so far here in southern Wisconsin. Last year was really bad. It took forever for the tomatoes to ripen. So far it looks like it will be a great crop. So how is it where you all are? Amy.

Optimistic so far, especially since I just found blossoms on four of the eight identity uncertain (stake label disappeared, and I'm not sure from notebook planting entry which is which) tomato plants in the buckwheat patch. All the little also started from seed & transplanted tomatoes in another patch have been growing up rapidly this past week, as have the squash and beans. And the Abe Lincoln and Quarter Century are continuing to grow new leaves.
We had hotter than normal temperatures (90's/low 100) but are in a cooler windier spell today and for next week (80's). Just so we don't have a repeat of last year's June snow, or earlier than normal season-end first killing frost (9/15) in this part of NW NV.

This is my first year with a garden. Started all my tomato plants from seeds. Most are heirloom German, German Striped, Brandywine, Del Pinto Roma, Tree Tomato, yellow pear and grape. Received the seeds via a seed trade and so far they all have blossoms. Their height varies depending on the type. The Tree Tomato is the tallest and already has some small tomatos forming. I'll keep you posted as the summer continues.

Got my first tomato on May 28...
So far I have harvested..
Chello
Taxi
Steakhouse
Jaune Flammee
I have some Hungarian Giants turning and will get them in a day or two.
Plants look wonderful and hopefully a great tomato season is ahead.

So far so good.Waiting on them to get ripe.Have plants from 1 ft to over 4 ft and growing. The warm weather has helped a lot. Keith

My plants have lots and lots of blossoms all of a sudden! It's very exciting for this first-time tomato grower. I'm giving them pep talks and crossing my fingers for lots and lots of fruit.

Do you really want to know how it's going? Boy, I am sooooooooooooo bummed out. :(

http://davesgarden.com/showthread/50470.html

Eeeek Terri!
I knew Lisa lost her crop,but never thought about you in GA!
Can you replant?Surely someplace has a few plants that you can put in the ground,or maybe someone who had some survivors could sucker you some and root them.
Wish I could help.
I know this was supposed to be a big year with the market garden and all...hope you can salvage something.

Yup, I'm going to replant just about everything if it ever quits raining. I think I'll be able to salvage about 90 tomato plants for sure and maybe even more. I won't know for a while yet. I'm going to root some tomato suckers in the meantime and plant them in some "earthboxes". I'm going to plant some squash, pole beans, cukes, and eggplant in some earthboxes as well. Actually, I think I'll order some more "earthboxes" for insurance purposes just in case it doesn't stop raining for a while. You wouldn't happen to have an ark plans lying around would you, Melody? LOL!!!

Hey Teri,sorry to hear about you loss of plants.Is it to late to start anymore? Do you want me to send you some plants? Keith

What a variety of responses! Melody, I am moving to Kentucky! Could I be more jealous? I am so happy for you that you have been enjoying tomatoes off the vine ALREADY!Can you feel the sarcasm coming through? It's just not fair!Essensia, how exciting this is your first year. You will become addicted. Let us know what you think of your first ripe one and what kind it is. Teri, very sorry to hear about your situation. I too have many extra plants if you want them. Keith, you seem ahead of me down there in flatlander country. Let me know when you get your first ripe one. It will be fun to compare. Amy.

Hey Amy,I picked my first ripe ones on Monday 6-25-01
they were Sungold Cherries. Keith

Hey, I have some Micro Toms ripening!! Does that count?? I must have planted these things in December! They are in the same pots that I started them in and the plants are abundant with fruit. I just assumed that they would wither away! I have not given them the same time as my other beauties! What a hoot! Keith you beat me, but, anyday now I will taste that little tiny tomato! Amy.

Keith, you're a real sweetheart of a guy did you know that? Well, you _are_! Thank you so much for the offer but I think many of my plants will pull through. I'm going to have to replant squash, beans, cukes, etc but since they're fast growers anyway, I think everything will be just fine.

