Hi Carla
I am not an expert gardener or anything like close to growing as many tomatoes as Dawn but I have always had pretty good success with tomatoes.

The first thing I do is break up my garden soil good so that the soil is nice and loose. Then I add a little compost and mix it into the soil.

I dig a small trench for my tomato plants and I plant them on their side with only the top few inches above ground.
For example if the plant is about 12" tall I remove all the lower stems and leaves and when planted I leave only about the top 4 to 6 inches above ground. This works bettr with larger plants at least 12 inches tall.
This lets them get a strong root system in a short amount of time.
If you don't want to do the trench method or if you have smaller plants then you can just plant them deeper...taking off the lower leaves and plant them deep.

I mulch and cage mine real soon after planting. And if all goes well they just do really well.

You do need to watch for green horn worms which can take out a good sized tomato plant in a night.

Tomatoes like sun and good air circulation.

I also plant a few marigolds along with my tomatoes. It is supposed to help keep some of the pests off. I am not sure if it really helps but I do it from habit.

That is about all I do besides watching for things which like to eat them before I get to. And keeping them watered.

I know Dawn can probably give both of us some tips however and she may have better methods than me. This is how I was taught to plant them many years ago.

Good luck. There is nothing as good as a home grown tomato. Ummm I can't wait for my first one.
G.M.

Hi Carla!

Oh, girl, you know this question is right up my alley, so here goes.

I'm going to tell you how I do it. There are a lot of ways to do it, and I am not going to say my way is the best way, only that it works for me.

RAISED BEDS: Tomatoes like well-drained soil which can be hard to achieve in some parts of Oklahoma. I built raised beds in my vegetable garden, using plain old cheap 2" x 6" lumber for the beds. No treated lumber as the chemicals can leach into the soil and can be hazardous to your health. You can have raised beds simply by adding soil amendments and raking the soil into raised mounds or beds, but I use the boards to cut down on erosion.

IMPROVING THE SOIL: Clay soil, if you have it, needs a lot of improvement since it has little organic material or humus in the soil. To improve my clay, I have added the following amendments over the years (not all at once, of course): shredded oak leaves that I chopped up with the lawn mower, composted cow manure, homemade compost from my compost pile, greensand, lava sand, peat moss, old decomposed hay and a mixture of FINELY SHREDDED bark and humus sold at either Lowe's or Home Depot and called Soil Conditioner.

To improve your soil quickly, as a minimum either add peat moss or compost, cow manure (I prefer the Black Cow brand because it is 100% manure) and greensand if you can find it.

If you have sandy soil, you can add pretty much the same ingredients, but the sandier your soil is, the more of the peat moss or compost you will need to add.

How much you add is up to you. As a minimum I would try to add a couple of inches of oraganic material. Don't add big chunks of bark or they will tie up the nitrogen in your soil as they decompose.

Till this stuff into the soil if you have a rototiller. Otherwise you can mix it into the soil by hand. You should have a fluffy raised bed at this point.

FERTILIZER: I add an organic tomato fertilizer to the soil before planting, following the directions on the bag because different fertilizers are applied at different rates.

My favorite tomato fertilizer is Espoma Tomato-Tone (4-7-10) as it has the needed nutrients in the right proportions and also includes trace minerals like sulfur, boron, copper, iron, manganese, cobalt, zinc and molybdenum. The fertilizer itself has a wide variety of ingredients, including dehydrated manure, feather meal, cocoa meal, bone meal, cottonseed meal, dried blood, kelp meal, greensand, rock phosphate, ammonium sulfate and much more.

I don't know if you can find the Espoma products like Tomato Tone in your area. I get mine at a nursery in Southlake, Texas, that carries a wide variety of organic stuff (as well as the usual chemicals). Espoma has a website you can find via google that will tell you if anyone in your area carries their product. If no one in your area carries it, you can order it online and have it shipped to you. I get it in 4-lb. bags. I think it is the best tomato fertilizer around.

MIRACLE GROW: There is nothing inherently wrong with Miracle Grow if you choose to use it. But, be sure you use only the Miracle Grow that is formulated specifically for tomatoes. The all-purpose Miracle Grow will give you more foliage, but less tomatoes. Some tomato afficianados believe that Miracle Grow products give their tomatoes a metallic taste, but I can't say I ever noticed that back in the day when I used Miracle Grow.

CHOOSE HEALTHY TRANSPLANTS. When you buy your transplants, choose healthy-looking transplants that do not show visible foliar diseases.

If given a choice, I would choose a shorter tomato with a fat main stem over a taller tomato that has a thinner main stem.

Check the underside of the leaves for spider mites (tiny red dots that move) or aphids. I refuse to buy plants infested with mites or insects.

DISEASE RESISTANCE: If you have systemic diseases in your soil, buy tomatoes that indicate their disease resistance with letters showing what diseases they resist. For example, V indiciates resistance to verticillium wilt, F indicates resistance to strain 1 of fusarium wilt, N indicates nematode resistance, A indicates alternaria resistance, and T indicates resistance to Tobacco Mosaic Virus.

Some plants are resistant to multiple strains of diseases. So, some tomato plants may say something like:
Better Boy VFN, Celebrity VFFNT, Champion VFNT or Beefmaster VFN.

Heirloom plants tend to be open-pollinated plants and they are the 'orphans' of the tomato-growing world. Since no seed company owns exclusive patents on these plants, no seed company will do the costly testing to determine disease resistance. This doesn't meant that heirloom or open pollinated tomatoes have no disease resistance, just that no one has spent the money to prove it.

PLANTING: When you set your plants into the soil, plant them as deeply as you can, unless you have very heavy clay soil that is slow to warm up in the spring. I try to set my plants 6" to 8" down into the soil if I can. Why? Tomato plants will form new roots along that stem and those extra roots will give you stronger, faster-growing plants in the long run. Water them in to settle the soil in snugly around the roots.

MULCHING: Mulching helps maintain soil moisture and keeps down weeds. Early in the spring, you may not want to mulch heavily, if at all, until the soil has warmed up a bit. If you apply a heavy mulch early, it can keep the soil cool and actually slow down growth. You should add 2" to 6" of mulch before the June heat arrives though, or even add it in May if May is a hotter than average month.

WATERING: Tomatoes grow best when water is applied at an even rate. If you let them get too dry and then water heavily that can cause stress on the plant. Uneven watering can lead to blossom end rot, too. Excessive water dilutes the taste of the tomatoes and can cause cracking. It is best to use soaker hoses or drip irrigation to water your tomato plants. Every time water touches the foliage of those plants you increase your chance of having foliar diseases occur.

