First tomato!

Our first cherry tomato off the vine! Two more are turning yellow/red. The rest are taking their time. It's funny... I'm the one who wanted the tomatoes and my honey's the one cursing the tomatoes for being slow.

Hurrah!

I remember that feeling last summer. Now I have to wait thru the winter once again. Lucky you having a second growing season. Love the tomato.

Congrats! I've got lots of green ones on my fall planting, but nothing near ripe yet. All the fall 'maters are in buckets, so I can move them inside to our plastic greenhouse, to concentrate the heat when needed.

This isn't my second growing season. This is my first. And they were all started from seed. Two indoors and the other two or three in the ground itself. I want them all to ripen on the vine if at all possible before our first frost which I hope won't happen til muuuuch later.

I've grown tomatoes in the fall before - and it does extend the garden season. However, as the time for frost approaches, the days are cooler and the nights are cold - they ripen slowly and the taste becomes insipid. That's why I move them inside, where the temperature on a November day will often be around 80, and the cold nights are not so severe (we always store a lot of water buckets inside to help protect from frost).

Last year, we had fresh tomatoes until January 1. That night we had a hard freeze and lost all our plants. If I had heated the greenhouse that night, we probably would have had them until spring, but I had already decided that my goal was to extend the season, not to spend a lot of money on artificial heating.

Of course, last winter was exceptionally mild, with a number of frosts, but only that one night of hard freeze. In a more normal winter, we might not have fared as well. That was our first time to use the greenhouse as a fall harvest extender.

I'd love a greenhouse and I do worry about this coming winter. Last year was fairly mild, though my first in the desert. We can't afford much of anything fancy but I still tomato seeds so I can always try and plant them again if they die this winter. I hope not though. They've thrived when some haven't.

Lonewolf.....when I mentioned its your 2nd season, I meant the 2nd of this year. In Calif your seasons extend several months beyond many of us who only have about 4 months of growing time in total. You can start things in Jan or Feb and then again in the early fall for another season of warm-season growing. Lucky you.

Oh. Now I know. Thank you for explaining that.

Congratulations, especially since you planted from a seed!
Your first frost date is not until early December.

From plantmaps.com:
"Joshua Tree CA is in USDA Hardiness Zone 9a: 20F to 25F. ... The average first frost in 92252 is between December 1 - 10, while the average last frost occurs between February 21 - 28."

lol thanks. We're waiting for a few more to be ready before we nibble on them ourselves. and I think I'll make a note of that.

Thanks for sharing!!! Tomatoes are always the biggest payoff for better-than-supermarket taste in the garden. Congrats!

Yes! I can't wait to expand our garden!

The honey wants to try and stock up on garden soil this winter and some other seeds so we can really get big garden going. I can't wait!

My first is getting ripe as I type...it's a big ol' early girl that's about the size of a baseball. Can't wait!

Woohoo!!!!

and whodda thought that tomato worms were soft and squishy and make little clicky sounds.... o.o