Re: Tomato Tuesday Thread (N&C Midwest)..

[stripesmom]

Laura, your tomatoes will develop roots in your buckets of water just fine. Give them a couple of weeks and when they have nice root systems developed, plant them in some MM in containers so you can bring them in when it frosts if you want.

[laurainwinona]

Thanks, stripesmom! Maybe I'll learn to make tomato sauce this fall instead of next year. If not, maybe I can teach some of these Minnesotans about fried green tomatoes! Anyway, they all seem to be surviving so far!

[unmadecastle]

It has been so hot and humid here that I could almost watch my tomato plants grow this past week. My cherry tomato is over 5 ft tall now. Ther are a lot of tomatoes on this plant.

I also have 2 beef steak tomato plants. There are a lot of tomatoes on them now. I had been having a problem with tomato blossom drop but they seem to be over that. (Sorry about the hazy picture. UGH... the humidity!)









These are better boys. I have 3 of these plants and they are loaded with tomatoes too.

[nancy]

We found our first tomato hornworms last week. Bummer! But we did get this tonite:







Not sure which is which, but we're so happy!!

[BackyardBirdGardner]

I was so psyched up to take some pictures of my maters today. But, alas, by the time I got home, my wife had given most to her mother and she had the others prepped for lunch and dinner salads. So hard to get upset when you come home to meals.



So, I'll just have to tell you that we have over a dozen cherries, with more on the way. We HAD 4 supersteak/beefsteak tomatoes.....they were delicious.



Now, if I could just cool things off a bit and get the fruits to start setting again. I am beginning to wonder if the heat will ever break down hurrrrrrrrrrr.

[Goosegirl]

We found our first tomato hornworms last week. Bummer! But we did get this tonite:







Not sure which is which, but we're so happy!!

Nice haul!

GG

[Goosegirl]

Here are pics of what is happening. Taken last week, but I couldn't find my camera cord to upload the pics! (don't even say it.....)

Banana Legs



Manitoba



Purple Russian Mutt Cross





I have Septoria Leaf Spot, but it is confined to one box and so far is only on the very bottom leaves. Trim job and custom homemade fungicide to be administered tonight.

GG

[BackyardBirdGardner]

I can tell you I harvested only 6 cherries this entire week. That hot spell completely shut production down on my supersteak and beefsteaks. It will be weeks before I get more of them. But, the cherries and grapes keep coming.

[HouseofWool]

I am picking at least a dozen cherries every day. I have more of them than I can possibly handle since the main tomato eater in the house is out of town for a week and a half! The bigger ones are slowly ripening and I am getting very excited about my first batch of salsa that will be coming up soon.

[laurainwinona]

My Big Boy/Better Boy has two big toms on it and a few babies. I've been waiting for the big ones to get ripe, but I don't see any signs yet. I'm getting impatient to taste them! I've only ever had grocery store tomatoes...which could be why I thought I didn't like them. I won't have enough from one plant to make much, but two toms that were on branches that I trimmed when we got home from our trip got made into Fried Green Tomatoes. Yum!

[BackyardBirdGardner]

Update: After coming back inside, I noticed several more fruits have set on my steakies. YAY!

[JustMe]

The Green Zebra plant has one that should be ripe tomorrow. The Sugar Sweet plant has been producing for a few weeks.

I'm tempted to pull up the grape tomato plant. Everything that gets close to ripening splits. The tomato will be green one day, then the first blush of orange the next and it will split. I probably should yank it and plant some more lettuce as our temps are starting to cool down.

[westie42]

Interesting you have green zebras. I have a red zebra that has been producing for a month or more. The toms on it are a bit mushy so I don’t really like it too well even though the taste is mostly ok. Guess that is why we experiment. My 52 day early girls have just given me the first few ripe fruits and that is nearly two months later than usual. One of my purple toms that I lost the tag for is giving really delicious fruit now and scads of cherries are ready daily.

[Goosegirl]

Here's the garden as of this morning: Banana LegsManitoba

Purple Russian or Russian Big Roma Mutts - Color will tell eventually!

And Again

And finally - Goose Creek or Lemon Boy Mutt (again, time will tell what color it will be!)

Happy Tomato Tuesday to All!

GG

[BackyardBirdGardner]

I guess Mondays are "pickin' days" around here. I leave for the afternoon and come back to, "Daddy, I picked all your tomatoes for you today." Now, I can't get mad at my daughter for wanting to participate in the garden.....I'm cultivating her, too....lol.

