Ernie..well since I am a beginner, I started with 2 early girl tomato plants and the 1 patio tomato plant. If I found this site BEFORE I purchased them I would have purchased a different variety I think like sungold or heatwave. I havent purchased the shade cloth yet, I need to get to lowes. I do however have 2 of the buckets wrapped with bubblewrap insulation, and I noticed that they are growing so much faster than the early girl I planted in the glazed ceramic pot.

How much water are you giving it? You need to remember that this plant in the wild gets very little water, normal?? rainfall and most of the time when we gardeners try to grow a wild plant in our gardens, the 1st thing we do is forget how it was grown in the wild. Piquin are grown in partial shade, low water, low fertilizer or none it all. ( I have found that organic ie cow manure once a year is about all it needs) I have read that the worst enemy of wild plant are us when visiting the Texas U web site.

In that case I would go to Silverbell Nursery. Go North on the frontage road to Grant due to the construction. Turn left on Grant Road and go west about a mile to Silverbell Road and turn right and go about 2/3 of a mile or just past the small trailer park. It is on both sides of the road but the office is on the right side. If they do not have what you want they are willing to order it for you.

I cut them back the 1st year when the hot weather hit just before the monsoons. I was going to pull them when I read a tomato column by a local "garden Expert" who said that was the thing to do. He suggested cutting them back about a half until the plant started putting out suckers and then trim them back to about 1/3 when the suckers were about 6" tall. Last year was a light monsoon season so I was watering almost every day in the evening and they just kept growing. When it started cooling off in the night in Sept then they started blossoming and set very well. I wrapped a bit of plastic around the plants using t posts and had tomatoes until Christmas. If it was a fluke the it was one that my family and I enjoyed. If you have the room, give it a try, you have little to lose and more to gain.