I've just gotten mine into the ground, along with the peppers. They're strong but small, so I'm definitely behind some of you.

In late February I sowed indoors. They have been in the garden for three weeks.

Two black Russians and a black zebra have taken off and just started to blossom. The Anya Russians(2), Azochkas(2) and other black zebra have settled in but lack enthusiasm thus far. My one white, Greenwich, hasn't done anything noticeable above ground.

Thanks to everyone for sharing. Tomatoes have become my passion and having lost a bumper crop last year to hail, I've been living vicariously through the rest of you.

xRay

I just set mine out last week, and I see a few blossoms. The heatwave in the mid-90's didn't seem to bother them too much, and now its cooled back down. I have my fingers crossed that this will be a good year.

I got six more planted today, while the drizzle turned into a steady rain. I was trying to take advantage of the cooler temperatures and cloud cover, but it became so muddy by the end, that I had no business tromping around in there. I'm one of those that just has to finish what they start, even when the smart thing would be to stop and finish later. In my hurry to finish up, I managed to break another gardening rule, and grabbed my biggest tomato plant by the stem instead of tapping the bottom of the container to get it out, and broke the stem clear down at the soil line ... so I stuck both the rootball, and the broken plant in the hole, and said a little prayer, LOL. I have a few extra tomato seedlings in case it doesn't make it.

I need to get a couple of plants in the Earthbox, and I have room for maybe one more at the community garden, and then I will distribute the leftovers to my friends and neighbors.

Bonnie

I ended up with 101 plants I transplanted and one volunteer that I left in one onion row. 19 of those are in containers. Overall fruit set is coming along as expected. Not great but acceptable for this time of year. We had our last frost May 14th. I put some in the ground on the 15th. And should have put them all in then. Those plants are full of blooms and setting fruit. I didn't finish till the 4th of June I think. The late plants had become very leggy from being in the frames and 16 oz cups that long. I haven't counted but think I have around 80 varieties. My list changed big time after I had a mishap and lost some varieties that were on my list. So dipped into those I was going to give away.

Got a good rain last night. That will help. Overall I'm pleased. I hope to pick my first one the first week of July. I planted more cherry types this year so if the larger fruited ones are slow again I'll have something to snack on.
Jay

dan staley. Yeah my cages could be better. I was planning on getting a few more wood stakes or bamboo poles to reinforce the cages. It seems there's always one more thing to do and my garden always has that not quite finished look but I am always working on it.

As far as the wind is concerned they are in a fairly protected area against near the north fence.

This weekend I also did alot of mulching with wood chips which will probably get raked out in the fall time. I'm not too concerned with building up the soil around the tomatoes as there is a thick layer of good quality topsoil of around 15 inches. My primary concern is water retention and keeping the Aurora City water bill reasonable. The last few years I've used straw to mulch which seemed to work for the plants. The problem with straw is that it seemed to get tracked all over the place including into the house. I'm also a bit worried about straw catching fire. It would only take one stray bottle rocket.

It seems there's always one more thing to do and my garden always has that not quite finished look but I am always working on it.

Second that!

I lived in Sacramento (Sacratomato, world's tomato capital) and the old-timers there do the 8x8 conc reinforcing wire and nothing else. Here is a different story surely.

Dan

Sounds like people are having mixed results, with some getting the brunt of the bad weather. My challenge of having very limited space has also been a help since my little garden is pretty well protected on all sides.

Finally ate those Fourth of July tomatoes last night, and I was quite impressed with the flavor despite mixed reviews. Of course it doesn't take much to seem great when they're my first ones of the season. Might be a while til I have more since those were somewhat flukes.

Looks like we get another week of 80-90 degree temps here starting today so I'm looking forward to another growth spurt. They haven't grown much since the sun went away last week.

Still haven't taken my clear plastic mulch off, not sure if I will either. Might just put some grass clippings on top to cool it off a bit yet still hold in the moisture. WOWs came off a few weeks ago, really glad I started using those. I also had one grow out the top and freeze off, but it has recovered nicely.

I need to figure out how to upload pics to show a couple of mine I took with my phone.

jeremywildcat, it's fairly easy to post pictures. You can get a photobucket acct. for free. Upload your pictures there then you can either insert the img file into a post or use the direct link and insert that into "optional link url".

I was at a loss how to upload photo's from the cell phone until I tried it thru twitpic.com.

I could then copy the image into the computer from the twitpic gallery . . . and, upload it from there, into photobucket.

Is there a simpler way?

BTW: GardenWeb has a gallery. I've used it only once or twice but it works off the pictures in your computer not, I assume, from your cell phone.

Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: GW gallery

Most cell phones now have bluetooth. If your computer isn't bluetooth capable then a USB bluetooth adapter can be purchased fairly cheaply. I think I paid $8 for mine from newegg.

