Got tomatoes?

If I could just learn to grow bacon, now, I'd be set!

I like making tomato sauce out of my tomatoes...

Love tomatoes, but my garden is entirely tropical - they just wouldn't look right.

There's a tomato here in Florida called Ugly Tomato - best tasting one I ever ate, even if they're not much to look at. I never heard of them back in New England - must be a local thing.

Judy, it's pretty easy growing bacon! Just build a 5'x5' pen and throw all your table scraps in it. Plant your little bacon in there (no digging required) add lots of water, and soon your bacon will start to grow! Continue adding table scraps and water, and dont worry, they grow in any type of soil. After about 6 or 7 months your bacon will be ready to harvest, regardless of season. Around here, we have wild bacon that we usually harvest at night and it is some GOOD stuff!

I remember reading a story about how people misinterpreted words when they where kids. One kid thought that "vacant lot" was "bacon lot" and figured that was where bacon was grown. Maybe he was on to something. ;-)

I voted "soon", but it may be a few weeks yet. This year in northern Michigan has been amazing for all my plants, We had a few weeks of hot weather and drought in June, but July has been cooler with a bit of rain. Three tomato plants, one Early Girl, one Rutger Improved CR, and one Better Boy. The Rutger Hybred has a couple starting to go from green to yellow orange, everyone else is still very green, but each plant has a minimum of twenty healthy looking green tomatoes at various sizes. Also each plant still has a few blossoms and some tiny new tomatoes, so I will spend another fall trying to figure out what to do with green tomatoes. Can't wait for a nice red tomato sliced on a real bagel (which I will drive 250 miles to get), with cream cheese and onion(the perfect brunch) :)

We've had ripe tomotoes on seed grown plants started outside for probably 6 or 8 weeks. In fact, they are all overgrown and not producing anymore.

I used to live in Corsicana, broncbuster... I think I saw some farms like that around Waxahachie!!!

I voted "several" with the intent that that can mean "two" weeks. The 'Ladybug' cherry tomatoes are coming along nicely. I pick a half-dozen or more every evening. 'Ladybug' is a new variety and alas! it has a strong propensity to crack when dead ripe. So I've been picking a day or so early. Wonderful flavor, though. I'm also growing 'Sweet Pea' currant tomatoes, which are maybe a couple days behind 'Ladybug'. SP also have a wonderful tomatoey flavor. My third variety is 'Brandywine'; just as each one gets big enough to start to ripen, someone of the squirrel persuasion eats about 1/3 of it and leaves it on the ground for me to find.

I found a summer use for my snow shovel. The 11 tomato plants are all on one side of the fence and they are weighing it down something awful. I had visions of them pulling it, and themselves, down altogether and I'd come home one day to see all eleven plants broken off at the soil line. So I propped up the fence with the snow shovel.

I grew mine by seed this year... first time -- i have Aunt Ginny's Purple [they are HUGE but still very green]
1884 [ again, huge, but very green]
Napoli Romas [ a few of them are just starting to turn an orange-yellow]
San Marzano [still very green]

come late Aug/early Sept i will have TONS of 'em

Here in Wisconsin, South Milwaukee to be more precise, we usually aren't getting ripe maters until the very end of July or by early August...

This has been a "weird" weather year as others have noted. We had ripe yellow cherry tomatoes the end of June, ripe red cherry maters two weeks ago and have had 3 early girl maters also. I usually eat more from the vine(s) than I bring in :) Sooooo much tastier than the "cardboard" tomatoes from the store. I do not like, and will not eat, "stewed" tomatoes or "chunky" cooked tomatoes...

Jan

Jan... I so agree with the comment on store bought. I think that my boyfriend has never actually tried a decent, homegrown tomato, just the crud you get in the store that is shipped green and then covered in dry ice so it turns red... and that's why he doesn't like them.
I CAN'T STAND paying all that money for fruit and vegetables in the store and then cutting into it and it still not being ripe. I bought a cantelope the other night and cut into it and it was still almost white inside it was picked so early.