So, once again, I don't have anything to show off. But, I can tell you she grabbed a bowlful of cherries and grapes, and the steak toms are growing again. My main problem will be with the big maters. They are literally 10 feet above the ground and flowering. They have surpassed my trellis by 2 feet! Now, how am I supposed to pick those? And, if they keep growing up? I'm gonna need a ladder!!

[tkdtara84]

I've had an awesome cherry/grape tomato haul this year, too. My husband loves them, but after three weeks of tomatoes in his lunch, he's finally tired of them. I found a great recipe for using them up, though. recipe link It's a pesto based on cherry tomatoes-- it was awesome.



I've also made a spaghetti sauce with my other tomatoes, but honestly it was a lot of work for not much of a taste difference, so I don't know if I'll go through all the trouble again. I think I'll just straight can the next ones.



I am having an issue, though. I planted a bunch of bush tomatoes without cages (no $$ at the time), and now I've bought a bunch. I tried putting htem on, but it's next to impossible. I'm still glad I bought them since I'll have them for next year, but does anyone have any tricks to caging them after a lot of growth? They're falling over and growing into each other with tomatoes laying on the ground. They're giving me killer production (even outperforming the indeterminate SFG ones-- these are just in the ground), so I hate to lose them to rot, but I don't really know what else to do with them. Anyone have any ideas?

[Goosegirl]

I staked some like that for a friend of mine. I just pushed 3 stakes in the ground around each plant - not right next to the stem, but out where I would have wanted the edge of the cage. Then I started at the bottom.tied on some cotton yarn, and slowly spiraled it around the plant and the stakes, carefully lifting the plant to get the yarn under it so that it would be contained in the center of the new 'cage'. Once I had them up, I trimmed some of the bottom branches to be able to reach in for the 'maters more easily. It seemed to work.

GG

[BackyardBirdGardner]

GG is right. Staking is the way to go now. But, like you said, you have the cages for next season.

[laurakay60]

My tomato plants have outgrown the cage and are going crazy covering around 9 squares and spilling over 2 sides (planted on a corner). They have set more fruit than I count and keep track of.... at least 50 tomatoes...but none of them are ripening. They are growing in size and the first ones I found are "normal" roma size now, but aren't turning red yet. Am I just impatient or am I doing something wrong?



All 4 plants are romas, which I thought are the type you don't have to prune, am I wrong?



I tried putting a pallet under some of the vines overflowing the edge so the tomatoes aren't sitting on the ground. Any other tips?



If these all end up ripening I'll be on tomato overload - should probably keep the canner out when I'm done with my pickles.

[Goosegirl]

I just counted my tomatoes on my 2 little determinates: Banana Legs - 37 green tomatoes; Manitoba - 34 green tomatoes. There are lots of other little green emeralds with 15 plants, but the indies have more sprawl and less fruit per vine right now - but they will keep me going longer in the season!

GG - who is looking forward to making some sauce!

[unmadecastle]

Our first (non cherry) tomato of the year. Boy was it good!!! This was a beef steak.

[unmadecastle]

Well it is hot and humid again today! Ugggggg............ (My windows are so wet outside from the humidity that I can't see out).

It is so hard to think that we can have a frost in as little as 3 weeks when it is this hot and humid. There were a lot more cherry tomatoes that I picked but they didn't make it to picture time.



We have not been keeping our tomatoes trimmed to one stem so tomorrow we are going out to lop the top the tomato plants (to stress them) and get rid of some leaves so things start ripening. We have had only 2 big tomatoes ripen. Things are so far behind here.

[BackyardBirdGardner]

That corn looks awesome!

I wish I could get a couple pics of the tomatoes. I have several fruiting again, but they are so far back in behind the bush/vine I can't get a pic. And, some of them are way in behind the cucumbers, too. It's a little frightening reaching your hand in there. Don't know what's gonna bite it.

[UnderTheBlackWalnut]

Ahhh...BBG...but the question is would it bite the hand that feeds it?

[Goosegirl]

Had the first blush of color change - then 3 days later it split from top to bottom! Ya think it might have something to do with 5+ inches of rain overnight in one of our storms followed by 90's for several days? We seem to be having a pattern here in SD: Big Drink, Broil, Big Drink, Broil, Big Drink, Broil.........



And then as Unmadecastle said, we could have frost in 3 weeks.....

GG

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