Who's planting tomatoes this year?

We bought everything as plants. I’ve never done anything with seeds, but I’d be willing to try to send you some of the Black Prince.

We got it from the Ohio State extension office. They had a plant sale down here in no-man’s land. :smiley:

Seven Celebrity and one Beef-something that got into the flat. :slight_smile:

Husband made me a container garden last year (?) out of drawers from a vanity he took out of a bathroom that he remodeled. I had tomatoes in one pot, green peppers and something else I can’t remember in another, and one pot had tarragon, parsley, chives, and dill. Since we rent and don’t really have a “yard” per se (townhouse) we can only grow stuff on the deck. It worked out really really well - and there is NOTHING like chicken salad with fresh tarragon in it. :smiley:

That is great recycling, Missy2U! And a very cute and styley idea.

I hope no one got nipped by these late frosts. We were threatened, but the temperature never dropped low enough to hurt us.

How are everyone’s plants doing? We’ve got tiny tomatoes on (I think) 6 of the eight, buds on the 7th, and nothing on the 8th.

I didn’t check this morning, believe we have four ranging from eraser sized to marble.
Still have eight plants, only have two used cages. I keep forgetting, most of my plant good waves are concentrating on Euryale ferox arrival. :slight_smile:

We have some blossoms, but no fruit yet.

We really need to relocate the garden to it gets more sun. We gave some pepper plants to a neighbor. She has peppers already and we’ve got nothing. The plants look the same as when they were put in the ground a month ago. Our radishes are failing too.

But the acorn squash is looking to take over the world!

My Early Girl has several tomatoes that are between golf ball and baseball size but they are still stubbornly green. They Better Boys have little tomatoes starting to form. The Brandywines are going to be quite late. :frowning: But still, all the plants are healthy. We are having drought conditions and I have to water frequently. Fortunately, we built raised beds that are easy and frugal to water.

I have a few blossoms on one of the plants, and nothing on the other one yet. I think I read somewhere that grape tomatoes produce a little later than other varieties. I have no clue what I’m doing, but I’m keeping an eye on them and trying to keep them watered. Our back porch thermometer said it was 102 here on Sunday, but the plants also don’t get quite as much sun as I thought. It’s possible that I have too much heat but not enough sun!

My plants are jammin’. We’ve had perfect tomato weather for the past several weeks, with plenty of sunshine and rain. Plants that were wee little three-inchers are now over a foot and in full bloom. A few have marble-sized fruit on them. Yay!

On Minerals: Rather than Miracle-Gro and such, I look for a fertilizer with trace minerals. I can’t really defend the science of it, but I believe some plants need more than nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. I’m currently using Peters brand.

Marigolds vs. nematodes and rodents: Root knot nematodes are bad for tomato plants, and planting marigolds next the tomatoes will ward them off. It’s not that nematodes don’t like marigolds; it’s the opposite. They’d rather attack the marigolds than tomatoes. The marigolds are sacrificial.

The odor that rodents don’t like is more effective in the simpler marigolds. The ones with row upon row of petals have a more friendly smell.

Some nematodes are good and some are bad. One kind kills the larvae of slugs and fleas. Another will cripple your tomatoes.

Got plenty of fruit between the size of marbles and baseballs, still as green as grass. The plants also have “tomato leaf roll”, which Google tells me is probably due to too much water and too much nitrogen. I did plow in a lot of semi-composted chicken manure back in the late winter. I’m cutting back on the watering to see if that helps. The website I found did mention that it shouldn’t harm the fruit, though.

As an aside, my “fino verde piccolo” Genovese basil is doing great, and I hope to serve up a basil-y tomato bruschetta in late July.

I tried to grow tomatoes last year (SoCal) and they failed spectacularly. This year I’m going to try not to kill some herbs.

I now have eight varieties planted, and they number over twenty. I’m looking for places to put more, but will soon have to toss perfectly good plants. Two varieties have been flowering for over a week, so the tomatoes should show up soon. We actually use them all, but I’m generous to people if they want some. I felt better this year so I put some flowers and tomatoes in the ex neighbors flower bed that I made her about 15 years ago. She’s getting feeble and dealing with cancer, but she now has the gardening bug again. She’d eat anything I gave her. I stuck in some cucumbers too.

I use Earth Boxes on my deck (southern exposure). I can’t remember the names (will look later), but I have some Romas and a few short seasons. The short seasons already are about 1.5’ high and have blooms & one actual tomato. My herbs, lettuce & peppers are going like gangbusters, too.

VCNJ~

I hate you. :slight_smile:

I have two golf ball sized 'maters today and still no squirrel damage!

Acid Lamp and I are growing yellow tomatoes. Two are yellow plum tomatoes and two are of the “Mr. Stripey” variety that look a wee bit like stripey beefsteaks.

I’ve got 40+ heirlooms and 10 hybrids just now blooming. The unusually stingy Sweet 100 has been giving up one ripe tommytoe at a time. All the others are struggling.

Our rainfall is 11" below normal- a terrible drought is hurting everybody here. Local farmers are selling off cattle, and I had one stop by and beg for my hay, which is a meager 4 acres.

We ate the first four ripe Early Girls for dinner tonight. We might have had some a day or two earlier but the desire for fried green tomatoes was too strong. :o

We’re having drought conditions too but I’m watering the tomatoes faithfully. \

How are everybody else’s tomatoes doing?