Spring Tomato Garden 2006 - 2

Ed,

Surely that container grown plant in the 2nd picture couldn't have been planted at the same time as those in the EB's?

Big Red - The one between the EBs was not planted at the same time, but only 14 days later. The one on the left was planted only a couple of days later.
Ed

looks good foolcontrol--looks like your having that left twist or right twist debate too (see the spirals thread)--my plants are getting so big, I'm about to give up on training and just let them go....in a couple of years you can move your EB's to another area and you will have created a another planting bed there.

Ed,

Very impressive!

Ed, very nice plants. Hmmm. I wonder what is wrong with the Ugly??

Cricket, my parents grew Early Girl and they got tons of fruit...eventho it tasted better than the store bought...I did not thing they were particularily very good. Pretty bland as Ed suggested.

oh well, we live, plant, and learn. guess i am learning.

ED---beautiful maters. And that cacti in the background caught my eyes.
What a differance in EB and regular potted mater. Even with just 14 day planting differance---that potted one should not so far behind. What about age differance?

Wish i could afford to use EBs but I cannot. Not with all the maters I grow. Makes ya really wonder if I used EBs and grew less tomato plants if I could get just as many tomatoes off them. I dunno. Im chicken. bok bok.

Cricket

I don't the taste of any of the early hybrids is as good as the indy heirlooms, but of the ones I've tried, I like the Early Girl the best. The Matina had no taste and I was very disappointed in the Stupice last year. The year before it was better, but that year I only grew a dozen or so and was impressed by everything!!! (Up from the year before when I grew about 4 - all common varieties from local Nursery!)

I've come a long way baby - and I guess I'm getting a bit more sophisticated in my tastes! I the earlies when they first arrive, but once the GODD tomatoes arrive, into the sauce pot they go!

Sure is fun trying them all, though.

PS - My EB's never produce that well. I really think they miss the heat and humidity you southerners have to offer. We appreciate everything we get though!

Sequee --- Give them another try but be sure to set them up as explained. My friends up north love them..

I've been using them every year for 3 years now, Tplant. They certainly do better than other containers, but not as well as in-ground. And certainly nothing like the monsters pictured above!!!

just a personal remark here. I Hate Peat Pots. Will never ever use them again. Give me plastic.
I used peat pots one year for several things. All the plants looked bad. But all the others were very healthy looking.
Those peat pellet mesh things are petty good though. More expensive.

I put one of my Better Bush in one of my 1/2 barrel planters with some other stuff like peppers and annual flowers.

Cricket --- You can use peat pots if you keep them well watered and split them open at final transplant time.

I agree that the peat pots are more trouble than they're worth. Who has time to water twice a day??? I like to start mine in the little styro plug trays, then pot'em up as needed.

It's getting exciting now - 2 potted up and about a half dozen more ready to pot-up tonight. And way too many others popping their noses up...I fear I've over-planted again. Bad, Janice!

What happened? Why are these things turning red??? LOL "Sugar" Cherries and they are very sweet. Too sweet to become one of my favorites, but still a whole bunch better than anything I bought in the markets this year. They will hold me over until my Santa Sweets start breaking, which should be soon. They are loaded with 100s of good size green ones now.

Bad thunderstorm here the other night. Broke off 3 branches off my maters. One from a mortgage lifter, one from a 4th of July, and one from a Juliet. The neighbor right in back of me had about a 40' tree snapped off 10' above the ground. It was howling. I'm pretty pleased my maters came through that as good as they did. It looked like that line of storms was going to be a little north of T and Flip, so they may have been OK. Ed

We got the storm here Ed but no damage except for some of my petunias that I just spent $16 for and planted them in my half size wine barrels. As for my tomato plants they are finished for this season and I will be cleaning them out today. Couldn't yesterday because of the weather. The weather still looks threatening today.

Oh, how nice to be "seeing red"! You must be so tickled. I, on the other hand, am green with envy! Gonna be a long time acomin' 'round these parts!

T - is that really it for you for the season??? Seems so early! What else do you have planted for the time-being?

Nothing just now but I will try melons in my EBs. Much too windy to do anything today plus it looked like heavy rain all day. A good day to watch TV and plan.

That planning's what gets ya!!! I had so many winter projects I wanted to do...instead, I researched and planned, and planned and researched... And I hold you an Flip personally responsible for the fact that I got nothing done other that soggy papers from drooling!!!

Ya'll's the Bad Boys of 'Maters!!!

I checked on my lovely plants this morning and something ate a big hole in the bottom part of the stem on my Black Cherry! The plant was laying over on its side, and as I lifted it, it had a hole in the stem...like some bug decided to munch a portion. The BC is already struggling as it was. It is only about 4" tall andis planted in the ground. I'm very bummed by this. I took soil and put it all around the plant's stem to get it to sit up and see if it will recover. I have a feeling it will not. I have another BC seedling that I was going to give my step mom but maybe I'll pull the damaged one up and plant that one. I wonder if it was a pill bug that did this? They keep eating my basil...everytime I get a new leaf on the basil plants, they get eaten. Time to spray?

Ed, nice plants. Sorry about the storm damaging some of your plants.

Michelleb

We had wind here also and I lost several good size branches...burned me up so I went out and had the DH rig this up.

Your black cherry may just surprise you! Several times I'v had plants break off and replanted tothe tops and they did great.

Keeping my fingers crossed for you!

