First Tomato!

Early Girl - better taste than I had hoped for. Four pictures speaks a few thousand words - don't look if you are hungry. Couldn't resist.








Sorry! I know it's a bit much but the camera was sitting on the counter and I couldn't stop myself!

Looks really YUMMY Chopper!

Sigh.. mine will be a bit longer.

Boy O Boy that looks good !!

Mine are no where near that...not even big enough for blooms yet... but oh boy, does that look good. Congrats!

I know - I have an unfair advantage of a longer season. I may soon be sick and tired of them as I planted 9 tomato plants 3 in March and 6 in April. I am thinking that now may be the time to start getting very familiar with canning, drying and freezing techniques and start to pick up the items I will be needing!

Nine! Wow. Well, I have "only" 3 tomato plants.... but I just brought my number of tomatillo plants up to 3 as well. I bought my Ball Blue Book on Wednesday.

I'm with you Megan, I can see some tightly closed buds, but no yellow yet. I think it is still too cold at night.

Oh Chop.....Yum-O

I think you are right.

The tomatillos I bought are flowering, as is a pepper plant I broke down and bought (chocolate pepper, how cute!) I snipped off a few blooms from my potato plants this morning already, thanks to SirTravers' timely advice. Aside from that, the only flowers I've seen so far are on bok choi, and some rapini, and the lettuce is trying to bolt too but I am staying ahead of it. Plus one onion bud that I snipped this morning.

The tomato plants, direct-sown peppers, crookneck squash and the watermelon all look very healthy but are just sitting there and being small. We have had days well into the 90's but as recently as last week some nights were down into the 50's. I don't think they are warm enough yet.

I thought that the cherry tomato I was given (started in a greenhouse) would be going great guns now since it was much bigger than my direct-sown tomatoes, but no, it too seems to be in stasis.... while the direct-sown ones have very very slowly been getting bigger and starting to approach its size. I am amazed how thick their stems are.

The BEANS have taken off, and my peas are starting to get vigorous. The Rampicante squash and my cukes have finally put out "I wanna climb" tendrils, and I am going to trellis that squash this weekend. (But still no buds on any of those.) In June. Go figure! What a wacky spring.

I am really glad that I planted 2 kinds each of squash, beans and peppers (and 3 kinds of toms.) It has been really interesting/educational to me to see that they do not grow all the same. Reading about it is one thing, seeing it is another.

Tell you what, though.... I am hoping and praying that the lateness of all of this is going to help get me past some of the garden pests.

I'm in 5b and all my 10 tomato plants have buds, 7 are blooming, and Azoychka, Jelly Bean and Sweet 100 already have small fruits. I put them to the SFG garden two and a half weeks ago. I'm waiting for Centiflor tomatoes seeds so I will have two more tomato plants. Is 12 too many for three person family? - not for my family! We are tomato monsters (well, I give some to my neighbors too).

Mmm....that looks tasty. I can see the sizzle on the bacon.
I had Early Girl tomatoes last year, and they didn't fruit 'til the end of summer
(because the soil was so poor) . They were very flavorful and I loved their size.

This year I planted more than 25 tomato plants, but only a few are Early Girl.
I accidently gave most of the Early Girl seedlings to my co-workers.
Now that the seedlings have fruited, I realize I have planted more Juliet Grape than I needed.

I tested my soil this morning (doh, why did I wait so long?) and will be adding some bone meal and blood meal tomorrow.

I'm not sure there is such a thing as too many tomatoes.... just for me it's where to grow them! I still am trying to figure out how to support the tomatillo insanity I just planted.

Megan, my little gardening soul mate, I am growing tomatillos for the first time. I have heard with 8 plants, even for our restaurant, we will have PLENTY. Stay tuned - and you might want to start researching recipes for salsa, and green chili (really yummy!) and green gazpacho. If you like gazpacho, I can probably sweet talk him into sharing his recipe.

martha wrote:Megan, my little gardening soul mate, I am growing tomatillos for the first time. I have heard with 8 plants, even for our restaurant, we will have PLENTY. Stay tuned - and you might want to start researching recipes for salsa, and green chili (really yummy!) and green gazpacho. If you like gazpacho, I can probably sweet talk him into sharing his recipe.

I have three tomatillo plants, all purple... and I have been crazily Googling for recipes (including canning) for the past 3 days or so! From what I have read the purple ones are slighter smaller and sweeter than the green ones. I have cooked with tomatillos only a few times, but love the verde salsas. How is that for jumping in the deep end? And yes, I would love that gazpacho recipe. Trade you some seeds for it?

I transplanted my second two tomatillos this morning. While working on the first one, a tiny native bee was paying GREAT attention to the flowers on the plant, even while I was scooping soil around. What a single-minded little critter. I am taking that as a sign of good luck!

I'll e-mail you the recipe Tuesday - my husband carries it in his head, and I'm not going in there today!

martha wrote:I'll e-mail you the recipe Tuesday - my husband carries it in his head, and I'm not going in there today!

Oh no you don't! Unless that is a restaurant secret you HAVE to share! At least with me. Sounds good.

Looks so yummy. I'm glad to see someone else slices tomatoes like me!