Sounds like everybody has had challenges this year growing tomatoes. Right now I have Better Boy and Beef Master in growing stages...planted them about 4 weeks ago. Had already planted Early Girl, Bush Roma, and have 2 or 3 cherry tomato volunteers from last year. Those have already fruited and continue to do so. My biggest challenge this year has been the mockingbirds, who for some unknown reason, have decided that they love my tomatoes. All of my tomatoes are in self-watering planters on my front porch, with supporting cages. Discovered, much to my dismay, that the mockingbirds were landing there every afternoon for lunch!! Now I have covered everything with netting and gauze cloth. So far so good!! :)

Mockingbirds? I've never heard of mockingbirds eating fruit! You're scaring me, Bagthepi!

"...someone of the squirrel persuasion" LOL, carrieebryan!

So now I have two more culprits to consider in my search of the guilty party that eats my red tomatoes like they're apples... leaving the top, bottom ... seriously, like you'd eat an apple. I was afraid it was the dreaded tomato worm but it's just the ripe tomatoes... not the green ones and not the leaves.
Either the persuasive squirrel (my fault for putting baffles on the birdfeeders) or the mockingbird (my fault for putting birdseed in the birdfeeders) are now added to the list of most wanted.

>>Mockingbirds? I've never heard of mockingbirds eating fruit!

I've had Canadian Geese pick my bushes clean one year.... the day i was going to go 'harvest' them all... one afternoon the bushes were full of luscious red romas, the next morning... picked clean.... i was devastated.

Tomatoes in FL in the summer?! Well, we normally grow during the fall/winter as it is cooler. I just HAD to have tomatoes this summer and they are not doing well. It's just too hot!!!

Mockingbirds get at the tomatoes at my place, especially in the fall. Maybe it's an L.A. thing.

My Cherry 100s have been giving me a daily supply for about the past week, and they are sooooo good! We had folks over for dinner Saturday night, and they couldn't wait for the salad. They just kept popping them in their mouths straight from my basket!

My Brandywine tomatoes have been big but green up until now, but this morning I went out & found that they're starting to pink up. Yay! I'll go out & take a photo or two in a bit to post.

Add one more to the list of tomato lovings critters. The possum. I always plant one or two tomato plants for them, as they are known to be tomato thieves. Yep !! They will gnaw and slurp with the rest of the birds and beasts. ha ha

Arias.

My "Willamette" and "Green Zebra" are starting to grow tomatoes, but it'll be weeks yet. I skipped the little Cherry 100's this year and I miss them! I like the little snack sizes and how well they produce.

mgh,
Maybe we should "share" tomato plants. My DH only likes the occasional "regular" tomato and doesn't care for the cherry ones, which is why I skipped them. I ate a LOT of little tomatoes last year, but had lots to share too.

Does Black Walnut trees affect tomatoes? I have a hard time getting a bumper crop and I was wondering if they cause it? Or else it could be me. lol

black walnut trees affect EVERYTHING... stuff just dosn't like to grow under and/or near it... something they put into the soil.

Other: we've had Sun Golds for two or three days, not several weeks. And I don't really like raw tomato, not even Sun Gold or SuperSweet 100 or Sweet Million or Sugar Lumps With Honey or HyperBrix9000 (OK, I made the last two up) unless it's already seasoned, as in bruschetta or salsa. I love tomato sauce, extra chunky, and all kinds of seasoned cooked tomatoes. But the adults in my family love the Sun Golds. This year I grew only the veggies most adored by the family: sugar snap peas and Sun Golds. I'll put in more snap peas for a fall crop, too.

That's what I thought. I have put them in containers, 5 gal buckets and in rich soil. I get all small tomatoes. I can buy a plant that says 40 Ibers and I will still get itty bitty ones. LOL. But at least they taste good. And if tomatoes do good the bell peppers don't and vice versa. I just can't win. lol

Sheesh! I planted BC Hothouse and Black Krim tomato seeds pretty early this year - around March, and the tomatoes are STILL green! They appear plentiful, but not ripe yet. They are taking forever!

I hear ya!! lol

We have three sizes of tomato growing: three cherry toms, two Early Girls, and one Better Boy. All have lots of green tomatoes starting to lighten up (and buds still setting). Three little cherry tomatoes are ready to pick.