SUNSHINE: Tomatoes grow best in full sun, meaning at least 6 to 8 hours of direct sun each day. My tomatoes are truly in full sun, and probably get at least 12 hours of sun a day during the long summer days. I don't think you'll get any fruit if they get less than 6 hours of sun per day.

TOMATO HORNWORMS: The greatest dilemma a gardener will face is what to do about those great big green tomato hornworms. If you choose, you may handpick them from your plants and dispose of them in any way you see fit. If you choose, you may use BT on your tomato plants and the Bt will kill them for you. If you choose, you may release tiny parasitic wasps which will parasitize the hornworms and kill them. It is up to you. I choose to do none of the above because we love the large hummingbird moths that the hornworms eventually turn into. Also, anything you put in your garden to kill the hornworms can kill every other butterfly and moth that enters your garden. I am willing to put up with hornworm damage in order to have butterflies and moths in general, and in order to have the hummingbird moths in particular. You have to decide on the method you will use and do whatever is best for you.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING: This paragraph contains the most important tomato information you need to know. The onset of flowering and fruiting is temperature-based. For maximum fruit set and the highest possible yields, your tomatoes must bloom BEFORE nighttime temperatures regularly exceed 75 degrees and BEFORE daytime temperatures regularly exceed 92 degrees. Sometimes it seems like this important window of opportunity is a very narrow time frame. That is the reason you plant transplants as soon as possible after the average last freeze date. Tomatoes that are planted too early and which bloom while the daytime high temps are less than 55 degrees will shed their blooms without setting fruit. By the way, these temperatures do not apply to cherry tomatoes or to most paste tomatoes which is they continue fruiting in the heat of the summer.

VARIETY SELECTION:

My favorite hybrid tomatoes include: Better Boy, Porter, Sweet Million and Sweet 100 (both are cherry tomatoes), Champion, Carnival, Super Fantastic, Celebrity and Brandy Boy (bred from Brandywine--same great flavor but much improved production). SunGold and SunSugar are my favorite golden-orange cherries but I've never seen them available commercially as transplants and I don't know why.

My favorite heirloom tomatoes that are generally available as commercially grown transplants include: Brandywine, Black Krim, Box Car Willie, Mule Team, Cherokee Purple, Aunt Ginny's Purple, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Arkansas Traveler and Bradley Pink.

If you have your heart set on heirlooms this year and can't find transplants locally, you can do the following:

Order online from Darrel Jones at SelectedPlants.com or from Laurel's Heirloom Tomatoes (Heirloomtomatoplants.com, I think.) Or, go to the Farmer's Market in OKC and look for the booth of Robert Stelle's Sunrise Acres farm. They usually have dozens of varieties of heirloom and hybrid tomato plnts at the farmer's market each weekend.

Carla, you know that I could write forever about my favorite crop. If you have more questions, ask me!

Dawn

Dawn and Carla
Wow once again I am impressed with Dawn. That gal knows her stuff! I think I am going to find her this summer just so I can get a look at all of her tomatoes! But to see all her other growing things as well. I am sure it is sight to behold. I feel like I am reading info from one of the popular gardeners web sites or watching them on TV when I read her posts on here.

I never knew for sure what a tomato horn worm turned out to be, I just knew it did not survive if I found it on my plants! I hand pick them and a couple of years ago I found an entire colony of them on my tomatoes. I even found some on my flowers in a flower bed. They did not live to turn into anything.....ugh.

Dawn if you read this would you describe the Arkansas Traveler tomato? I believe this is the kind we used to grow at home when I was a kid and also I think I have grown this type years ago when I was a newbie at gardening. Whatever I grew was fantastic. It was loaded all summer with medium sized tasty, juicy tomatoes. I even had one come up volunteer in a raised flower bed with a rose bush once, I left it there and that was the best tomato plant I have ever had to this day. lol

Dawn I would love some tips on getting the larger tomato varieties to bear well. I have been, up to this year, planting some smaller grape or cherry tomotoes along with the larger fruited ones but this year I plan to only go for the large ones. I have trouble with them as they do not produce as well as the smaller varities. Perhaps you could give me some advice on that. Since I have dug up my plants over the weekend and have not put them back into the ground I don't know how it is going to work out. I may have to buy new plants. I was planning to plant Better Boy and I forget what the other one was, I only had two varieties. I want mostly the larger slicing tomatoes.
The past few years we have had tons of the smaller grape sized ones and I get tired of picking them...hahaha. There are too many for us and I end up giving away bags and bags of them until everyone refuses them anymore. We also had the regular cherry type ones last summer but I like the big ones best. I like the kind which have lots of the soft juicy seed areas inside....hahaha. Not the ones with a solid meat.

Also I am really curious at this point as to what kind of tomato harvest we can expect this year with this cool weather. I can't recall ever not having my tomatoes in the ground by this time and I can't recall just when we have had such unseasonably cool temps at this time of year.

I actually told my DH last night that if the temps don't get up soon the trees and shrubs may all think it is fall and start their leaves changing colors or dropping leaves. I have already noticed my crape myrtles almost all have reddish colored leaves on them and my birch tree has some yellowish looking leaves. I am watching it closely to see what is happening with it. It lost a large limb during the ice storm in January but seems to be okay. Okay I will go before I get off topic again.

There may be a thread somewhere in this forum in which you have already posted this type of info Dawn...if so you could just refer me to it instead of you having to go to the trouble to do it again. I truly appreciate you.

Carla good luck with the tomatoes.
Ummm nothing tastes better than the first bite of a good home grown tomato.

G.M.

G. M.,

Thank you so much for your kind words. Having grown tomatoes (with my dad) since I was a small child, I love to be able to share what I have learned over the course of my entire lifetime.

The problem with my love of growing tomatoes (and other fruits and vegetables as well) is that I often devote so much time to the veggies that everything else in my landscape is very neglected at times. So, one of my goals for this year is to give more time to the rest of the 'yard'.

ARKANSAS TRAVELER:

Arkansas Traveler is a pinkish-red tomato that bears fruit that is usually 6 to 8 oz. and which is very tasty. The hotter the weather gets, the smaller the fruit is, but that is fairly normal for our climate. This is a very dependable tomato variety that tolerates our high heat and fluctuating humidity levels.

You seldom experience the fruit cracking after hard rains or periods of extremely high humidity and it has a lot of resistance to the common foliar diseases that so often affect our plants here. Sometimes I see a little bit of catfacing on fruit that forms early in the season when it is still quite cool, but that is common on many tomato varieties in the same circumstances.

