If you lived in Norman, I would be happy to give you some. I picked 60 tomatoes last night. I'm overrun with them. I think I'll freeze some tonight. Don't give up hope.

By the way, I have relatives that live in Jenks, so GO TROJANS!

In my defense, I only pruned her tomatoes because she had very, very sickly looking leaves and stems in direct contact with the soil.

Then we fertilized, mulched, and called it a day.

I am not sure these tomato plants can be saved. :(

But I am willing to try and help.

Kelley is always up for a trip to Norman.;)

Kelley,

Sometimes you have a year like this. I'm hoping that with Jo's help, your under-achieving tomato plants will kick into gear and start producing. This week's cooler, rainier weather ought to help. Since your plants got off to a rough start, you'll likely have to wait a little while for some tomatoes to eat, but the wait is so worth it.

Patience, patience, patience. You'll be eating tomatoes before you know it. I'm not sure your plants will produce a lot because they got off to a bad start, but any fresh tomatoes are better than none, you know.

Boomer, if you hear two women climbing your fence and raiding your garden tonight or tomorrow night, you'll know which two it is......

Boomer, are you going to make sauce with your frozen tomatoes? Salsa? Soup? I use frozen tomatoes for all three in the winter time.

And, y'all remember that if you want new tomato plants for fall, early July is a great time to plant them. In the Tulsa area, you have two outstanding sources----The Tomato Man's Daugher in Jenks, and I think she begins selling her fall tomatoes right around July 15th, and Gary at Duck Creek Farms (see website below), who usually starts selling his slightly earlier than that. (He sells at the Cherry Street Farmer's Market.) I'll go find his website and link it. You can e-mail Gary about the availability of fall tomato plants and, if he knows you'll coming to the market to get fall tomatoes, he'll try to bring the ones you want.

New tomato plants for fall are always a good idea because even tomato plants that look perfectly lovely right now are often exhausted by the end of July because they've been fighting heat, drought, wind, bugs, diseases, etc. I always keep the best-performing spring plants and replace any tired-looking, severely diseased or low-performing ones with fresh plants for fall.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Duck Creek Farms

This is my first year trying my hand at gardening. I am having loads of fun doing it, even I'm not getting to eat a whole lot (my onions are doing fantastically, though!). Jo has been a lot of help!

It appears as though Jo and I are already partners in crime, so it's entirely possible that you will catch us breaking into your yard to steal tomatoes, Boomer. I've just gotten home from loading Jo's 150lb order of gardening stuff into the back of my car to hide it from her husband until she can put it away tomorrow without him knowing. My payment for this service is free Tomato-Tone and Garden-Tone - yippee!

Now we just have to figure out which of us is Thelma, and who's Louise, and where Brad Pitt is in this scenario.

:)

Boomer, if two women raid your garden, I will go to court with you and help you finger Okiedawn and Soonergrandma (laughing my behind off).

I am INNOCENT I tell you!

Jo, sorry to hear about your tomatos. I'm pretty new at this, too, but am growing mine in containers. Don't know if this makes a difference or not, but this has its own problems, too.

My main problem has been the nasty little Beet Armyworm, and a couple of fruitworms thrown in as an attempt to confuse me - HA! Didn't work. Now, I'm getting some misshapen tomatos - kinda look like teardrops. Have no clue what that's all about. But all in all, I have harvested about 10 tomatoes between the Jet Star and Rutgers plants - 1 of each. So far, so good. I have lots of green tomatos on the vine/bush, and they still keep coming. We'll see how it goes in July.....

Susan

Dawn, I was thinking chili, taco soup, and a few other dishes.

Jo - it's not fair to try to mislead these women into thinking you are innocent! Your "innocence" made me an accessory to spouse deception - I have 120lbs of fertilizer in my car! LOL I'm only kidding - you know I don't mind at all.

My tomatoes are in containers, but I'm not worried about the size of the container. I think I probably just did something wrong early on and it's screwed them up. I did just get 4 volunteer tomatoes from Jo the other day that are hanging on for dear life after being transplanted. They actually aren't doing as badly as I thought! They're a little droopy, but given my recent luck, I expected them to just drop dead overnight.

Is there anything that's just absolutely foolproof? Onions seem to be - my onions are fantastic!

Nope, not even onions. This year my red onions all bolted while no bigger than my big toe.

I've scattered tomatoes all over the garden this year and some are doing great and some have yellowing leaves on the bottom, but are still bearing. Dawn and Jay will know what this is--early blight?--but I don't.

Dawn, I ordered the seed for Tess's Land Race Currant because you talked about them. Love them, but the skins seem to be a bit tough. Is this typical for them?

Kelley, La, la, la, la, la, I am not listening! Seriously, my husband is a police officer. You cannot confess to crimes on here! What if he sees it? (sigh) Don't do the crime if you don't wanna do the time. lol

Y'all know you shouldn't sneak around and buy stuff without telling your DH. But, if you're doing to do it...do it this way. Sneak it into the garage, barn or shed. Cover it up with something....anything. Let it sit there a while. When you need it, pull it out and use it and when your DH says "where'd you get that?", then you can say "This old stuff? Why, it's been sitting there in the barn forever, so I thought I'd better use it up before it gets too old". : ) Not that I'd ever do such a thing.

