Tomato Tuesday/Western Mtns. & High Plains

Welcome to the first installment of Tomato Tuesday 2011!!

First off you are probably wondering what Tomato Tuesday is, right? It's simply a weekly report or update on how our tomatoes are progressing. Join in and post your reports . It doesn't have to be a long drawn out report and it is not required, but it will be fun and informative to read about how other tomatoes in your region progress throughout the season. It's one of the things we hold in common as a region.

Very easy guidelines for posting your Tomato Tuesday reports...

• Have fun with this!
  
• Report only on Tuesday if at all possible.
  
• Use this same thread to post your reports through the end of the season. In other words, don't start a new thread each Tuesday. That way it will be easy to find this thread next week. It will be one looooong thread by October.
  
• Other regional forums may start a Tomato Tuesday as well, double-check that you are in the Western Mountains & High Plains forum when you post your report.
  
• Refer to first guideline.
  

Since there is no regional host for Western Mtns. & High Plains region yet, anyone can start their tomato report today if they like. Don't wait! You can check the other regional forums that have Tomato Tuesdays going on if you want to see what others are posting about.

Got tomatoes? We want to hear about them!
pattipan

I have Big Boy, Cherokee Purple, Early Girl, Jubilee, Yellow Pear and Cherry starts that a friend gave me. They are sitting on my covered patio waiting for me to get more boxes ready so that I can plant them. It has been rainy for the last four days so that hasn't helped matters.

I planted four different types of tomatoes from seed indoors that did not make the transition to outdoors :o( But in my region your able to direct sow tomatoes so I did. I had them in jugs to protect them from our unusually cold weather last month. I bought three different types of tomato plants in case my seedlings didn't make it. I have added two pictures below. One of my transplants has a yellow flower!! And my seedlings.... which are super tiny.



Penny's face :o) She doesn't like me paying attention to anyone or anything else.



Are circled it so you can see it... but you can't see the cirlce, lol.

My purchased plants are a few inches taller this week, or look like it, and have a few more flower buds on them. My seedlings I planted directly as seeds are starting to have true leaves!!! I'm actually pretty surprised at how well these little guys are doing.

I wish more people would post :o( please?

Hopefully someone else will start doing this too. MSJ, how are your tomatoes doing??

Well, mine are doing fantastic! My transplants are looking good, full of yellow buds. I got some new tomato transplants from a family friends neighbor who started from seed and had a lot of extras. I now also have a celebrity and an early girl. They were planted on Saturday and are just about the size of the picture I posted above. My seedling started directly are doing really well. I have full first leaves and I thinned it down to one per square. Man I hate thinning!! It's so hard to decide who gets to live and who doesn't. I am really impressed with how thick and sturdy these little seedlings are compared to the ones I had originally started indoors that didn't make it.

My camera was dead so pictures next time.

krazikandiland

I wish we could direct seed here, I have heard from others that direct seeded tomatoes are much sturdier than those seeds started indoors .

Keep up the good work and keep posting. Someone else in your area should join you (hope, hope, hope).

The Celebrity just needs a trim around the bottom, otherwise she looks good to me.

Your direct seeded plants do look nice and sturdy. And those babies are so gorgeous.

Enjoy and Thanks for the pictures.

We have had a very wet and cool spring here in Utah, which has been wonderful for my spring crops, but the tomato plants from the store I planted around Mother's Day weekend have been struggling. I have 5 Romas, a Better Boy, a Yellow Pear, and one other indeterminate that I can't remember the name of right off the top of my head. They have been very slow growing, but most of them have yellow flowers on them right now. I am really hoping that the cool weather hasn't stunted their growth and that I can still get a decent harvest. I blame La Nina!

Okay, so I wanted to post on Tuesday, but...

Anyway, here in south-central Washington, weather has been crazy like many other places this year. Long, cool, wet spring. Hard on tomatoes!

So, without giving all the details, I have wound up with approximately 25 tomato plants. Most are in trenches growing up vertically, a few have cages (ran out of money for more trellises this year and don't plan to do this many again so didn't want to invest more!!) This has been by far the most difficult year to get them going. Yesterday one had a limp stem and I thought it might have been damaged; today when I went out, most of the plant has gone limp. All the ones around it are doing fine. I'm going back out to pull it and hope it's nothing contagious that the others may catch!! Another (different trench) has just been stunted all along, so I'm going to pull it out today.

I have several volunteers (not included in the count of 25) that I'm going to try to transplant where the above two are coming out. The volunteers are small, but very vigorous-looking and it will be interesting to see what they do.