TRAVELER'S HISTORY:

This is a 'controversial' tomato in the tomato-growing world where people are very serious about the heritage of each and every known tomato variety. Many people believe that the tomato we now grow under the 'Arkansas Traveler' name is not the same tomato known by that name in Arkansas in the 1920s and 1930s. Some people believe the one we grow now is actually the Traveler Tomato developed in the 1960s/70s at the University of Arkansas. The Traveler Tomato was bred by Dr. McFerren who also bred and developed the pink Bradley tomato in the late 50s and early 60s. It is believed that Traveler was bred to be an improvement of Bradley.

PLANT CHARACTERISTICS: It is a regular-leaved indeterminate tomato that produces ripe fruit for me about 70-80 days after it is transplanted. It can take a lot of neglect. The fruit is just your typical round, slicing tomato type. The skin is a pinkish-red. (Tomatoes known as pink tomatoes are not a pastel pink or a bubble-gun pink, just a reddish-pink that is completely different from the deep red of some tomatoes.) It is good for fresh eating and for canning. I have heard some people describe them as thick-skinned, but can't say I've observed that myself. However, any plant grown in our heat can form a thicker skin than it usually has in milder climates.

You can almost always find Arkansas Traveler (and Bradley Pink) at the Lowe's in Ardmore, although sometimes it seems to be there a little later than some of the other varieties.

THE SECRET TO GETTING LARGE-FRUITED TOMATOES TO FORM FRUIT AND BEAR WELL IN OUR CLIMATE? Oh, I don't know if it is anything more than just pure luck. Some years I get a great crop of larger fruit and some years I don't. I think it is highly variable and very dependent on weather conditions. I also think that, if your soil has a lot of organic material added to it, and you use a good tomato fertilizer, you increase your chances of having good production on large-fruited plants.

Here, though, are some tips that I think will help you get larger fruited plants to bear well.

1. Accept that the larger fruited plants will never produce extremely heavy yields here like they would, say, in the tomato-producing regions of California or in a milder summer climate like that in Pennsylvania.

2. Planting at the proper time is most important. It all goes back to that window of opportunity when the nighttime temps exceed 75 degrees and the daytime temps are 92 degrees or lower. The larger-fruiting tomatoes need to form their fruit during that period of idea temps. Thus, in a year when the days stay in the lower 90s longer, you will get more large tomatoes. In a year when the nights get HOT fast and the days do too, you will get less.

3. Mulching helps as it keeps soil temps cool.

4. Being EXTREMELY careful to avoid overfertilizing helps. If you overfertilize, you will have tons of foliage and less fruit. Is there anything more depressing than having beautiful plants that don't bear very many fruit? For that reason, my tomato plants only get fertilizer that is specifically formulated for tomatoes. A lot of people feed their tomatoes an all-purpose plant food which really gives them foliage at the expense of the fruit.

5. OVERWATERING reduces both the amount of fruit you get and the quality/flavor of that fruit. Think about it. Tomatoes are descendants of weeds. Weeds grow, and in fact thrive, in less than ideal conditions. And, why do plants produce seed???? Why, to perpetuate their species.

When do tomatoes produce the most seed? When they feel their own lives are in danger and they know they must set seed for a new generation. Thus, plants that have a cushy, easy life produce less fruit, I think, than those that have to struggle a bit. So, I try to keep my plants slightly hungry (or, at least, not overfed) and slightly thirsty (not enough to wilt, but enough to make them think that life is hard, they might die, and they'd better get busy making seed via their fruit).

I have the worst production on my large-fruited tomato plants in an excessively wet year, like we had in 2004 when over 12" of rain fell in Love County just in June. My tomato production and flavor were awful after all that rain.

Conversely, I have the best production and flavor in a typcially dry, drought-like year EXCEPT during the absolute worst drought years like last year. My tomatoes were the best ever last year, in terms of production and flavor from late April to mid-June. After that, with our heat and lack of rain, it was hard to keep them alive at all.

6. One reason the large-fruited tomatoes bear less fruit is that they are smart enough to know they have already set some fruit. Thus, they slack off as that fruit grows and ripens. Pick the fruit, though, and they get a signal to make more fruit. So, on the large-fruited varieties, I pick the tomatoes when they have their first blush of pink skin. I let them ripen on the counter. Do they taste as good when they ripen on the counter instead of ripening on the vine? Well, no. But they are still at least a hundred times better than grocery store tomatoes.

7. I usually stay away from most of the plants that are supposed to produce extra-large fruit, like most of the Brandywines (low productivity no matter what I do), Mortgage Lifter (moderate productivity and good flavor, but not as big for me as for growers in milder climaes), Big Zac (is big, no flavor for me), Delicious (also big fruit with little flavor) and Omar's Lebanese (thought it would like our climate, it didn't).

8. I also usually stay away from the large pink-fruited tomatoes of German descent. They have never done well for me, having all sorts of disease problems, few fruit and only average, or worse-than-average flavor.

9. I also tend to avoid the plants that produce huge bi-colored fruit. In the past I have been disappointed in the quantity of fruit they set and in its flavor. This year, though, I am trying a couple that are new to me. One is Black Pineapple, which actually produces a fruit that is NOT black, just a mottled green/red/yellow.

I am very excited about another one--Lucky Cross, which is a cross originally from Craig Lehoullier's garden in North Carolina. It has gotten rave reviews from tomato afficianados and his climate is quite similar to ours, so I have high hopes for this one.

I am trying many large-fruited ones that are new to me this year, as I am always searching for large-fruited plants I can count on. And, although they do not produce the largest fruits, Cherokee Purple, Earl's Faux, Brandy Boy and Black Krim are about as good as it gets for larger-type fruit in our climate. Better Boy, Beefmaster, and Big Boy are not far behind.

Nebraska Wedding is a great one, meatier than most, and just delicious on BLT sandwiches. Everyone who tries this tomato asks for more. I can't grow enough of them to keep all our friends and family happy. It produces all summer long even if I plant it late or neglect it.

Sorry. Know I rambled on and on. And, all this talk of tomatoes is making me crave a BLT, and I am at least a month away, I think, from having a ripe tomato, because the cold has slowed down the growth of the tomato fruits already on the vine. :D

Dawn

Dawn
I don't usually fertilize at all and have assumed that is part of why I don't get better yields. Of course as you say many factors are totally out of our control anyway. But I knew if I used the wrong thing I would just get bigger prettier plants but not more tomatoes.
What kind of food do you use?

I was just astonished at what you wrote about over watering...girl I would NEVER have thought of any thing like that but it does make sense. Of course, yes, those years when we get so much rainfall it just about destroys the tomato crop if not the plant as well. We had a very wet summer in 2002 for sure. Can't remember 2004 and I should because that is the first year we put in the raised beds I think.
But I never thought about the plant needing to struggle in order for it to make fruit! What an interesting thought that is. And I am always babying them. Okay, so they like it rough? then this year abuse is key....LOL.

