I am so happy for you. My tomatoes are looking promising. I am hoping for fruit soon!

That's it, I'm heading for Dawn's house - be there about 2:00 a.m., Dawn!!! Heehee!

Which Cherry hybrid did you plant - or should I say "hybrids" as in multiple varieties? I guess in all reality we should start calling you the Tomatoe Lady now that the Tomatoe man is gone - sad, but true. Our state needs someone that has loads of experience and knowledge, and you fit the bill perfectly!

Susan

Susan,

The first ripe tomato was from a Grape tomato. I had thought the first ripe cherry would be from one of the Husky Red Cherry tomato plants I have in countainers, because they set fruit before Grape, but Grape ripened first. Grape may have ripened first because the tomatoes are smaller than Husky Red Cherry.

In containers, planted in March (I think), I have Husky Red Cherry, Grape and Better Bush. One of the Better Bush plants has two tomatoes and the other has three. All five of those tomatoes should ripen within the next 3 to 10 days, and we'll be eating the first BLT sandwiches of spring soon. About half of my container plants have fruit and the other half don't.

In the ground I have a lot of small, bite-sized tomatoes that fall in one of the three following categories: cherry, grape, or currant. The plants' names and fruit colors are: Black Cherry(black), SunGold (golden-orange), Coyote(pale yellow), Orange Santa (bright orange), Rosalita (pink), Husky Red Cherry (red), Husky Gold Cherry (gold), Snow White (ivory-yellow), Dr.Carolyn (ivory-yellow), Ildi (bright yellow), Tess' Land Race Currant (red), and Sweet Million (red). There may be other bite-sized tomatoes, but that is all I can think of at this point. Of those, I think that Sweet Million, Orange Santa, Rosalita, Husky Red Cherry and Husky Gold Cherry are hybrids. The rest, I believe, are open-pollinated, and some are heirlooms and some are from the modern era.

There's nothing prettier than a salad with six or seven different kinds of bite-sized tomatoes. It looks almost like a rainbow.

I don't know about being the Tomato Lady....I think that title should go to Lisa Merrell as she carries on her dad's work. Y'all can call me the Tomato Nut or the Tomato Maniac.

By the way, I am on the verge of hysterics. Something horrible is eating my willow trees....just stripping them bare. I thought it was probably going to be caterpillars, and you know that wouldn't bother me at all. But it is some sort of little black and white thing that looks exactly like ladybug larvae, except the ladybugs are grey and orangey-red, and these are black with white spots. I am pretty sure, therefore, that they are the larvae of some other beetle, and I need to do some research to figure out if they are beneficial or not. I have a sinking feeling that they are not beneficials--and there's hundreds, if not thousands of them, on that tree which is 5' away from my garden. Whatever they are, if they are harmful, I hope I have enough beneficials to take care of them. The willow tree will be stripped bare by this time tomorrow.

Dawn

Congratulations Dawn. I know that bite was yummy. I can't wait to taste my first ripe tomato. And that first bowl of fresh salsa, my favorite food!

DH planted 11 more tomato plants today. Some of the ones that the chickens pecked all the leaves off are starting to put on new leaves, even though the stalks are only a couple inches tall. Do you think these will recover or should we just trash them and replant some more? I would appreciate your input.

Dawna,

It all depends on how large they were before the chickens stripped them. If the plants were 6" or 8" tall and had pretty good root systems, they should bounce back fairly fast. In warm May weather, a healthy plant should grow about 1" per day. (Small plants that were just set out won't grow quite that quickly though because they are still making their root system at this point.)

If the plants were only recently set out and were fairly small (like, if they were from 6-packs and had only been in the ground a week or two), I'd be inclined to replace them because they don't have a very large root system yet to carry them into a QUICK recovery. But, you could leave them and just expect your crop to be a couple of weeks later. This is one of those 50-50 things where the plants probably will survive, but might be a bit slow to recover.

I had LARGE plants (12" to 15" and in bloom) frozen back to the ground by the mid-April freeze, and some of them are only 3" to 6" tall at this point, so they will be making fruit about a month later than they would have before the freeze. At this point, I wish I had replaced them all, but I thought their larger root system would make them come back more quickly.

If you decide to replace them, I'd wait till this weekend's overnight lows in the 40's have passed, 'cause temps that cold aren't going to help the plants any.

And, guess why I am awake at 2:20 a.m.? Because our weather radio woke us up to tell us Garvin County (among others) had a severe thunderstorm rolling in. LOL It went off again to tell us that our tornado watch has been extended from 2 a.m. to 8 a.m., and I am expecting it to go off soon to tell us the thunderstorms are rolling into our county soon. We need the rain, but not the wind damage and hail. I don't mind being "warned" about the weather, but it seems like the weather radio always goes off when I am sleeping really, really well. : (

Dawn

Thanks so much for the reply, Dawn. I'm sorry you got woken up by the Garvin Co. weather alert. I must have slept through that one! I remember waking up to rain and it sounded like a bit of hail sometime in the night, but I never heard the weather alarm once I went to sleep -- about 1:00 a.m. I am sure glad we didn't' receive the huge hail and tornados like so much of the state got.

The tomato plants in question had only been in ground 36 hours before the chickens pecked all the leaves off. So maybe I will go ahead and replace them. We'd put out a six pack of smaller tomatoes and four larger plants that were starting to bloom. The chickens killed most of the small tomatoes and ate/destroyed about half the leaves on the larger plants. I don't mind if some of the plants produce later, because we'll have so many plants out, it won't matter. We have planted a large variety of tomatoes this year. Not as large as when I started my own seeds, but a large variety for purchased plants. I will wait until after this next cold front before putting out the smallest ones I grew from seed. They're about big enough to plant now.

This is the latest I've ever put in a vegetable garden. It seems so weird to still be putting out tomatoes in May! I can assure you it will be different next year when they'll go out in WoW in February or March! I also missed out on the early season crops like onions, broccoli and potatoes. I bought some fresh onions and radishes yesterday at our Farmer's Market and they were so tasty. Can you tell how happy I am to have a garden again? :)

Dawna,

Well, I'm glad you slept through it. The darn thing robbed me of an hour or so of sleep, but I made up for it by sleeping until 7 a.m. (late for me).

We all have late gardens this year and it is mostly the fault of the weather. If you had planted earlier, I'm not sure how the plants would be doing since cool weather slows them down so-o-o much and we keep having cool weather.

I know next year you'll get started earlier, and there's even a chance the weather might actually cooperate and be helpful!

I am glad you have your garden again--gardening is so good for the soul! Well, and for the body too--especially the taste buds!

I only have onions, garlic, scallions and potatoes in the ground for cool-season crops, because the deer demolish anything else. I do have peppers (though not all of them yet) and tomatoes (oodles and oodles) in the ground, and hope to get corn, beans, okra, etc. in the ground Sunday or Monday if the weather lets me. It seems late, but it has been relatively cool, so I am not too panicky. Some years I have beans and corn in the ground in late March and harvest them by Memorial Day, but this IS NOT one of those years at all. And, honestly, it does feel strange and I do feel "behind", but last week's 32 degrees and heavy frost would have killed them all anyway, so it is just as well.

Happy Gardening, and I hope the neighbor's chickens stay out of your garden.

Dawn