Becky,

Congratulations! Isn't it fun when you get to start seeing the fruits of your labor?

For cabbage loopers, the easiest solution is to spray the plants with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)'Kurstaki'. It is a bacteria that specifically kills caterpillars. You spray it on the plants they are chewing holes in, they ingest it as they eat, they get sick and die within a day or so. The nice thing about it is that it only targets caterpillars. The bad thing about it is that it targets caterpillars that might otherwise turn into butterflies, too, so use it carefully. You can find it pretty much anywhere that sells pesticides (including places like Wa-Mart or Lowe's or Home Depot), and there are many different brands. Look for something labeled Thuricide, Dipel, Caterpillar-Killer, Bio-trol, etc. and read the active ingredient list to make sure it contains Bt. (For future reference, there are other forms of Bt that kill other pests, including Bt "Israelensis" which targets mosquito larvae in water and Bt 'San Diego' which targets Colorado Potato Beetles and other leaf-chewing beetles.)

With tomatoes, it is hard to give an "average", but usually you will have ripe fruit within about 7 weeks of the appearance of blossoms. There is wide variation, though, since some tomatoes (like Early Girl) produce fruit roughly 53 to 57 days from transplantation, and others, like Brandywine, take 90 days or longer. Also, the widely quoted Days to Maturity (DTM) for tomatoes are averages only, and I have found that many tomatoes produce ripe fruit in fewer days in our hot climate than in cooler climates.

Determinates seem to bloom anywhere from a little later to a lot later, but yours should have blooms by mid-June if your Early Girls have already bloomed. Most of my determinates already have fruit and flowers, but I planted a lot earlier than y'all did.

About the Swiss Chard and lettuce......Swiss Chard produces well in the summer, and in general, lettuce doesn't do well after temps are regularly exceeding 85 degrees, although a few kinds are more heat tolerant than others. So, don't take it too hard if the lettuce peters out in the heat....that is typical. Keeping it very well watered and shading it a bit can help prolong its' life.

I am glad things are going so well in the garden. Hope your weekend was terrific and that you have a great Memorial Day too.

Dawn

speaking of tomatoes, it looks like my first tomato will come from my "Bloody Butcher" plant. I was wondering if anyone has grown this variety before, I haven't.

I have grown it several different times. Although the plant stays fairly small, it produces a good crop of early, tasty tomatoes. As a bonus, it is very disease resistant. To me, it has better flavor than some of the other early tomatoes like Stupice, Early Girl, Matina and Early Girl and it outproduces all of them, except Early Girl.