Keith, how do you like the taste of those Sungolds?

Terri

Ours are so so. The early plants put out in march got chilled in May and dropped their flowers and the taxi now have a lot of undersized green tomatoes (one did ripen a few days ago but no others) and the early Moskovich are just starting to set fruit.

The later tomatoes planted in mid May are still fairly small, thpough many have flowers and most look healthy. if the weather stays in the high 80's they should all do fine in the end

I have some Burpee 4th of July that you
can have. If you start them now, they should be in by Sept.

Jerrie

My tomatoe plants are 5 foot high and have tomatoes on them...love that pig manure!!!!

Hey Sandy, hand me the salt, we been eating those...'cuse me, {slurpping} yummy Homestead tomatoes for a week!

Can't wait for the Beefsteak, talk about your BLT's.....YUM, YUM!

You're all so lucky' Heavy rains,couldn't get in the garden,still waiting''Sis''

considering all the rain that killed a couple of my tomatoes plants as well as others, my tomatoes are doing fine. The Tomatillo are going crazy and the Roma, and better Boy are doing fine. If all continues to go well I should have tomatoes all winter long for my recipes.

Mine were all doing great until the monsoon rains came this week and I'm getting severe cracking on about 80% of my fruits...:(

I'm growing:

Beefmaster
Supersteak
Juliet
Burpee Burger
Sun Gold
First Prize
Bush Celebrity
Siletz
Matina
Red Brandywine
Sweet Olive

WoW! It has been a perfect growing season and I am now savoring the fruits of my labor! Tee Hee Hee! Get it? So far I have enjoyed Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, Pineapple, Purple Calabash, Magnum Beefsteak, Eva Purple Ball, Jetsetter, and Black. I can't wait for the Brandywines to ripen, and I have many more Beefsteak types that I am eager to try. It is tomato heaven! Amy

Finally harvesting sun gold,romas,and beefsteak'' Was worth the wait too''

Hi everyone - my first post here. I'm from Central Illinois (Zone 5b) about 70 miles NE of St. Louis. Cindi and I have been exchanging tomato notes for a couple years so we grow some similar varieties. Here, we love the big beefsteak types the best. This year I'm growing the following:

Beefmaster
Supersteak
Red Brandywine
Rutgers Improved
Celebrity
San Remo (my favorite paste-type - BIG lovely fruit)
Homesweet Hybrid
French Rose
Big Zac
and a local plant I picked up labeled only Red Beefsteak

I'm having a fabulous growing season - I have just 14 plants in the main garden and one of them is the stunted Red Brandywine which is not living up to expectations and normal experience and has borne no fruit - a set of bad seeds that I shared with Cindi (from Burpee - anyone have an alternate source)? Homesweet Hybrid is in a container on the deck and has done extremely well in those conditions. I put out the plants about the 2nd week of May after starting inside under lights. It was cool here in June and the entire crop has been late but my goodness what a crop. I lay newspaper heavily between the plants and then run soaker hoses and cover with a good foot or so of straw. I used a time release fruiting type Osmocote this year with epsom salts when planting after the normal improvement with compost.

We have had a terribly dry summer here but the good news is with watering deeply with the soaker hoses every 5-7 days, the plants have grown wonderfully with no cracking and the speck/spot fungus/bacteria stuff I normally keep has held off completely. I even started 4 plants with seed as a later crop and they are just getting ready to start producing - but this year I don't need them (but here they come!).

I picked my plants clean on Saturday a week ago and by Sunday night I harvested 30 pounds and then Monday night we got 70 pounds more - and this is off 13 plants. They are fruitful! This won't keep up, but it's been pretty amazing.

We set the tomatoes side by side and decided they are all good when fully ripe. Beefmaster and Supersteak are my largest with a lot at 2 - 2 1/2 pounds. My family just gets turned off by any tomato that isn't a rich true red so the French Rose is not a hit here although I think it actually tastes very good.

