Got tomatoes?

I planted seven varieties this year and they're all setting fruit. No ripe ones yet, but we're having perfect weather for them, with very warm days, cool nights and well-timed rains. Looking forward to my heirlooms, some of which I'm growing for the first time. I usually start getting ripe fruit the second weeks of August here.

We have one Sweet 100 beginning to get red, Emily (CCG), but the others are waiting as they usually do. Anticipation is so sweet!

Can't grow tomato plants here, the summers are too cold. And this summer, too wet, with half the country under deep water . . .

Resin

I can't grow tomatoes here....the critters eat them before we can. Tried a net to protect
from the birds and that didn't work cause a bird got stuck in it and I had to frantically
work to get it out so it wouldn't get hurt. Took the net off so now the birds and the squirrels
are feasting. We've resorted to eating tomatoes from family members gardens.

We have several great pick your own tomato fields near by. In fact, we're having tomato pie for dinner. Yummy.

I have had 1 cherry tomato. Kind of odd, Three of my plants are growing great, lots of small tomatoes on them, but none anywhere near ripe yet. Then I also planted a Cherokee Purple, and it got three 2-3 inch tomatoes on it - but only grew about 14 inches high! I just picked those three off of them, hoping that the plant would start growing - we will see. They ripened halfway up and stopped. Ate the bottom half of the big one this last weekend, and it was yummy - if a little sour. guess it wasn't quite "done", but I have heard it is hard to tell with that particular type.

C'mon tomatoes!

I'm one of those rare "'mater haters". More like a strong dislike for them.

It's wierd; I love anything with tomato sauce, but just can't eat 'em raw.

I keep thinking of George Carlin. "They look like little pink bicycle tires..."

But hey, if everyone liked the same thing, the world would be a boring place, indeed.

Count me in on the "'mater haters". I've never liked them, even as a kid.
Every now and then I try them to see if my taste has changed because it just seems like one of those things that most people love, but I still don't like them. Over the years I've learned to like them cooked. But like Mach, I don't like them raw.
Until this year I've grown them for my husband though. But now he has a condition and can't eat anything with seeds anymore. So now I no longer grow tomatoes.

Another tomato hater here, and I grew up with a mom who had a garden filled with tomatoes. My dad has a note, still attached to the cupboard door that says, "I Terry ______, do hereby declare that I like chili". Then the next time my mom made chili, I made a notation on the note, "without chunks of tomato!". Love sauce, love ketchup, but don't put raw or chunks of tomato in anything and expect me to eat it.

I know exactly how you feel, beverly710, I tried one tomato plant in a pot one year, and didn't get to eat one tomato--the critters got 'em all. I am sooooo jealous of anyone who can grow them. There's nothing like the taste of homegrown!

Bolino, my DH and DSs hate tomatoes. They won't even eat pizza with sauce on it. My DH won't eat ketchup, but my DSs will.

I voted other because I don't grow tomatoes because I'm the only one in my family who will eat them and even then I don't eat them very much. I rarely even buy them a the grocery store.

I soooo miss warm from the sun red Jersey Maters!!! The smell of a tomato plant and the green stuff on my fingers is a summer classic that no longer exists. I stopped vegetable gadrening 6 years ago because of the ever increasing BOLD deer population. It just wasn't worth the frustration. The few volunteer seedlings that come up around my compost bin and in the old veggie garden are quickly chewed down to nubs by Blasted Bambi and Buddies.
My Dad lived with me his last year. He knew he was dying when he moved in with me and had 3 goals to reach before he went. One of them was to be able to walk out to my garden and eat a tomato fresh off the vine. That goal was a bit too ambitious, but I parked a wheel chair at the end of my side door brick walk and told him that if he made it to there, he could have a ride to the garden and pick the mater of his choice. He made it one August day. I'll never forget the joy and satisfaction on his face when he bit into that sun kissed tomato. He died a contented man.
God is good.

This message was edited Jul 23, 2007 8:04 PM

What a sweet story and a bitter sweet ending. At least he got his wish.

My husband hates tomatoes and I love them so I am growing 15 tomato plants this year. I never have trouble eating them all. If you make a pot of tomato sauce that will use up the excess. Of course, I give a few to friends. But not too many!

I planted an Oregon Spring Bush in a big pot before I got the rest of my maters in the ground. We've had about half a dozen nice salad-size from it, and today I picked a slicer-size that should be ready to eat tomorrow. Tasty, too! A lot of mine are covered with blooms, but not fruiting yet. Plenty of bees, so I think it was the hot hot weather a few weeks ago. It's always something....but they're worth waiting for!

Kelli, "discovered that I needed to use nematode-resistant varieties." I think you might be onto something. Nematodes make the bottom near the dirt look like green roots all bunched up together, right? Well, mine do that... I'll remember that for next year. Thanks!