Another thought you gave me is that if I pick my tomatoes sooner then perhaps the birds won't get them before I do. I have had to resort to picking sooner than I wanted and could not let them get very red or those darned birds would get them. Oh and by the way. I went to the Homeland dollar store today and got some fake tomatoes and peaches to try out on the birds. Here is hoping that will work. Thanks for the ideas on that.

I have never even heard all the varieties of tomatoes you wrote about...lol. I don't get those seed catologs in the mail...I just go buy a few plants and plant them and see what happens. I am amazed at all your knowledge once again.

I know what you mean about talking about them making your mouth water for some. I keep eyeing the tomatoes at the store but I know there is no use in buying them. ugh. So I will just have more patience.

One question I have is: if the best temperature to plant is 75 night temps then what is going to happen to all the plants which you have planted already as well as others who went ahead and planted? I still have mine in pots and not back in the ground yet. I am going to try to wait a bit and see how the weather goes if I can before planting them again.

I will hang on to all this info and once again thank you so much!
Have a great evening.
Hey by the way guess what I see outside? SUNSHINE! I had almost forgotten what it looked like....lol. And it looks and feels wonderful. I sure hope it hangs around this time.
G. M.

G.M.,

If you go back up a couple of posts on this thread to the long answer I wrote in reply to Carla, there's a couple of paragraphs on fertilizer, including my favorite one, Espoma Tomato-Tone.

I have to admit that my all-time biggest gardening crime is that I used to really, really, really overwater and overfertilize my tomatoes. I had the most gorgeous, huge, 9' and 10' tall plants, and not a whole lot of fruit, all things considered. In an effort to correct that situation, I began to read and research and talk to other tomato maniacs, and finally became convinced I was overdoing the food and water for the plants.

I cut back and cut back and cut back and cut back on both water and fertilizer, sure I would destroy my plants and crops. I didn't. I had the best crop ever after a few years of experimenting to figure out how much was "enough" without being "too much". As a bonus, my pest and disease problems decreased by about 60% to 80%. I feel like I finally hit upon the right combination of food and water about 5 or 6 years ago, and have been a very happy camper ever since.

As far as keeping the birds away, a friend of mine made me two steel scarecrows and they work pretty well. I like to hang real clothes on them periodically, especially things like floppy hats or scarves that blow in the breeze. You have to move the scarecrows around every now and then, but that's OK.

I hope your fake fruit and veggies work. Keep me posted.

It isn't that the best temp to plant is 75 degrees at night, it is that the flowers don't reliably set fruit until it is 75 degrees or warmer at night. So, your plants and mine are fine. And, they will set some fruit before the nights reach 75 degrees, but they just go nuts after the nights get that warm.

About 25% of my plants are fruiting and flowering now, and our nights haven't hit 75 degrees at night yet, have they? So, remember that all these things we know from tomato researchers are applicable in general to plants but that individual plants are just like people, they do what they want to do.

When the sun came out, I went outside for about an hour and thinned the fruit on the lower branches of one of my peach trees. Tomorrow I will get out the ladder and do the upper branches. I must have removed about 300 tiny peaches so far. It is amazing how much fruit set this year. I hate thinning.....but would rather have 100 big, fat, ripe, juicy peaches than 500 tiny, pitifully small ones.

Then I came inside and made a cobbler (mixed frozen berries). While the fruit was boiling down for the cobbler, I made dinner, cleaned the kitchen and folded laundry.

Your county, mine and a few others are under a Severe Thunderstorm Watch until 10 p.m., and we do have clouds approaching us now from the west.

Have a great evening, too. I'll be watching American Idol with my family as we ponder one of the Great Mysteries of Life: How is Sanjaya still in the competition?

Later!

Dawn

WOW this thread is so informative!
I sure hope to find some Espoma Tomato-Tone.
I think I will be much more prepared to replant after reading this!
Thank you Dawn and Merryheart!

Good morning ya'll!
Here is hoping for some warm temps and sunshine today! Right?

Dawn-
I have usually waited to water until the soil is pretty dry around my tomatoes. If it feels damp when I poke my finger in around them I usually wait a day or so. And when I do water I try to go ahead and give them a good drink like I do other plants. What do you think?

I will look for the tomato food you have mentioned. They seem to do okay about the first third of the season...then when it gets pretty hot they slow down producing or growing plant...so I just try to keep them going through that in order to get some green tomatoes (and a few more ripe ones too) in the fall. They to start growing and producing again when it cools off some.

We love fried green tomatoes. I also add them to some types of stir fried veggies. We like potatoes, green tomatoes, onions and squash all fried together....hahaha. I even add okra if I have it but okra is not something DH or son either one likes...haha. I love it!

Sorry I was confused by the temp thing in one of the earlier posts. I wasn't thinking of it as that is when they will bloom and set fruit the best. I had planting on my mind...as I have said...I can be a little slow....haha.

It should be getting warm soon...I just don't even like to be outside much unless it is over 70. I am one cold natured gal. I am in layers and coats when others are out in shorts and t shirts. It is disgusting since I love to be outdoors so much.

Wow 300 baby peaches off ONE TREE! Oh my gosh. Your trees must be pretty large. I will need to do some thinning of my peaches too. I was looking a day or so ago and some are in clusters...haha. I don't know what it is that they have liked so much but they seem to be bearing well this spring. Now if I can get mine to survive until I get to harvest them I will be THRILLED. My peach tree is a Loring. They are my fav but I also love the Red....???? is it Red Ranger? Not sure now.

We drive up to Strattford and buy peaches when there is a good season. With only one young tree right now we don't get enough to do anything with. Last year we got ONE peach. ONE!!! and we had to fight the birds for that one...hahaha.

I have a friend over near the Duncan area who went to her cellar last night and she said it was hailing real hard. I can't recall if she said how large the hail was. Dime size I think.
Those storms which come out of the NW can be bad ones...I have noticed they are sometimes much worse than our normal ones which come from the SW. Of course you are living about 30 miles further south than me so yours may come more from due west?

Well aren't I chatty this morning? lol. I got up way too early with my back hurting too much to stay in bed longer.

I am getting a hair cut today and sort of concerned as to how that will turn out...hahaha. I just want it to be EASY but look a little bit decent.

I have not watched American Idol in the last couple of weeks but I also wonder why and how Sanjaya stays in..LOL LOL. He seems to try something different each week...Like the horrible hair that one week...haha.