Hey all - been out of town (Disney) for spring break with the dw and kiddies for the past too many days. LOL, it was fun.

Well, my elderly mater plants are still puttin' out some decent maters tho the ones from October are lookin' kinda worn. The ones xplanted in Jan/Feb are doing well and also have begun to provide many maters. Tplant is ever so correct about the foilar and bug problems here come this time of the year. I'm guessing I've got another few weeks or so for setting fruit and another month after that for pickin'. Then we're talkin' heat and hurricanes. I'll keep some cherry types going as I have a good spot for them in the summer. (Better than any store stuff!)

For all you Texans and low zoners, just a little preview pic of what your window sills will look like soon (These are some of the ones I picked yesterday). - Omars Lebanese, Pink Caspian, Brianna (the one here is 1lb 6oz), Mortgage Lifter, Azoychka, Eva PB - Hang in there, your time draws near!

Flip

My black cherry is still alive! I'm so glad. It is still very small fella, hopefully he will start growing big soon.

Flip, I've been wondering where you've been. Disney! How fun. Such a lovely bunch of tomatoes. Yummy!

Michelleb

Flip--got a bazillion tomatoes here; some should be turning anyday.

Oooops. DH just realized that when I was pitchforking the tomato area...I broke a sprinkler pipe! Poor man will be fixing it tomorrow. No wonder only one side of the mater garden was getting watered. UGH. I feel so bad. He said I must have been really getting after that tilling if I broke a pipe. oy vey. why am i such a spaz. This does not help my tomato "cause" with DH at all!

Debbie, if you come up to Austin, you will have to bring some maters for Horn and I to taste. :)

but if you had more EB's you wouldn't be tilling...*G*

Ahhhhh...VERY good point Saint. I'll bring that up when he isn't so red in the face. I think he may come unhinged if I place that obvious observation to him now.

lol...good idea

Hooray!! I got my early tomatoes planted out this week! Two 'Jaune Flamme', three RL crossed 'Stupice' (seed saved from a large-fruited "Stupice" last year), and one regular PL 'Stupice' in WOWs along my south foundation wall... they did really well there last year, so I hope they'll be good again!

I also put a grape tomato seedling in a big deck pot with a WOW around it... Then I planted 2 'Tumbling Tom' seedlings just outside the WOW, so we'll see how they do. I may add a loop of row cover around them.

I'm so excited to have plants in the ground!

:-)

green zebra

VERY nice!!!

Deb - your plants look really good. Keep the pics comin'. I want to see some ripe Texas maters!

I'm really excited for all you Texans; you're finally getting some maters on the vine. Won't be long and they'll be on the dinner table.

Also, the low zoners are all abuzz with their new plantings - ya gotta love it. Can't wait to see everyone's harvests so you better post some pics! (Or I'll have to and I know you're tired of them by now. Actually, from here on out only summer veggie pics comin' from this dirt boy.)

I'll tell you all one thing - the days here in S. Fla are getting mucho long and the sun is almost straight overhead. Alas, I feel summer has made its debut here - the forecast for next week is highs in the upper 80's and lows in the low 70's. It only gets hotter from here. Oh well, we had a good run down here this year and we'll see if can't keep it goin' for a while longer.

Flip

Here's some solar set--I'm clueless as to what they will taste like; actually, this year, I only ended up growing one variety I have grown in the past.

Gee Deb, when you said you have a bazillion maters going on...you weren't kidding. Good job!

We are going to be in the mid 90's until Thurs. we are at a 20% chance of rain on Thurs. I'm really hoping we get some. We are still in extreme drought conditions. Mid 90's in April is not good for my maters.

Here are a couple of Celebritys loaded up. Looks like they are really pumping out the maters. Should have a bunch of ripe ones soon. Off to the left are two santa sweets in and EB. I just added another level of PVC for them. I don't think I'll add another level after this one. I can justreach them stretching on a two step stool now. If I go any higher I'll need a ladder. And the way these grow, I'd need a cherry picker before the season is over. They put out 18-20' vines last year. Ed

I am so stunned! I have never seen anything like this. You ain't got no green thumb, buddy! You got a green hand!!!

Ed, are those Celebrity plants planted in EB's? Man, those baby's are loaded! Good job!

Wow! Remind me not to grow Celebrities.....I'm only 5'5" soaking wet.

The tall one that you can just see to the left of the Celebritys, is the Santa Sweets Grape that grows so high. The celebritys are only about 6' high. Here is another picture of one of the EBs with Santa Sweets in them. Both the Celebritys and the Santa Sweets were started in early January. I spent lots of time putting them in the house everytime a cold front came through, then taking them back out when it warmed up. Tried using heavy frost cloth one night when it got down to 28 degrees and it worked like a charm. Didn't lose anything. The rest of the maters got planted on February 19th. Ed

wow ED.
I have never seen anyone grow a celebrity that big.
This is my first year trying celebrity.

I like the looks of my Brandywine. That is a neat looking tomato plant. If I do not like the tomatoes, will have to grow the darn plant for the looks in the future. Hoping I like them. They put out alot of blooms. Do yall trim some of the blooms off the Brandywines? The very first bloom is humungous. I also trimed the lower big leaves off to give the suckers more sun to sturdy up.

Brandywine

This is the Big Boy and the Better Boy.
It has only been 10 days since the last picture of these plants. Seems like they are growing so slow or I am very Impatient.


This message was edited Apr 17, 2006 7:10 PM