Tomato Tuesday for the PNW

Yesterday we moved our babies from their nice warm home up next to the house.....out to the garden.....now this morning..... im in a bit of a panic....the weather has cooled down, grey clouds, wind and some drizzle...

hugs
rose
one of my babies from seeds.....


this is the rainbow from the school plant sale


here are my two babies & the rainbow from school & a store bought replacement from having to pull up my other two....


here are the three brothers from seeds out next to the garden


here is the other replacement from the store


last but not least my two ground cherries from our school plant sale...they are looking so much better with a little bit of sun, fish em and a pritz of calcium

Deb your tomato's are really growing! they look great and I love the set up you have with the watering......let us know how it works out right now i have been watering every thing by hand my body hurts in more places then i have felt in years......LOL

hugs
rose

Rose, your tomatoes look good.

Deb that little bit of protection is doing great things for your tomatoes.

I am finally getting mine in 5 gallon buckets, but due to personal issues only got a few done so far.

Finally, something to report: 5 teeny, tiny new tomatoes on 3 plants. Will try to get pictures and figure out how to post them here. Both ground cherries and garden huckleberries leaped up a couple of inches during the four days of warm weather in Oregon, with us at the Coast and not watching them.

oh i would love to see pic's of your ground cherries......it would be great to have something to compare with.....mine are still small....they are growing though and have turned more green now then the bright yellow they were how neat it is that you have some baby wee little tomato's

hugs
rose

Hello there my little chickadees. How is everyone doing this cool, damp (no rain though) cloudy day?

Finally have some of my tomatoes potted up in 5 gallon buckets and sitting in my old garden area that is covered with black plastic mulch. The idea is that the black mulch and the black pots will absorb more heat and help the tomatoes grow. We will see

I know, it is a mess, but still a work in progress. Once all the plants are located within the deer netting, the buckets will be arranged, trellises built and strings set up.

Here is my poor ground cherry, which even in it's pitiful shape is trying to produce little ground cherries (sometimes called husk tomatoes)

Grafted Brandywine still needs that bottom yuckly leaf trimmed.
Grafted Japanes Black Trifele
At least all of the tomatoes are outside and hardened off, even though there are a few more that need to be transplanted. Have you ever tried to accumulate 28 - 5 gallon buckets? It is taking longer than I had imagined. Still need 8 more. (Don't want to buy them cause I am cheap )

So how are your tomatoes doing this Tuesday?

I'm so excited, several tomato plants of various types have set tomatoes--at least 14 little guys, the largest being an oblong 1-1/2 inches (tomato Black Sea Man) and a second potato leaf tomato (probably another Black Sea Man) sports 4 new green globes. The one Early Girl has two over-one-inch tomatoes, and three or four tiny ones. Once again, I'm trying the Wall O' Water season extenders, but don't see that much difference between those with the WOW jackets and siblings without them, though the ones with the WOWs are taller and appear more vigorous. Furbalsmom, your ground cherries are way ahead of mine. Ours are about 7-8 inches tall, but no flowers yet. Same with the garden huckleberries. This is the first year ever when I've had tomatoes set at the same time as the iris come into bloom. Perhaps this old dog has learned a new trick or two--SFG. Nonna

I forgot it was tomato tuesday.....so off i was tonight at 11pm to take pics in the dark.....LOL....my hubby thinks im more nuts now then ever.....i told him....*hey at least now i can belong to a garden club in my robe and never have to leave the house!*

here are my two ground cherry tomato's from the school plant sale



the first two are my babies from seed and the third one is the rainbow from the school plant sale



here are my three brothers from seed....


here is the rainbow from the school plant sale and he has a few green babies


here is one of the store bought replacements


next year im only going to grow tomato's from seed.....my own tomato plants are doing so much better then any of the store bought ones.....my babies stem's are much thicker then the store bought ones are....i really think its because as they grew from seed i would plant them deeper and deeper as i would transplant them into a bigger container......i did this several times as they were growing.....im really hoping they have a great root system, stay healthy and will produce much better then what i have ever gotten from a store bought plant

hugs
rose....who gardens in her bath robe

Tomatoes are doing well despite the cloudy weather and only a sprinkle of rain the past ten days. There are several blossoms and only time will tell if they set fruit or drop off.


It is still early in the growing season and I am looking forward to tomatoes. I am hoping we will break out of the 60's and get some 70 degree days soon!

Rose, your ground cherries are much sturdier than mine.

In fact most of your tomato plants are sturdier and fuller than mine.

Oh, well. Give them time.

Happy Camper, you changed your avatar and I did not recognize you!

Your tomato is looking like a brute ready to take on the world. Nice healthy plant.

Agreed, if the weather would really break, all our tomatoes would just soar!

I was sick as a dog yesterday and missed Tom T. I took a quick look while letting the nuggets out but came back in and passed out, so I'll probably post the pics I planned in the toy box thread. I did see two little baby tomatoes on the Siltz plants (in the bucket row).

Deborah...talking herself into feeling better but the mess the guys left while bach'ing it isn't helping.

Feel better soon!

Some limited progress, there is one tomato on the Stupice, but almost all of the tomato plants have blossoms. Hope that is good news for those long days to harvest varieties. Even the Brandywine has one open blossom.