Ah I need more coffee...see ya'll later.
G. M.

Hi Carla!

I have never found Tomato-Tone anywhere in Oklahoma, so I get my DH to pick it up for me in the D-FW area after he gets off work. It may be somewhere in Oklahoma or Arkansas, but I haven't seen it.

You can go to their website which I've linked below and search for a dealer near you. Or you can google and find ways to order it online. It is just such a good product, and I think it is worth the trouble to have a solid organic product that is good for your garden. Before I started using Tomato-Tone, I used the Rabbit Hill Farms tomato fertiizer, which I also had to purchase at an organic nursery in Texas. Most of the stores in my area don't have a big selection (if any at all) of organic gardening products. The one exception is Bluebonnet Feed in Ardmore which has some organic stuff.

Good Morning, G.M.!

WATERING: I try to water my tomatoes deeply once a week with the soaker hose, letting it run slowly for a long time so the soil is wet down to a depth of six to eight inches. I don't water again until the soil is almost completely dry.
This forces the roots to go way down deep looking for water.
Sometimes, when we start hitting the temps in excess of 100 degrees, I have to increase it to twice a week.

SUMMER HEAT SLOWDOWN: Everyone who grows tomatoes in regions of the country with hot summers has the same problems with tomatoes slowing down production during the heat of the summer. It all goes back to the plants forming flowers and fruit when nights are warmer than 75 but days are lower than 92 degrees. By June of most years we are already beyond that little weather window. Once the daytime highs are over 92, little new fruit forms. I'm not saying no fruit forms, but just that there isn't much of it forming. And think about how long we tend to stay above 92 degrees once we get there!

WAYS TO BEAT THE HEAT:

1. By planting tons of cherry, pear, grape, and plum tomatoes. This year I am growing about 25 varieties of the smaller tomatoes, with about 2/3s of them being cherry, grape or pear types and 1/3 being plum/paste types.

Yes, picking all those little tomatoes gets old quick. But I like to dry them for winter time. The little cherry and grape tomatoes can be dried and then eaten like raisins. The plum and paste tomatoes can be dried and used as sun-dried tomatoes in cooking.

I just love, love, love sitting down to have a big dinner salad that has bite-sized cherry and grape tomatoes that are red, orange, yellow, green, black, brown, white, pink, purple and bi-colored. It makes a GORGEOUS and TASTY salad. Also, since I garden organically I eat handfuls of the little 'maters all the time while working in the garden.

2. I plant certain varieties that have a reputation for 'producing all summer'. They may not produce as heavily all summer long here as they do in cooler climates, but they do produce more than the 'average' tomatoes. These include: Arkansas Traveler, Bradley Pink, Homestead 24, Mule Team, Box Car Willie, Nebraska Wedding, Earl's Faux, Cherokee Purple (slows down production, but doesn't completely stop), Better Boy, Celebrity, Super Fantastic, Carnival, and Champion. Some of these should be available locally, although you can only get Nebraska Wedding and Earl's Faux by raising them from seed.

3. After the main crop of tomatoes is harvested, (and for me this is usually in very late June since I plant early, but for a lot of people it is often mid-July,) I cut back my plants to about 12" to 18" tall. Then I give them ONE feeding of a high-nitrogen lawn fertilizer to stimulate growth, since they won't be making fruit for a while. I water them probably twice a week during this time frame, pushing them hard to re-grow so they will make fall tomatoes. Cutting them back seems to re-invigorate them most of the time.

By mid-August they are bushy and full, having re-grown substantially, and are ready to bloom and set fruit just as soon as the tempertures drop a little. With any luck, and as long as we don't have a really early first fall frost, they will produce a lot of tomatoes in the fall.

I usually have so many fall tomatoes that I pick and send a bushel or two of green ones to one of DH's co-workers who loves fried green tomatoes.

4. At the same time that I am cutting back the tomatoes for fall, I am ruthlessly removing any that have a serious disease problem, which in my garden tends to be Early Blight, although the reformation of my watering and feeding practices has significantly reduced this problem.

5. I then replace the removed tomatoes with 'fall tomatoes' that I started from seed in mid-May. Generally these are the poor-tasting ones that have been bred to produce in spite of the heat, like Sun Master, Heat Wave, Surefire, etc. I am not happy with the way they taste in comparison to the main crop of tomatoes, but they are still better than store tomatoes. This year I am going to try a couple of ones that are new (to me) in the never-ending search for a heat-producer with good flavor.

6. Also new for me this year, along with the fall tomatoes I will be planting several of the long-keeper types like Red October and Long Keeper. I haven't tried these before. Supposedly, you can harvest them while they are still green in the fall, store them in cool, dry location like a basement or tornado shelter, and they will ripen slowly over a period of up to 12 or 16 weeks. I'm a little skeptical about whether they will be any good for eating, but won't know unless I try.

FRIED GREEN TOMATOES: While these aren't real high on my list, I make them every now and then. I really tend to avoid fried foods since DH has high cholesterol. I do have a recipe I found in a magazine recently that is for Fried Green Tomato Sandwiches, which are basically BLTs but with fried green tomatoes and a spicy dressing. I'm looking forward to trying that one this summer.

OUR WEATHER: Like you, I like the warm weather and hate it when it is chilly. Our days are looking better for the rest of the week, but the weekend lows will be near 40. I want the March weather back, with its highs in the 80s and lows in the 60s!!!! Today looks like my best day to get out and do stuff in the yard and garden because the other days may be stormy.

PEACHES: My oldest peach tree is about 7 years old. I do prune it, but not as much as I should so it is getting pretty tall. I suspect I will have to remove another 300 or more baby peaches today. It seems like practically every flower that bloomed made fruit. It is a Red Haven, I think, or maybe it is Ranger. I can't remember.

I do have a smaller peach tree that is producing its first big crop this year if all goes well. It is a Ranger and we planted it in 2003. It was a Wal-Mart clearance special and was a pitiful-looking Charlie Brown Christmas Tree type of plant. I think it was about 2 feet tall and the trunk had been snapped in half. We rescued it, brought it home and planted it. During that first winter the deer (or some other really large wildlife) stepped on it and broke it off at the ground. After it regrew, I was worried it wouldn't be a fruiting tree anymore, fearing it had grown back from the rootstock. Then, last year it produced 3 peaches. This year it will probably have 40 or so by the time I am done with the thinning.

BAD WEATHER: It seems like our worst violent weather does indeed come almost straight out of the west, generally coming at us from the Muenster/St. Jo/Nocona part of Montague County in Texas. It doesn't usually come right at US though.