So, that bluetooth could then be used by your cellphone to transfer pictures directly into your computer??

Whoa.

If that is how it can be done - maybe that's why this phone didn't come with wires . . . Over the last few minutes, the voice in my head has been saying, "Enable bluetooth. Enable bluetooth."

S'

I'm trying something new this year, a "piriform red pear" from Johnny's Seeds. It's an Italian heirloom that is ripe with green shoulders. They're young yet, but very sturdy and haven't been bothered by the weather so far (fingers crossed).

xray, the hail last year destroyed much of my garden as well. Let's hope for better this year.

I don't plant very many, but they arent' doing very good this year. I think it's the wind. I have Early Girl that is suffering. Not sure it will make it. I have Better Boys, Romas, and something else. I forget. We started some from seed and I bought two good looking plants from Costco. I put the Costco ones outside first and that was a mistake because the wind really whipped them around. :( They are trying to recover, but I'm not sure I'll see any good results in my tomatoes this year. I also wonder if I treated the garden bed too much. Too much garden soil mixed in with the regular clay dirt???? Could that be it? Or the wind is drying them up faster. I may need to add more drip lines to the plants. Whatever - they are suffering.

My pepper plants seem to be doing better though.

I just saw that I've a couple that have succumbed to the dreaded hot weather crud - wilty, yellow botched leaves, and dead from one day to the next.

Swell.

Which is why we keep a half dozen spares.

The ones at the house are finally starting to grow a little bit, the ones in the Earthbox are looking even better, but the ones at the community garden look awful. Unfortunately, I forgot to save any spares. I just gave away all my leftovers this past weekend, and that very day, the plants started looking wilted with the leaves becoming crispy. There are also some small brown spots on some of the leaves. They were all healthy when I put them in the ground, and none of the ones at the house are showing any signs of stress. The ground cherries went from healthy to dead in a day, and 3 out of the 4 tomatillos are now gone too! Pretty frustrating!

At least the squash, melons, beans, peppers, and lettuce seem unaffected so far. The cauliflower is still struggling to recover from the hail a couple of weeks ago, and I will be surprised if they produce anything.

Bonnie

A picture speaks a thousand words. :-)

That hot spring wind is really killer. I got my plants out late this year and maybe that was a plus!

Everything is in, though a couple plants are really tiny still. The piriforms really took off though and are very sturdy and growing fast. I love this time of year.

Mine were ruined from the hail. just a couple of stalks with leaves that are just starting. probably wont get anything this season, but im still out there trying to nurse them back to health.

gloria

I'm so sorry. I know how horrible that feels. Hope they spring back enough that you get at least a little harvest!

I was up in Denver for 5 days, and the flying crud got 4, the Momma deer, complete with fawn, gnawed down another dozen. In that time, the remaining plants doubled in size.

Interesting to note that in metro Denver, the night time temps were in the mid-50's, while we're still in the mid-40's/low 50's. Thats what makes the difference.

The tomatoes at the community garden are looking better now. The leaves that didn't turn brown are starting to green up, and there is only one plant that might not recover. Unfortunately, it was my favorite from last year, Earl's Faux.

I bought replacements for the tomatillos and ground cherries. The tomatillos transplanted just fine, after several days on the patio, but the ground cherries are doing the same thing as the first batch. I've checked the soil moisture level, and that is not it. To my novice eye, it appears to be sunscald. Even though my patio is in full sun until around 3 pm, the community garden is in full sun from sunrise to sundown, so maybe they weren't as hardened off as I thought they were?

I'll try to remember to bring the camera, when I go down there to water today.

Here is a couple pics of the tomatoes here at the house:

Quite a few of them are starting to flower, even though they haven't put on much height yet. Maybe I'll have a fresh tomato to eat by the end of July ...

Bonnie

I've read that tomatoes often (+80%) self pollinate. This is the first year, however, that I've noticed the tell-tale signs of fruit production (thickening of the pedicel, lengthening of the sepals) before the blossom has opened.
Has anyone else seen this before?
xRay

I had a very kind friend, who had a surfeit of leftover tomato seedlings, drop off at least a dozen various types about two weeks ago. They were meant to replace the dead and stripped tomato plants the June 11th hailstorm left in its wake. They are small, though all are planted in various containers and in a row of burlap bags to the west of the garden proper along with about 12 different sweet and hot peppers (multi-colored bell peppers, Ancho peppers, sweet and hot banana peppers, a couple of different green chiles and one lone habanero). The wind is what's battering them today. Hopefully it will calm down a little later on and I can water them properly this evening. No tomatoes so far. The plants are too small at this point and haven't flowered at all. We'll see if I get anything from them.