One baby tomato on my Stupice


Blossoms on the Japanese Black Trifele


Black Prince Blossoms


Tell us about your tomatoes in the PNW

Keep that Black Prince and the Brandiwine as warm as possible FBmom. I had both last year. Loads of green tomatoes on black prince, nothing on brandiwine. BUT it was a REALLY bad tomato year last year. Looking for more sun and hotter nights this year....so that you can tell me how good Black Prince is and make me wish I had tried it again! You grow girl!

Brandywine and Black Japanese Trifele are the two varieties that I am trying as grafted plants. I purchased transplants as well as started seeds indoors for both of these varieties.

Not going to be a very scientific test to compare the three origins, but will be interesting to see if the grafted tomatoes were worth their $6.95 @ price tag, plus shipping. They were in 2 1/2 inch pots, pretty small, I tell ya.

I also purchased transplants of Black Prince, Gold Medal and Stupice.


Next week I hope to have my trellis/string up, and at least a partial cover over my tomatoes to help keep them a bit warmer. Of course, I had hoped to have that done last week.

Too many things I want to do, too little time

I know, it's no longer Tuesday, but wanted to share a disaster. Last week, I was feeling pretty smug because the Early Girl tomato had two 1-1/2 inch tomatoes. Having been gone all weekend, I was dumbfounded to find the two largest tomato sets were rotting! This is one of the tomatoes surrounded with a Wall O'Water season extender, so I pulled the WOW up off the plant and checked for more disease. Doesn't seem to be any, but I decided better air flow would help ward off more rot amongst the setting fruits. Now the tomato plant carrying the biggest tomatoes is Black Sea Man, a Russian variety. Tomato Julia Child is as tall as I am and with lots of blossoms, but only one blossom has set. Slava, another Russian, also has several sets and appears to do well in this climate. Will have to wait a month or so to see which variety is most generous with fruit and taste. Will keep y'all informed.

Nonna, it is still Tuesday, did you just wake up from a nap and get confused?
How frustrating to lose two early girl tomatoes when they were already that big.
Here is wishing all of the PNW a warm and summer. I know we are all dreaming of tomatoes.

here is an update on my babies

Do you think these four tomato plants are to close together?

the first one that is in the ground is my store bought that is not doing so well....then the next two are my two babies and the last one on the right is the rainbow from our school plant sale....they are out in my three sisters garden


here is the school rainbow up close with four or five tomato's

here is one of my home grown babies.....i took his pic next to a pencil to compare how thick his stem is he has some small little flowers on top still closed.....

here are my baby three brothers in one pot

here is my ground cherry tomato's

and they have some small little flowers

the last two are in the same pot, i havent transplanted them yet....cause im not sure where to plant them....these two are from seed as well....i just didnt plan on all my seedlings to do so well....

my 2nd store bought replacement in the SFG...seems to be doing good

FB-Mom, You are right, my mini-vacation caught up with me. After a weekend at Seabrook, WA, with Son, D-I-L and Grandkids, I came home so relaxed I lost track of time. Wondering if I could have saved the little tomatoes had I stayed at home, or if they were just doomed. There are other tomato babies on other plants NOT in Wall O'Water jackets. Hence my idea that lack of air circulation and over-average humidity caused the rot.

Nonna, the only other thing I can think of, was it Blossom End Rot? It was so cool here for so long, the poor tomatoes might not have been able to take up all the nutrients they needed.

I know it is rough losing those Early Girls, but as long as the next tier of tomatoes do ok, all is well.

In answer to your question, FB-Mom: Nope, wasn't classic BER, but the whole berry turned soft and whitish. One dropped off, the other kept fastened so I could get a good look at it, definitely rotted through. On another note, a couple of fine, until now overlooked, Black Sea Man tomatoes are set, large and beautiful. Once again, I'm hopeful. Just hope the variety (unknown to us before this year) is as tasty as touted on the seed package: "excellent, full-bodied, comples, intense, creamy tomato flavors." However, the plant may be mislabeled, and not Black Sea Man at all. Whatever, it's got tomatoes!

I haven't posted in this thread yet, because tomatoes can be such a depressing topic at my house. I don't care to grow the short season, cool tolerant tomatoes, so I only get mature tomatoes to eat every few years when we have a warmer than average summer. Obviously, this probably won't be one of those years.

But, I'm trying. I have fruit on Black Krims and Old Germans; nothing on the Brandywines. This guy is just hanging over the side of a table top.




How often have we heard newbies say that we can't grow a tomato in six inches of MM, or that we can't grow one per square, four squares in a row? Well...this ought to get 'em going: 4 per square! It certainly wasn't my intent in March to do this, but I stuck 4 transplants from the nursery that needed up-potted, in a square as a holding place till the weather got nicer. They thrived in the heated soil, but it took forever for our weather to reach borderline OK to plant toms outside. By that time, they were too big to move because their roots would be a tangled mess, and the transplant shock would have set them too far behind this year. Oh well, I might even break down and give this square supplements!

When I finally took the plastic off the hoop house, it was such a jungle that I had to do some serious ATM pruning. All the plants are nekkid the first 12-15 inches up the stalk.




My original plan was to plant 4 toms on the north side of the box, and train them up and across on the hoops. That is working well; you can see the two middle hoops have plants on them. But the four plants in the middle row gave me trouble. So the hoops are now also the 'vertical' supports of a Florida weave trellis. Will it work? Nonna said it best: the three important things about growing tomatoes are the weather, the weather, and the weather.