This is a group garden behind our apartment building. The puzzle I have to solve by tomorrow night's community dinner is: how do I divide three cherry tomatoes between twenty people? :D

We'll probably mix them in with a bunch of grape tomatoes we're already enjoying from the farmer's market. Next year I'm adding some grape tomatoes for early gratification!

pepper yes the jugalon or the sap of the walnut stunts or kills a whole list of plants. If you are using containers for your maters you will have to move them out beyond the ( drip line) which is as far out as the leaves on the outermost limbs. There are a couple web sites that tell what will grow under a black walnut. I don't remember it right now but I did copy it and have that info filed in the somewhere bin. LOL
I have a large black walnut close to my driveway. I made a ring around it to plant some things in as it was hard to mow around with my rider. Now it is a nice turn radius. and I have coral bells, Elephant Ears, Jacks.and a few others. under that tree. But no vegies.

Teresa, I wouldn't have the courage, myself, to try raising an 80-day tomato like Black Krim in the Pacific Northwest unless I'd started the seedlings indoors in February. Maybe January.

I didn't know "BC Hothouse" was a seed variety -- I thought it was a brand of tomatoes grown in a greenhouse?

My girlfriend is growing some nice cherry and regular tomatoes... she's way too impatient though lol... doesn't wanna wait for them to turn red :P

Tomato flowers have both male and female parts in each flower. All they need to pollinate is enough vibration to cause the pollen to drop from the male part to the female part. Bumblebees are perfect for this.

We're in the city, and although I've seen bees in the garden, I wasn't going to count on them for all our pollination. As soon as we had tomato flowers fully open, I started going out every few days with a battery-powered toothbrush and "buzzing" them myself. (I don't stick the toothbrush in the flower -- I hold it against the stem above each cluster of flowers until I see the flowers vibrating.)

I slacked off over the last couple of weeks, but we already have over two dozen fruit ripening on the Better Boy and each of the Early Girls, and a lot (I am not going to count them!) on the cherry tomatoes (two Sweet 100s and a Sweet Cherry). I have no way of knowing whether they would have had as many without my buzzing, but I'm going to do it again next year, anyway.

Anitra, I did start the black krims indoor under grow lites around March. The BC Hothouse tomato seeds, I got from BC Hothouse tomatoes the year before.

If I like a tomato that I buy from the store, I smear the seeds on a paper towel and let them dry, then roll them up - with a label and plant the seeds the following year. I've done this every year with Romas, cherries, yellow and orange toms, etc etc.

Edited to say thanks for the vibration suggestion. My toms are in a greenhouse, so they may need the extra boost! ;-)

This message was edited Jul 25, 2007 12:18 AM

Mine are still green(growing in containers), don't know the type they were freebie seeds. Been getting ours from the local farmers market up till now.... YUM, they have the BEST tomatoes we've ever tasted, NOTHING beats a Jersey tomato. My hubby just slices them up and makes mater sandwiches with mayo and a touch of pepper, I've been going thru loaves of bread like crazy.

And thanks for the seed-saving suggestion, Teresa! I've been loving some little yellow pear-shaped grape-sized tomatoes from one of the organic markets, and I was going to look for it in the seed catalogs. I'll try your method, too.

I know some mass-market veggies are bred-and-or-treated so that their seeds won't sprout -- but great-tasting tomatoes from a Farmer's Market aren't likely to be like that. :)

I think I should move my "Patio" tomatoes to my back deck that is covered. The heat/sun is just baking them. They will still get a little sun, but not so much that they fry. That's one way to get fried green tomatoes I guess! I moved my little potted cuke and squash plants out of the sun and under the leaves of some large hibiscus and they are doing great now. Note to self: full sun on the label does NOT mean full sun in GA!

I raised all my tomato plants from seed (for extra early, seeded in late Jan.), the rest planted in greenhouse in Mar. Out in the garden in early May under covers. First ripe tom, first of June, Parks Sweet Baby Girl, tasted really good but had have tough skins. The next ripe were Mortgage Lifters, small fruit. Now have Stupice, Beefy Boy, Sun Gold, and others are changing color. ( varieties total Earliest ripe tomatoes ever this year.

DonnaS

I'm handicapped, so I've grown two tomatoe plants in two large square(18 x 18 ) containers, which my son filled with potting soil for me. And I've had tomatoes to give away. I used fertilizer tablets under the plants. And oscote during the growing and bearing season, and I have more blooms now, I did have to treat the plants for bloosom end-rot, two weeks ago. They've realy been great tho.