OK - finally got my camera phone pics of my dinky lil garden uploaded to Photobucket, we'll see if this works. If you're wondering, the string is to keep the varmints (dogs) out of the garden.

5/25/10

6/9/10

6/29/10

6/29/10 - Side view

sounds like parthenocarpy, xray.

Dan

Jeremy your tomatoes look great! And highalt has lovely pictures as always.

Even my small toms seem to have survived their garden transplant very well, so I am content.

I have tomato flowers. Fruit must be close behind!

Just had a storm blow through, winds at 46 mph, with gusts up to 60 mph. Tomato plants were leaning pretty bad, but no broken stems. I just used some of that stretchy tie stuff to secure them to the T-posts. The winds were so strong that they pulled the stakes out of the ground that were securing the wire cage around one of the apple trees. The cage didn't blow completely off, but bent the young tree pretty bad. Hopefully, it will recover. Of course my recyclables are now in the next county ....

I measured my tallest tomato plant today: 30".

There seem to be 3 tomato fruits out there. I tried to remove all the flowers when the plants were set out but may have missed some. That might explain why 2 of these plants are not supposed to be early producers, Gary O Sena and Tigerella! The 3rd tomato is on an Early Girl.

All of my Bloody Butchers (or, Jaliranchers as they are known in my household) were lost due to the cold. Doesn't it seem remarkable that a variety that is an early, early would seem to have greater problems with cold weather than the other 28 varieties? Maybe, it was just bad luck in where they were located. (I hope that a Jaliranchr will show up here on a RMG tomato thread, even if one is missing from my garden this year.)

The Gary O Sena, as I understand it, is a recent cross between Cherokee Purple and Brandywine. This news was a bit stunning to me! I wouldn't have expected either of those varieties to have much of a chance of producing a ripe tomato in August let alone July, as seems possible with the Gary O Sena! Maybe some hybrid vigor is at work here to my benefit!

That one and Tigerella are new-to-me varieties so I really don't know what to expect.

I'm always a little surprised that the tomatoes can handle a cooler than normal spring. My peppers are struggling along and a few Charentais melon plants died but the tomatoes don't look terrible/terrible. A few days with highs around 80° had to be of help but since then, there has been a serious cool down.

It looks like 64° may be the high today. But, this might be the end of this sort of thing! 92° is predicted on 2 days next week! This kind of change will necessitate a quantum leap in my gardening methods! Just hope that the old habits kick in!

Steve

I'm going to have a 'Bloody Butcher' on the 4th for lunch.

'Brandy Boy' is just starting to flower. Otherwise we haven't had winds in the 50s here for almost a month, so we feel for the western slope...

Dan

Although I've picked 3-4 small ones before. I have my first BLT tonight along with a cuke from the garden. It was a Pink Girl Hybrid. Around 4 ounces and with good flavor. One of the better tasting hybrids I've tried in a while. I grow mainly op/heirlooms but plant around 10 varieties of hybrids this year. This one may come back if it keeps setting and producing all summer. Very seldom do I get to eat a BLT before July 4th unless it is a small early variety like Fourth of July. Will have another to pick this week. And possibly some more op/heirlooms this week. Next year I plan to plant container plants in the greenhouse in Marcha nd then move the containers out in late May after the weather warms up. So maybe I can get some earlier maters that way. Recieved over 8 tenths of rain in a nice shower this afternoon. What a great way to end a day. Rain and BLT from the garden. Jay

I'm going to have a 'Bloody Butcher' on the 4th for lunch.

'Brandy Boy' is just starting to flower. Otherwise we haven't had winds in the 50s here for almost a month, so we feel for the western slope...

Dan

I still don't have any ripe tomatoes but it won't be long.

Last year I let my tomatoes go totally unpruned. I sure got alot of tomatoes but I also threw quite a few into the compost bins because they had slug damage. This year my plan is to prune off the lower vines and somewhat train them to their cages. I think I'm about done pruning them for the rest of the year but I will probably do some pinching.

They look wonderful, gjcore!

My piriform is blooming.

They supposedly look like this when ripe. I can't wait to see how they turn out.

Enjoyed* our first Big Boy yesterday. Still waiting on the Mortgage Lifter, Purple Cherokee and Grapes, which are not showing fruit yet.

*Halved it, seeded it, Roasted it. Then stuffed the holes with fresh mozarella, topped it with home-grown basil and broiled it. It was gosh-darn tasty. Looking forward to more of the same.

I have lots of flowers, but in the heat they are just dropping off unfertilized, alas.

Same here, Jennifer. The plants started blooming a couple of weeks ago, and no sign of a fruit forming yet! The peppers on the other hand are growing like crazy. I have 35 pepper plants, and all of them have peppers on them except for the five at the community garden, which are just starting to flower. The Patio Red Marconi is loaded with peppers, and one is already starting to turn red, which puts the peppers right on schedule. Apparently, the tomatoes haven't read the schedule ...