Jo, You know I would never, ever, ever break into a garden to steal tomatoes.....but if I could fly through the air like Tinkerbell, I'd sneak into everyone's house and leave 25 lbs. of fresh plums so y'all could join me in Plum Jellymaking Purgatory.

Susan, Oddly shaped fruit is often a result of pollination issues and sometimes moisture issues.

Kelley, I had a bad onion year due to very wet soil for a very long time at/after planting time. On the other hand, I'm having a great tomato year. Every year there is at least one crop that does amazingly well. For me, it was peppers last year, and so far Sugar Snap peas and plums this year. For the last two years, the failure has been onions...and I've grown them for decades. Sometimes stuff just happens.

I don't remember the last year I had a bad tomato year, but that's because I plant way too many of them, so even if half the plants fail, I still have too many.

Boomer, Oh, I forgot taco soup. I use them for taco soup too, especially when I'm taking a meal to a wildfire scene to feed our hungry firefighters.

All of y'all should be jealous....poor little Love County had rain today......almost a whole 2/10s of an inch, but the tomatoes really perked up because it was cloudy and cool if not exactly wet.

Now I'm just waiting and watching to see if newly-upgraded Hurricane Alex sends rains across Mexico and/or Texas to water our parched gardens.

Dawn

Um yeah, my husband has become slightly jealous of the time and money I spend on my garden. I placed a large order for Espoma items, because they were significantly cheaper then I could find them locally. But, all he would need to see is UPS pulling up with 150# of potting soil and fertilizer. I'd have to deal with some eye-rolling and "Do you really NEED all of this"? comments.

So, I took my husband out to dinner for his birthday. Kelley watched for UPS and came over and stuck the bags in her SUV.

Today, we will be hiding them in the garage...I hope.

Dawn, I use the "THIS old thing"? line all the time. If I hide something for a month or more, I can say, "Oh, we've had that FOREVER".

I'm bad.

Jo,

But is is a good form of bad.

My husband will gladly buy me anything I say I need for the garden, although I know at times he is thinking the same thing..."do we really need to spend money on this?".

I have noticed that he is a lot more willing to spend money on raising edible crops than on ornamentals. He also appreciates the garden a lot more after a trip to the produce section of Central Market or Whole Foods or to a good farmer's market. After he has seen the prices of high-quality organically-raised produce, I think he sees dollar signs when he looks at our garden....as in, he's thinking of the $$$$ he is not spending on organic fruit and veggies because we raise them ourselves.

Dawn

Most of what Jo grows is edible (I typed "groes" at first - clearly I need more caffeine)! Jo, have you had the "This is how much this would cost at WF!" conversation with him? That would probably help! And don't forget, some of those pounds of fertilizer are going to moi. :)

It's been suggested this morning that my containers for my tomatoes may not be deep enough and/or I should drill additional drainage holes in the side. Thoughts? Maybe I should get some good pictures with my camera (instead of crappy ones with my phone) and post them so you all can see the depressing carnage I'm working with.

Yep, that took about 5 minutes to type, with all the typos... need..more... coffee...

We went to Sam's club this morning, and the raised composite beds I have been LUSTING after were reduced to $30!

More stuff to hide in the garage...eek.

For anyone who is interested, this is a pretty significant deal. The beds are 7' by 3.5' by 8" high. Similar beds sell for two hundred bucks at Costco.

I also posted this deal on Slickdeals, because I'm pretty giddy with my find and wanted to spread the joy.

Dawn, I'm thinking these would be great for your strawberry beds!

Here is a link that might be useful: Composite raised beds $30

I went to Sam's and picked up three of the raised beds. I probably won't put them out until next year. I've been wanting to make some for a couple of years and this is probably cheaper and easier than doing that. My dh may or may not like it, but I hate fighting the bermuda.

Yay, I'm glad you got some. I got two, and I won't put them up until next spring either.

If you live near a Sam's, you MAY want to stalk these daily in case they go even lower. I think they will sell out first, but if they go any lower I am going to buy more. I just love the way they look vs my current wood beds, and I believe they will last much longer (no rotting).

@boomer_sooner_7:

I live in Norman! If you need to get rid of any more tomatoes, I'd love a few! I'm a newbie gardener having little luck with my first raised bed. The flowers are growing well, the veggies...not so much. I'm learning more all the time, though... Just wish I had more time to tend to it!

Jo,

For strawberries, I'm thinking of using tubes. (See link.) Our red clay is so bad that first I have to greatly improve the grade-level soil down about 6-8" and then I have to build the raised bed above it and fill it with a good soil mix. I'm thinking the growtubes would eliminate the need to improve the grade level soil and would reduce weeding.

The raised beds at Sam's and Costco are very nice though.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Grow Tubes at FarmTek

and about those raised bed kits at Sam's...went to the OKC S. Meredian store today and they still have quite a few. $29.61 each. No, I didn't get any...but I'm thinking of going back when I have DH's strength with me.

Just an update on supply. Sheesh...this thread was hard for me to find! Thanks, Jo Ellen for the tip!

Paula

Paula,

Any employee will be happy to load it into a cart AND your car for you. Those things are HEAVY, aren't they?

Jo

Sorry Lance in Norman, I just now saw your post. I sold 25lbs of tomatoes on June 30th. Now I'm really low. I'll let you know in a week or so and see how many I have picked.