Yes, it sounds like you have nematodes. The roots are all covered with nodules like a nitrogen-fixing plant. http://www.avrdc.org/photos/tomato_diseases/nematode_01.jpg

Triple digit temps here in Phoenix cause the tomato flowers to be sterile. I'm told if I can keep them alive through the summer, I'll have a bumper crop in fall and winter. So I have been babying them. Gads, those sun-warm, fresh tomatoes from my moms garden.......here's hopin'.......

The current dilemma is a wind and rain storm. I put up shade cloth over a large steel pipe structure....when I checked the garden this afternoon with the wind blowing through, the shade cloth is causing big havoc with the tom and pepper plants. Just beating them to death. Gads, if it's not one darn thing it's another. I really feel for the farmers out there!!

And I totally relate to someone above with the smell of just running my hands through the plants. Smells like a tomato and I could hyperventalate on it! ;~}

We've been pigging out on Slocomb Tomatoes (Slocomb is to tomatoes what Vidalia is to onions) for weeks. Nothing like a fresh 'mater sandwich that is so juicy it just dribbles down your chin....

I had no help digging up a veggie garden in my rock/clay/rock soil this spring, so I planted 2 mater plants in patio containers and just pulled the first two off this past weekend. Can't remember the varieties and the tags are buried somewhere. One is a clustering variety and the other, a later one, has single medium sized maters all over the plant. DD was tickled to have a mater & mayo samich after church yesterday. Mmmm good. I am also growing her some pickling cukes, 'cause those are the ones we like to eat in salad. I also have zucchini and peppers in pots, but I think they would do much better in the ground. If I have to hire someone to till it for me, I am having a veggie garden next year.

I have 4 plants: Early Girl, Marianna's Peace and 2 "Rainbow Blend". No tomatoes yet on the Marianna's Peace or 1 of the Rainbow Blend. Lots on Early Girl - I'll suspect we'll be eating those first, maybe in a couple of weeks. Yummmm. Can hardly wait...

Joanne

Mine are Carbon. Never have had them before but have heard they have great taste. Won't get many thanks to freakish weather but I hope to get some anyways.

All my plants have already played out and burned up and baked with all the rain and then the hot sun. But, I had 16 plants and got a full crop that I canned, made salsa, sold some at the farmers market, then gave messes away to all my neighbors that were not so fortunate to grow any. I am now growing a new crop and about to take them out of the pots and into the garden spot. Most of mine were early girl and heatmaster. Never grew heatmaster before but they did just fine. We grow tomatoes every year and always have plenty for the neighbors. Now I can't wait for my second crop.

Susie2

I voted other, because I don't usually get my first ripe tomato until mid August.

I gotta admit I really don't like fresh tomatoes, but I have grown some in the past.

I laugh every time I think of the movie Steel Magnolias, when the lady said " I hate em', I only grow them because I'm an old southern woman and that's what I'm supposed to do". LOL

I miss my stepfather...........who passed away 5 years ago at age 90...................we would always get two big tomatoes, slice them and throw them in between two pieces of bread covered in mayonnaise.............yummy yummy!!!!!!!!!!!!!

****can't imagine living a life without fresh homegrown tomatoes.................and okra, squash, cataloupes, bell pepper, cauliflower, sweet corn, onions, etc.............

I don't like them, but my family does, so I grow them. Only 1 plant even has any flowers on it, so I think harvest-time will be right about when the first frost hits. :-P

I had a volunteer come up in my front flower bed from my compost worm bin mix.. did not have the heart to pull it up ... It is now about 3 ft tall, had lots of blooms but no little tomatoes yet. Getting close to just pulling it up.

Tammie

tons of green napa grape.... and just a few green sungold so far.... any day now... any day

Mator sandwich yummy. They are good aren't they gessiegail ? I have had tomatoes for several weeks and am almost covered up with them. I can't eat fast enough.

I'm glad you asked, for just this week
Tess' Currant starts to peak.
Stupice blushing up just great,
Picked a pair, I couldn't wait.
For tasty thrills there's nothing greater
Than munching on that first tomater.

Tomatoes have been turning red for about a month now, but we have had to much rain and the tomatoes taste bad. The plants are even drying. This has been the worse year for my garden ever.

Don is a poet.

Love the poem DonShirer.

Don, you're killin me! I hope someone is collecting all of these! When's Dave gonna start the Garden Poetry forum? Prose-n-Grows, Rhyme Thyme, somethin like that!

Yes, a poem forum.

I like that idea!

i got mine in a lil late this spring but we have ate about 6 already! YUMMY!!!

ever heard of TOO much water for a tomato? Yep.. that's what we have. They are pitiful and haven't set anything.