Bonnie

I'm used to seeing my squash leaves droop from the heat. That happens every year, and I don't worry because the leaves firm right back up at night. This year the upper leaves of the tomatoes are wilting in the afternoons because it is so hot and they get just enough wind to dry them out. I've never seen that before.

I've lost a few branches on the tomatoes in a recent wind storm.

The soil was moist but they just couldn't take so much wind - wilted & died. The wind broke zucchini leaves and did other damage, as well.

S'

During the first heat spell in June mine adjusted and were doing well. Then during the long cool spell they really grew. So have more foliage than they do root system for this weather. I see it about every year. Just worse this year. Some areas of the garden are worse. I'm hoping in another 3-4 days they will all be taking the heat better. I have a 60' long shade cloth 6' wide I think I might pull over my caged plants. You can tell in the highest afternoon heat which plants have shade and which don't. Jay

Elkwc,

Yeah I have been using the shade cloth for about a week.

d

Now I've got more Stupice, 4th of July, and SunSugar than I can eat, and just picked my first Brandywine and Mortgage Lifter. Can't wait to try them out for the first time, never had one. BLT season is finally here...

I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, but I have 16 tomato plants, most are getting quite large now, and pretty much all of them have blooms on them, and there is only one tiny green tomato! In previous years, I have had ripe tomatoes by the third week of July without doing anything special. I did nothing different this year that I know of. What can I do to encourage the plants to set fruit?

Usually, the peppers aren't quite ready when I have enough ripe tomatoes for my first batch of salsa. This year, it will be just the opposite.

Bonnie (who's wondering if she'll ever get this gardening thing right ...)

I'm probably not the best one to ask since I'm relatively new to this "sport" but from what I've read it sounds like using a fertilizer too high in nitrogen could encourage more foliage growth than fruit. Perhaps try a tomato-geared fertilizer if you aren't already? I use a miracle gro tomato fert about once a month, though I'm not sure if it really does much or not. Other than that, probably just the weather. Have they been dropping blossoms that aren't being pollinated? If so you might be short on bees and could need to hand pollinate them.

This year I really went out of my way to get an early jump and it seems to have worked pretty well, using Wall O Waters and clear plastic mulch, though it's too late for that now obviously.

No Bonnie, a 100% successful gardening season is not possible. That's been true for me, anyway. And, I've got the psychological scars to prove it . . .

Jeremy, some may point out that a tomato flower is self-pollinating but I recently read a report on the usefulness of pollinators in a tomato field. They do have a beneficial effect on production even tho' the flower has fairly much closed itself off.

In the "Upcoming Fall" thread, I said something about the lack of fruit on my plants. They are fairly large plants but fruit is minimal. Some of the new-to-me heirlooms have practically nothing on them. I was pleased to see that Grandma's tomato plants look just about the best and have the most fruit! Somebody up there is looking out for me!

We had an even cooler June a few years ago and there was a wonderful tomato harvest that year. The timing of our windstorms may have been the difference - if things don't turn out as well this year.

About 10 days ago, it was quite incredible in my tomato patch! Those dark green plants were just "sparkling" with tiny yellow blooms. The wind wasn't terrible/terrible but the flowers were pretty much gone the next day. I don't see much benefit now from all those flowers 10 days ago . . .

The plants are blooming quite well again but it is supposed to be 98° today. I am waiting to catch a break with these things!

Steve

Not positive if it works or not but I've heard and sometimes do shake the tomato plants for a minute or two. It seemed to work a bit last year.

Pollinators help getting some fruit going but sometimes it just needs to be under 90 F for a few days.

I have very few pollinators. So I rely on the wind and I shake the caged plants and brush shake the sprawlers twice a day. Once early in the morning and again in the evening. And the wind also helps. I usually have good pollination if I do this. Jay

They just won't set fruit when the heat is over 90. I've heard it's because the pollen won't shake out, but all I know is they don't like high heat. I was losing all my flowers for a while there, but now that it's cooled just a bit I'm getting lots of little fruits. This is the piriform red pear that I grew from Johnny's Seeds.

They are

The other three types are a bit behind: flowers but no fruit yet. I got everything out late this year. Of course, I already have zucchini :)

The tomatoes did okay this year but I think I could have done better. I pruned my tomato plants early in the season to fill in their cages. It certainly made it easier to pick and maintain but not nearly as much fruit production as the last few years. Also the plants were considerably smaller.

I think it would've been better off planting half as many plants in the same area and letting them run wild a bit before doing a pruning.

There's been a steady supply of tomatoes since July but I haven't preserved a single one this year. I guess time to start planning for the springtime.