It usually crosses from Texas into Oklahoma in western Love County near Leon and Courtney. When that happens, we often have hail and the occasional tornado that seems to travel right up Hwy 32 straight towards Marietta. The usual path the thunderstorms/tornadoes follow is to veer off 32 and head towards Hickory Creek and Lake Murray right before they reach the town of Marietta. Two of the three tornadoes we've had since moving here followed exactly that path, and many violent Thunderstorms with hail have done the same thing.

THE THACKERVILLE TORNADO: Last year, though, we had one cross the Red River from the Lindsey, TX, area west of Gainesville and it came right through Thackerville. Although rotation was observed and minor damage was done, I don't believe the funnel cloud ever touched down in Thackerville. Everyone had a pretty good scare, though, and some people had a lot of wind damage.

Sorry to hear your back is hurting. I hope the pain goes away. Enjoy your haircut. I like a hairstyle that is easy too. Of course, in the spring and summer I try to wear hats for sun and heat protection, so no one sees much of my hair then.

AMERICAN IDOL: American Idol was just pathetic last night. It was the worst AI I've ever seen. Literally any one of them could be voted off tonight and they all deserve it, based on last night's performances.

I think the bottom three probably will be Phil, Haley and Chris.

Haley should be the one to go home, as these last three or four weeks it is clear that she has decided to try to win by wearing miniskirts and hot pants and showing lots of cleavage. Simon called her on that last night and reminded her that it was a SINGING competition. It was great to hear him say what we've all been thinking about her dress and sleezy on-stage behavior lately.

The saddest thing about AI last night was that everyone was so horrible that Sanjaya actually seemed half-decent, and that's a scarey thought! Of course, he sang in Spanish, so I have no idea what he was singing, but he seemed pretty much on key and had another new haircut. Shorter and curlier. This season just doesn't compare to last season at all.

Well, I need to get outside to the garden and see what I can accomplish today before the weather worsens tomorrow.

Talk to you later,

Dawn

I forgot to post the link for Espoma tomato food, and thought of it as I was posting it on another thread for Jeff. Here it is.

And, no, I don't work for Espoma in any way and have no financial interest in the company. AND, I originally learned about Espoma a few years ago from the good folks over on the Tomato Forum.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Espoma Tomato-Tone Plant Fertilizer

Hi everyone. Hello Dawnn.
I did get my hair cut much shorter and am letting it be curly again. I have naturally curly/frizzy hair but have been wearing it in a straight bob for several years. I decided i had enough of that so went with shorter,layered and curly again. I am 53 so I need all the help I can get!

Then I had to take my tiny toy poodle to the vet for her annual exam and shots. After that I stopped at Lowes to look for guess what? a plant of course...the sweet potato plant,which they didn't have. But they did have half price frost damaged plants...hahaha. So I bought some. Not a lot...but I got a pot of Gailllardia, two pots of Mexican Heather, a Lantana, several 4.5 inch pots of petunias and a 6 pack of begonias. I dug through the plants to find the best looking and the Mexican Heather I got looks fine like no damage visisble on it at all. The rest will be fine...so that was a lucky break for me...haha.

Dawn, in your post you answered a question I have wondered about for a long time now and never had found anyone who could answer it. Pruning the tomato plants after the first part of the growing season. I will certainly be trying that this year. My plants get so tall and all over the place and bearing anyway so I have thought many times about pruning. Have in fact done some light pruning just to see what would happen but never cutting them back that much. I can't wait to try that!

I looked up the link for the tomato food and sure enough you are right...only in Texas...north Dallas area. I will check with the place we used to buy our lawn fertizer from and see if he sells anything organic...or Bluebonnet or Key's feed store. To see what they have.
Is fish emulsion any good for tomatoes I wonder? I use it for some flowers. I would never use it on tomatoes as I sure did't want them to taste fishy....lol lol.

Umm I just bet those are some gorgeous looking salads you make with all those little colored tomatoes in it. How interesting. I will not be one bit surprised if some volunteer grape tomatoes or cherry ones come up my garden this year. They did last year and I had to pull them out. So perhaps if I get any coming up I will see if I have space enough to keep them. I just don't really care all that much for the small tomatoes anymore. Too much peel and not enough fruit. My tastes have changed a lot. Look out it happens over 50....lol.

Yes the Ranger peach may be the other i like besides Loring. I can't remember now if it is Ranger or Red something? could be Red Haven. It is a variety one of the orchards up at Stratford was growing and I remembered the name for a long time. But all of them are great tasting.

Our bad weather normally comes from down around Wichita Falls and then goes toward the northeast so comes to us from the SW. And when we get something from the NW it is normally pretty rough. One of the worst non tornado storms came from the NW and it was mighty spooky I tell you. We had no power for two days and no water. Our fence blew down and it sounded for 2 hours and 20 minutes like teh roof was going to blow off and i don't mean just shingles I mean the entire roof. It snapped utility poles out on the truck by pass...it was bad. We couldn't even get a cup of coffee or breakfast at the fast food places next morning as no one had water...hahaha. That might have been 2001, or perhaps 2002.

The worst I have seen here at Ardmore was the 1995 tornado which damaged the Michelin plant so badly and wiped out one of the large housing areas out by Plainview school. My DH narrowly escaped being there during that one. No one was hurt at the plant but all the vehicles were totally demolished. It blew every window out of every single car in the parking lot. Turned over all the trucks and even rolled some of the box cars from the trains.

Hey the American Idol hopefulls must be doing a bad job if Sanjaya was good in comparison....hahaha. I guess I was getting sort of disgusted and that is why I have not watched it lately. But I am not much into the reality shows anyway.

The Fried Green Tomato sandwiches you mentioned....do they also have bacon? Ummm with or without the bacon it sounds wonderful. I am hungry for home grown veggies period.

Well I need to go and look at the news so I can see how much they have changed the weather reports....haha.

Have a great evening.
G. M.

G.M.,

I have used fish emulsion on tomato plants and liquid seaweed as well, and I have never noticed any fishiness in the taste of the tomatoes. HOWEVER, if you have any cats around (yours OR a neighbor's), they will just about kill your plants in an effort to find that fish they're smelling.

So, your bad weather normally comes out of Wichita Falls, does it? My brother was a college student there the year they had the big tornado....April 10, 1979. It stayed on the ground for almost 50 miles and the town was just devastated. There were a lot of fatalities. I remember when he graduated from college a year later, there still weren't any working street lights (for lighting, not the signal lights) and it was just pitch black dark everywhere. There were still upside-down demolished cars in the medians! Back then, the state and federal government didn't do as much to help out cities with storm clean-up as they do nowadays.

I guess the tornado at the Michelin Plant was quite memorable. People around here still mention it whenever there is violent weather.