This is a great bunch of tomato growers - I've gotten lots of new ideas already for new ones to try next!

Hiya Cindy! Isn't it something that how a tomato looks affects the way it tastes to many people?! I guess the senses are all related. I just pulled two 1 pound Red Brandywines off that stunted plant. It's finally starting to produce a little...:)

Each of my three Red Brandywine plants look to be producing about 7 or 8 one pound tomatoes this year, but they are nice and smooth and delicious. Am gonna try them again next year in richer soil to see if the yield improves. Here is where I bought my seed:

http://www.heirloomtomatoes.net/

My tomatoes, despite my early "abuse" of them by not staking them up until they were laden with fruit (sorry, just no time) are insanely abundant. I am so happy! People walk by my garden and make comments each day on how many tomatoes are ripe. While we were in Honduras our house sitter gave away tomatoes to her family and friends every day and we have been giving them to church people and family whenever we go anywhere we take a big bowl of ripe tomatoes... we just can't eat them fast enough!

I pick about 20 - 30 ripe ones of all the varieties every other day... more of the cherries!

The HUSKY GOLD are getting a thing that makes the skins loose and they aren't very good. The early girls are about shot but still trying to bloom, so who knows???

The Husky 100's are amazing, even the broken stems are producing a ridiculous amount of BIG cherry tomatoes that are slightly acid, slightly sweet... wonderful.

I also have a volunteer that puts a single tiny tomato on each blossom end, not in clusters... this is VERY sweet and may have been the previous owner's grape tomato??

Then there are the Husky Beefs, big but not as big as a beefsteak, they are laden with fruit too and wonderful...

Romas, are of course, romas... fleshy and not very tasty. I won't grow them again, don't know why I did this time, I guess I was thinking of them for canned tomatoes? These always disappoint me.

I think the secrets to the tomatoes' succcess are:

1. the previous gardener planted carrots in the place where my tomatoes are planted... and left them all winter. He also was famous for his large yield of peppers, and must have fertilized with something amazing because everything here grows madly. :)

We moved in in January and in early spring when the thawing finally happened, we found carrots the size of cucumbers rotting in the ground feeding huge slugs so long they looked like spotted snakes with antlers... the carrots were so rotted we just turned them under, without trying to pick them out. Into this carroty soil I planted my tomatoes... later to read that tomatoes and carrots help each other grow.

So, I'll be sowing carrot seed soon so the carrots can grow on the other end of the garden next year (rotating)... and next year I'll stake them when I'm supposed to... and hope for a wonderful crop again!

2. Unseasonably HOT weather and a soaker hose...

3. Bone meal in the soil before planting...

4. VERY early planting...

Next year I want to grow Grape tomatoes (Santas sound sooo good), and what my dad called Hillbilly tomatoes, they were golden and pink swirled and very low acid and huge... and a traditional beefsteak variety that gets big enough for a single slice on a sandwich... and some weird colors just for the most beautiful tomato and pepper salad in the world....

Good idea about the carrots and what
many of us do is plant turnips,leave
all winter and till in spring'Our crop
is producing well but had more than un-
usual hot weather'This week another 6in.
of rain,can't get in the gardens now'

Has anyone other than me noticed that tomato vines stay green and live longer if they are shaded from the afternoon and evening sun? I can really notice the difference in my vines, depending on the shading.

Here in Olympia Washington on the lower Puget Sound it's been the best summer in YEARS!!! :-)) I have a hoop frame cover over the entire row of tomatoes (anticipating the typical blight that forces me to pick the entire crop green and pray that they ripen indoors). Incidentally I have had excellent results, if they weren't too green. But this year they're still outside and doing really well. No overhead water and a cover against rain, but no need so far and even late season types are really sizing up. I'm in tomato heaven this year!

