cjsm, thank you so much for the follow-up. I am hearing rather conflicting messages from different people though - my local nursery people told me to keep on watering, since this is a new tree and the root system is not well-developed yet. On the other hand, I hear what you are saying and the overwatering theory in clay soil (which I also have) definitely makes sense! I think I am going to stop watering it for a few days and see what happens. You know, it's hard when you see the leaves drooping in the strong afternoon sun and still not water it! At least it is getting cooler around here these days... BTW, cjsm, my tree was planted in a big planting hole on a slope, and I had plenty of cow manure and things amending the local clay soil, so I think I don't need to take it out to raise it more. I hope this does the trick! Thank you again for your info.

You wrote: "I make sure the soil is always moist" What soil? If that surrounding the rootball, it's not helping. If directly into the rootball, the stuff you added to the surface may be directing the water off and around the rootball. So, pull back the mulch and manure and check the moisture content of the rootball by sticking a finger an inch or two into it. Is it dry? Wet? Or moist?

Jay, If our temperature were to get as low as yours today, my overwintering tomato and peppers plants (and flowers) in the garage would freeze, so let's hope that doesn't happen. Woo hoo! I just checked the thermometer and we've made it up to 32 degrees. Now that it is up to freezing, let's see if it can make it up to 40 degrees. If we get up to 40 degrees, I'll drag the plants outside for a little sunlight. I had listened to Dr. Forbes' severe weather discussion on The Weather Channel the day before the tornadoes hit but I don't think it sank into my brain how closely it would start to Oklahoma. When I woke up yesterday, the tornadoes were occurring and the eastern edge of OK still had a tornado watch in effect until 8 a.m. Those storms were too close to some of our forum members for comfort! I'm glad your friends daughter was safe. I hope and pray we have a better weather year in 2011 because it sure seems like 2010 had a lot of really deadly weather. That's one thing about a country as big as ours...there's so many kinds of killer weather in various parts of the country....just about everything you can imagine. Having lived in TX and OK all my life, I share your belief that even in a "good" weather year, we'll still have our share of weather-related tragedies. The calmest weather years I can think of all had one thing in common....developing drought. When developing drought is occurring, we often have less rain and less humidity, so less flooding, lightning and tornado-related deaths. However, if the drought develops into a serious enough situation, we have wildfires which bring their own issues. One thing about the weather in the middle of the country...if you don't like it, it will change in about 5 minutes. Dawn

Hi Jeff! Hey, it is ONLY June. Those tomato plants could be 10' tall by August! Just to clarify, I always cage my tomatoes, AND I stake the cages AND the plants. Here is how I do it, and there are many other ways to do it as well. When I plant the tomato plant into the ground, I pound a 3' stake into the ground a couple of inches from the plant and loosely tie the plant to it with a zip-tie. This helps encourage the plant to stand up straight and tall as it begins to branch out rapidly....sometimes they get too heavy too fast and lean sideways a little. Secondly, I put the cage around the plant and stake the cage on 2 to 4 sides, depending on that variety's general rate of growth. The stakes help keep the cage from tipping over when we have a thunderstorm with very strong winds. I also attach the stakes to the cage with zip ties. I use zip ties a lot. After the tomato plant is a couple of feet tall, I cut the zip tie holding the plant to the original stake so the zip tie won't cut into the ever-enlarging main stem. If we are having a REALLY windy year, I run a bamboo stick or PVC pipe horizontally through several cages so they can help hold each other up. If a plant becomes a big monster and the cage is in imminent danger of tipping over, I add a 4' to 6' tall metal fence post as a stake on the side from which the wind usually blows, which for us in the summer is from the south. Sometimes, in spite of all you do, a cage will topple over anyway. That is where good mulching comes in. If your garden is well mulched, the toppled plant won't get a lot of foliar disease from the dirt. I am glad you enjoyed your first tomato. Home-grown ones are SO-O-O-O much better. You do know, don't you, that you shouldn't refrigerate homegrown tomatoes if you can avoid it? Once the homegrown tomatoes are refrigerated, their taste and texture both change and they are almost as bad as grocery store tomatoes. For fall tomatoes, you are at the mercy of whatever the stores have. There are some hybrid tomatoes that produce better in the heat, like Sunmaster, Sun Leaper, or Heat Wave II. Unfortunately, they were NOT bred for good flavor. I'd still go with ANY available heirloom, except Brandywine, which does not produce well in our heat. ANY cherry or paste tomato produces through the heat of the summer. I have had the best production in summer months from Better Boy, Big Boy, Bucks County, Porter, Beefmaster, Big Beef, Brandy Boy, Nebraska Wedding, Mule Team, Box Car Willie, Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, Arkansas Traveler, Bradley Pink, Lemon Boy, Super Boy (lots of tomatoes, but poor flavor), Fourth of July (same problem as Super Boy), and Celebrity as far as big tomatoes go. Well, Porter and 4th of July aren't big, but they are bigger than cherries. Among cherry/grape/currant tomatoes, these are my favorites for summertime/fall production: SunGold, SunSugar, Ildi, Black Cherry, Sweet Million, Orange Santa, Dr. Carolyn, Rosalita, Coyote and Snow White. Among paste tomatoes, almost any of them will produce in the heat. Some of our faves include Principe Borghese (for sun-dried tomatoes), Amish Paste, Orange Banana, Black Plum, Viva Italia, and San Marzano or San Marzano Redorta. Of course, my favorites tend to be different every time I type a list because there are so many good ones, and many produce better in the heat than I had expected. For me the ones that DON'T produce well in the heat are those that make really large beefsteak type tomatoes, generally those weighing in excess of a pound each. I never get very good fall tomatoes from large pink-fruited ones or from large bi-colored ones, altohugh Lucky Cross may prove to be the exception. Hi Hank, As a minimum container size for a single-staked indeterminate, it depends on the particular variety. Some indeterminates top out at 4' or so feet and could probably survive in a 5 to 10 gallon container as long as you water at least twice a day every day. I don't like to grow them in anything less than 10 to 20 gallon containers, and mine do best in 20 gallon or larger containers. No matter how large a tomato plant gets in the ground, it will always be smaller in a container where its roots are more confined. Container-grown plants need more frequent feeding as the constant watering leaches nutrients out of the soil. I have had NO LUCK staking container grown tomatoes. They really need to be caged. To keep them from blowing over, I put the cage on the ground with the container sitting inside the cage. I then stake the cage to the ground. It makes it impossible to move the plant around, but it keeps the container from blowing over when the wind blows. In my largest containers, the tomato plants hardly ever get taller than 7' or 8' tall. Often, they stay in the 4' to 5' tall range, depending on the variety and the container size. I just look at a 5 gallon bucket and estimate sizes of containers upward from there. Some of the best containers don't come from the garden center. Those square Rubbermaid-type storage totes make great containers if you drill or cut drainage holes into the bottoms of them. If you don't like the available colors, you can spray paint them with the Krylon Fusion spraypaint for plastics. Some of my favorite containers are 'muck buckets' sold at feed stores and farm and ranch stores. You can turn almost anything into a container if you put drainage holes in it. I know people who grow tomatoes in cheap 25 or 30 gallon trash cans. They fill the bottom half with shredded mulch and get put soil in the upper half. You can grow huge plants in containers that size. Dawn