The Fried Green Tomato Sandwiches are BLTs as a matter of fact. Here's the recipe:

FRIED GREEN TOMATO BLT (This recipe makes 4 sandwiches)

1/2 C. all-purpose flour, divided
1/4 C. yellow cornmeal
1/4 t. salt, divided
1/4 t. ground black pepper, divided
1 egg
1/4 C. buttermilk
1/2 C. olive oil
1 green tomato, sliced into four 1/2" thick slices
8 slices sourdough bread, toasted
1 recipe of Chipotle Mayonnaise (recipe below)
4 leaves Boston lettuce
12 slices bacon, cooked

1. Spoon 1/4 cup of flour into a shallow dish and set it aside.

2. Combine other 1/4 cup of flour, cornmeal, 1/8 t. salt, and 1/8 t. pepper in another shallow dish.

3. In third shallow dish, whisk together the egg with the buttermilk.

5. In a 10" nonstick skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat on stovetop.

6. Evenly sprinkle each tomato slice with salt and pepper, using the remaining 1/8 t. of each for all the tomato slices.

7. Dust the tomato slices in the remaining 1/4 C. flour, then dip into the buttermilk mixture, then dredge in cornmeal mixture. Fry the tomatoes in batches, for 3 to 4 minutes per side, or until lightly browned and tender.

8. To assemble the sandwiches, evenly spread each slice of toasted bread with the Chipotle Mayonnaise. Layer with lettuce leaf, 3 slices of bacon, and fried tomato.

CHIPOTLE MAYONNAISE (Makes approx. 1/2 C.)

1/2 C. mayonnaise
2T. chopped fresh chives
2 T. minced chipotle peppers
1 green onion,minced
2 t. fresh lime juice
1/8 t. salt

In a small bowl, combine all the above ingredients and blend well. Cover and chill.

Sounds yummy, doesn't it?

It was very windy outside today. I was up on the ladder thinning fruit from the upper limbs of the fruit trees and thought I was going to be blown right off the ladder a few times. I removed tons and tons and tons of fruit. Hopefully the remaining ones will grow well and stay healthy and we'll have a great peach and plum harvest this year.

I'm not much for reality TV either, but we have watched AI since season 3. I really enjoy it in general, but this year has been disappointing. Even LaKisha and Melinda who were both impressive early on have lost ground in recent weeks.
And I know Sanjaya is only doing well because the pre-teen girls are voting for him. Well, that and he is being promoted by Howard Stern and the Votefortheworst.com website in an effort to take control of the show.

If the weather changes, I hope it heads in the direction of warmer and less wind.

Dawn

Hey GM and Dawn! I found some espoma tomatoe tone right here in oklahoma! I just went in my favorite nursery yesterday and ask for some organic tomatoe fertalizer and that is what they had! YAY I was so happy.

Dawn I paid 3.95 for my bag what is the groing price in your store?

Carla

Carla,

I am happy to hear that! You will love the stuff. It is so full of all the trace minerals that are hard to find in many fertilizers, and it is organic, so it is healthy.

I don't know what we usually pay for a 5-lb. bag, either $3.95 or $4.95....DH always picks it up on his way home from work, so I never have to think about the price. lol

I guess no one in Oklahoma will be planting anything outside this weekend, but at least you'll be ready when the time comes.

Dawn

Carla
Where in Oklahoma are you located? I still need to check around locally for the tomato food but I don't hold out a lot of hope. If it is within driving distance I might plan a little day trip and get some of it. IF I am ever able to get my stuff planted with this weather that is.
Thanks for letting us know.
Hope you all weathered the weather in good shape...all we got was rain and a little thunder a few times.
G.M.

G.M.
well the nursery I visit is located in Cameron oklahoma the zip is 74953.
IF you realy want some of the espoma I can buy some and ship it to you. If its not close enough.
If you want to do that just let me know and we can exchange email addies and work out the details :D

Carla

oops the zip to that nursery was 76205... sorry.. It is pretty close to Fort Smith Arkansas if you know where that is.

Hi Carla
You live quite a long way from me. I am guessing 250 to 300 miles if you are near Ft. Smith. And what a pretty part of the state you live in. Far different geographically and climate too. So much GREENER!

How far do you live from Wilburton, OK?

I still have not checked around here for the tomato food. I guess I have put my gardening ideas and efforts pretty much on hold just waiting for it to FEEL like spring again.

We did have some frost again last night. Not sure what the temp got to but I could see frost on the rooftops. I am glad we covered what is left alive out there and that the rest are still unplanted....waiting....waiting.

It is so generous and thoughtful of you to offer to get it for me! Thank you so much! I am amazed anyone would offer to do something like that.
I will check around soon, it is hard to believe I could not find it someplace around here...at one of our feed stores perhaps.

I will let you know if I find some of it. And thank you so much for your kind offer. It really warms my poor frost biten heart...lol.

God bless you today!
G.M.

Only a few comments re tomatoes, see my earlier post (this is only my second post) regarding The Tomato Man in Okmulgee. http://www.tomatomananddaughter.com/ I'm not connected to them in any way except I went there yesterday after seeing a piece on them on KOTV news. They advise a Tbsp of Epsom Salt in the hole when you plant. If people can't find Espoma maybe they can give that a try. Supposed to help the root system grow. I don't know that I'd add Epsom Salt (not really salt, but minerals) thru the fruiting season, though, because it sounds to me like I might end up with lots of leaves, no fruit! They also have descriptions of heirloom tomatoes in the form of a downloadable .pdf document. Lots of good information there, worth reading even if you're not close enough to Okmulgee to go there. (near Tulsa)

Lots of great info on this forum, thanks everyone for taking time to post. My earlier post didn't mention tomatoes in the subject cause I ended up getting a little off-topic. I think the subject was about soil PH, posted 4/14.

Merry Heart,

We got down to 34 degrees last night, and had frost forming right about 3 a.m. and I DIDN'T cover up my plants. I wanted to, but the wind gusted hard all day and there was no way I could have gotten those big sheets of plastic out and over the plants. The plastic would have blown away before I could use something to tie it down.

When the skies started clearing late in the afternoon, I knew we were in trouble. And, when the wind stopped blowing after sunset, I knew we were in deep trouble.

I went outside at 3:30 a.m. and turned on the sprinkler, hoping to give my plants a chance of surviving what was rapidly becoming a very hard frost.

I moved the sprinkler once an hour.

I just checked on my tomato plants, and they seem fine.
I'm not so sure about the beans and corn. They don't seem as fine, but I'll wait a few hours longer to see if they either perk up....or look worse.