Here in California this year the tomatoes have been wonderful. The last couple of years have been awful, so this year I planted extras to see if I could get anything for canning. Well, I have been canning every weekend for the last five weeks. Last week I tried making ketchup. It didn't turn out quite how I thought it would be, more bitter and sweet at the same time. Has anyone else had any luck making ketchup. I'll probably use most of this batch for barbeque sauce. I've been looking through the books to see what to make this weekend, but after having such a drought on tomatoes the last few years I don't mind at all. Kathy

Tomato canning is over here. We canned a total of 58 quarts of stewed tomatos and 5 quarts of tomato juice from the garden crop. The main crop consisted of Cherokee purple, red brandywine and burpee supersteak. A couple plants of sungold and jaune flamee for eating and the usual volunteer sweet 100's all produced very well also. Still enough left for eating until J. Frost arrives.
I grow these plants alongside an above ground pool which provides some shade from afternoon sun and they do better than when I tried to grow them against the back of the garage which gets full afternoon sun. Next season,GLW&TCDR, we try Owen's Red Oxheart (Thanks Owen) as well as the others listed.

This year I planted my tomatoes very late (Jun 15th!), as the deer fence finally went up.

The first year that I lived here in Grizzly Flats, I started 100 tomato plants from seed! All kinds! Hybrids, heirlooms, Gurney's giant climbing tomato, etc...
The deer got the tops and the gophers got the bottoms. We ended up with a few that the deer didn't eat, and then leave on the ground. If it was green, they would take a bite, then leave it on the ground, and then go to the next one.....etc...

So for the last couple of years, I would plant them in raised beds with hardware cloth on the bottoms and cages covered with bird netting. After a while I just didn't plant any veggies until the deer fence, 'cause of all the hassle.

So, at the very last minute, I purchased 3 tomato plants and put them in June 15th. I wasn't really planning on a garden this year, as I wanted to completely redesign this garden which is now better protected. Before, it just had a low chicken wire fence. Good exercise for the deer!

One Early Girl and 2 Brandywines. Needless to say the Early Girls are now so full of green tomatoes, though a few have been picked and eaten. The Brandywines are growing HUGE! Only a couple have been harvested, though there are a LOT of green ones on them as well. I notice the one Brandywine where I fed it with a special mixture of milk, bone meal and epsom salts, there is less "cat-facing" and no blossom end rot on that one. I will use that formula again. The Early Girl must already be resistant as they were perfect, though not as tasty as Brandywines. Early Girls from the garden are STILL better than ANY store bought kind.

Next year I will plan and get seeds started earlier, and also put the squash out sooner. I haven't had to give my zucchini away yet, well, just once!

I resolve to do better next year. I really want more heirlooms.

Good for you, Evelyn! How tall is that deer fence? I think the deer can clear a 50 ft. fence here in WV:) LOL They really are a problem for us gardners!

You look at Early Girl the way I do....but can you actually believe one guy said Early Girl was his favorite tomato? I think he has deformed taste buds. LOL

Good luck with your 'maters next year. Try some Red Oxhearts and Ultimate Giant, along with those others:)

Owen

If you have any spare seeds you would like to share, Maybe I could send you something or SASE??

Although I really couldn't imagine Early Girl to be a favorite, they are plentiful and attractive. There are so many tasty tomatoes out there, I really am going to do better next year.

I had better hurry up with that design before the snow falls. I really don't want to use my current design, though practical, now that it is fenced, I know I can create something more attractive. The Dark Side Garden, The White Daisy Garden and the white flower garden are on three sides.

In the middle are herbs, sage, oregano and some thymes.

Behind that are eight (four and four) 4'square raised beds with hardware cloth on their bottoms to prevent the gophers from coming through. (Though I have heard some people have had bad luck with this system; the gophers just ate the roots where it grew through the screening.)

On the back sides some pine seedlings that will come out. I would like a few fruit trees there in the back (north side).