It is strange to think it is July and still no tomatoes yet ready to eat. There are some that are coming on, and lots of blossoms, but it looks like it will be the end of the month before we get to start eating any.

I'm curious if anyone has used Mel's box for 8 tomatoes where the vertical poles are put in at an angle and then attached at the top? Can't remember what it is called!! I planted mine too far apart this year and they are taking up an inordinate amount of space, even with using trellises.

Next week I hope to have pictures and figure out how to upload them.

garden girl wrote:
It is strange to think it is July and still no tomatoes yet ready to eat. There are some that are coming on, and lots of blossoms, but it looks like it will be the end of the month before we get to start eating any.

Not strange at all for us in the N&C Midwest! I just found my first tomato blossom this morning! Just tell yourself "I'm having a South Dakota Garden this year!"

GG

It's been a while since I took pictures for Tomato Tuesday. Here is the update:


Roma (transplant), it hasn't grown much at all but it's producing a lot of tomatoes.


Roma's finally starting to turn red!


Early Girl (transplant) is growing like crazy! I have attempted pinching off but after a week long vacation it seemed pointless lol.


Early Girl (transplant given to me, started from seed)


Celebrity (also transplant someone else started from seed and gave to me) She's look really beautiful.

The rest are my tomatoes planted from seed direct outside. I lost one to a puppy paw, started to come back, then a few days later bugs ate it down to nothing :o( but the rest are looking great!

Sorry all the pictures are sideways... I hate editing

krazikandiland wrote:Sorry all the pictures are sideways... I hate editing

Lookin' good!

I've been eating tomatoes!! I have had tomatoes for two days now!! I got 4 total, 3 Roma's pictured above, and 1 early girl. I have a couple more that should be ready to devour by tomorrow.

Jealous!

Love the pictures! I took some of my 'maters this afternoon, but I haven't got them on the computer yet.



I am trying the suggestion to wash off the little buggies that are swarming over a few of my plants - with some reluctance because I've always been told not to get their leaves wet. Hopefully an occasional shower won't bother them. I also brought in a wheelbarrow of lovely home-made compost for them and watered it in good. Hoping they like it!!



Much to my dismay, I did not get labels on all my plants, and some got moved around, so I'm not sure as to what all I have. But finally everything is starting to put fruit on. We have enjoyed a few handfulls of both red and yellow/orange cherry tomatoes that have been delicious. Picked my first full sized one today - Early Girl, I think. Can't wait to eat it tomorrow!!!



Question - what do I do when my plants reach the top of the trellis and show no signs of slowing down? My uprights are about 5 feet and a couple of my plants have now reached the top. I can't stand the thought of stopping them now that they are finally growing after such a horrible start!

With a week of 90+ weather, my 'maters are finally starting to believe it is time to get to growing. hooray!! Some have topped out their trellises, so I have to figure a way to hook them to the trellises behind/in front to let them grow a bit longer.



Today I finally got to pick a cereal bowl sized picking of grape and cherry toms and I sat and ate them all by myself. (shh, my little secret!) There are more I can go out and pull for a nice big salad tonight.



For 25+ plants, it is still a meager harvest, but I see some color on the larger ones coming along. One I will pick for tonight, should be enough for at least one a day for the next few days. Hopefully they will all decide to ripen!



Some of the plants that were looking sickly earlier in the summer are looking strong now. So that is a good sign. The volunteers still look vigorous, but they aren't producing much - which is fine. I wasn't expecting anything at all, so if they come up with something before the end of the summer, that will be great.



The one tom planted in 100% homemade compost is still growing like crazy and producing a gazillion cherry-sized maters that are amazingly sweet and juicy. It has been really fun to see it taking off!



GG

Great job gg!! I meant to answer your question last week but kept forgetting. My answer would have be IDK, lol, so not helpful anyway. This is my first year doing indeterminate tomatoes and mine are just reaching the top of the trellis. I think your suppose to just wind them back downward but mine is pretty much taking over the whole thing already.

I have been picking a few tomatoes here and there, three today! (picture in 'what are you eating from your garden today') My grape tomatoes are starting to come in. They are one that I started from seed. A couple of my seed started tomatoes are starting to have little tomatoes, so I might actually get some from them!! Exciting. With this hot weather they are really loving it up.

Scary thing is happening. I think I might have gotten curl leaf. I'm not really sure because it doesn't look like it fits the description and it's only some of the tomato and my pepper. I'm scared to pull if it's not really curl leaf. :o(