And, if you don't find Espoma anywhere in Ardmore, let me know. My DH will be picking up some for me one day after work this week, probably on Fri. or Sat., and he could pick up some for you at the same time. Once it is here at my house, we will figure out how to get it from me to you. You can come here, or I can come to Ardmore, or whatever. I know Carla would pick up some and ship it, but you and I are within easy driving distance of each other, and there's no need for y'all to spend money on shipping.

Ilene, I used Epsom salts for a couple of years. I really couldn't see much difference in my tomato plants, but it made a HUGE difference in my pepper plants. The plants were large and green and lush. I didn't get as many peppers as usual those 2 years, though, and I haven't tried it since. I'm not sure why it didn't seem as helpful to the tomato plants as to the peppers. And I don't know if the Epsom salts had anything to do with the decreased pepper production or if it was just a bad year for peppers.

Ilene, I've posted a link to Reinhard Kraft's website. He has photos of over 800 heirloom tomatoes in his photo gallery. Many of the ones he grows are the same ones we grow here in the USA. He has been active in promoting heirlooms for a long time, and has sent seed to gardening friends in the USA for trial and vice versa.

And, y'all, we have just too much wildlife around here. When I was out during the night putting the sprinkler on the garden, there were raccoons on the porch (nothing there for them to eat, but that didn't stop them from looking), rabbits in the semi-tall grass along the fence line between our place and the neighbor's place, and coyotes.....at least one on our place near the barn, and one on the neighbor's place between their house and ours. The coyotes were howling back and forth. I know coyotes seldom attack humans, but it made me a little bit nervous.

Hoping to work in the garden this afternoon after it warms up!

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Reinhard Krafts website and fotogalerie

Dawn thanks for your offer of getting the Epsoma for me...I need to make a note to check around this week for some. If I can't find any here in town I will let you know.

Ilene-Ashes are great for peppers. The year I had the best production and the biggest most tasty peppers was many years ago in my early gardening days. I planted peppers near our cage where we dumped our wood burning stove ashes....they LOVED it. But the tomatoes died there. So do not use ashes on tomatoes. I had green bell peppers and banana peppers in huge abundance that year with the ashes.
G.M.

Thanks gals for all the tips. I incorporated some ashes into my raised beds this spring, Yikes, I just planted my tomatoes this afternoon, I hope I don't lose them. Dawn, my tomato varieties that I bought from The Tomato Man are Cherokee Purple
Royal Hillbilly
Yellow 1884 Pinkheart
Sioux
Grdma Suzys Beefstk
Germaid Red
Juane Flammee
Red Brandywine
Boxcar Willie
County Agent
Delicious
Homestead
Ugly
1884 Pink
Goliath O.P.
Sweet 100 O.P.

I didn't know he was ill, but I didn't see him when we went on Saturday. One of his daughters had come in from another state to help, and then there was the daughter that lives with him who came out and said she'd been inside visiting with him over breakfast. She was very friendly and helpful, stood out in the cold and misting rain giving me tips. But he didn't come out.

I had started some tomatoes from seed here at home but the only ones that came up were a few of the Arkansas Traveler and a few Beefmaster that I think are hybrid. The Tomato Daughter asked me if there was bark in my potting soil, and there was. She said the soil was probably too acid and that's why my seeds didn't come up. She said they use a special mix, and they sell it for $6 for a small bag, but I don't remember what it was. I just thought that was kind of high for potting soil, but then, if your seeds don't come up that's the ultimate in expensive because then you're paying $2.50 per plant. So now I wish I'd gotten some for next year. What do you use to start your seeds?

I really like the idea of planting things that will produce seed you can plant the next year. I don't like being at the mercy of whatever the nurseries want to sell. I had a German Pink tomato a couple years ago, but I didn't keep the seed. It was multi-lobed, got quite large and had a wonderful tangy flavor, but the lobes never matured at the same time! I was always cutting away a rotting lobe or an under-ripe lobe. Even with cutting away a lobe, it was still big enough to cover a hamburger bun. DH loved that. GM, I have some ashes left that I was hesitant to put down anywhere, I'll put them with my peppers now. Thanks for the tip. I wish I had more room to grow things.

Oh and I have yet another way to keep the cat from digging in the raised bed! Scatter pieces of grapevine around on top of the dirt. Purely one of those things where you use what you have, this year I dug up my concord grapevines and planted seedless. So I cleaned all the vines off the arbor. In younger days I'd be making wreaths like crazy but these days I'm not very artsy-craftsy. Wish I had thought about how much work those grapes were going to be when I planted concord. With the seedless, I can just pop them in the freezer after they're cleaned. We do that with store grapes and the grandson and I eat them while still frozen. Yum! Very refreshing.

Oh and thanks for the URL to Reinhard Kraft's photo gallery site. Wow! I didn't see the German Pink, but I'm sure it's actually named something else. I was given the seed. The bottom of it did sorta look like a Brandywine picture he had, they had those two "dimples" in the bottom like in the picture.

Ilene,

Of the tomatoes that you have, I have grown the following:

Cherokee Purple (one of my all-time faves!!!)
Sioux
Jaune Flammee
Red Brandywine
Box Car Willie
Delicious
Homestead
Ugly
Goliath, but the hybrid, not the o.p.
Sweet 100, also the hybrid, not the o.p.

Please let me know how the last two do for you. There is some talk in the tomato world that the o.p. ones are not perfectly stable, but I've never tried them, so I can't say for sure if that is a true statement.

You know, a lot of people have trouble with tomato seeds not sprouting. Usually it IS probably the soil mix. Pro-Mix and Jiffy Mix are both highly recommended, but both work very well. I have germinated seed in peat pots, in standard potting soil, in compost/sterlized potting mix blends, etc.
Of those, the peat pots gave the worst results. I had more damping off with them. And, using any potting soil that has fertilizer in it, like Miracle Grow, for example, is not recommended for sprouting seeds. It turns out that the fertilizer in the potting soil is not good for the very young seedlings.

I use any sterile seed-starting mix I can find, like Pro-Mix or Jiffy Mix. Some people had trouble with their Jiffy Mix this year, but I didn't. This year, for the first time, I used a seed-starting heat mat. The tomatoes only germinated a day or two faster than they usually do, but the peppers germinated in at least half the time.

I haven't had a lot of luck with any of the really large pink German ones. I think maybe they just don't like our climate.

Looking at Reinhard Kraft's website is quite a tomato experience, isn't it! Some of the heirloom tomatoes I grow are ones he has been instrumental in saving/spreading around. I would truly love to sneak a peak at his 'tomato patch". I bet it is amazing.

Dawn