A determinant tomato that might work for you is a bush version of Early Girl. It produces a lot of baseball to softball size tomatoes over six to eight weeks, is pretty disease resistant and doesn't need as much room as many other varieties. But, I agree that a larger pot (10 gallons or more) will give you a much better experience with any tomato except maybe a dwarf type. You might want to ask this question on the growing tomatoes forum. There are a lot of container growers there, as well as several regulars who grow tomatoes in your area. For sauce as well as eating raw, many growers actually prefer regular tomatoes over paste types, which often get blossom end rot in smaller pots. Here is a link that might be useful: Growing Tomatoes forum

Rosefolly, I try to visit the Bay Area once every year or so. My son lives there, and he has been informing us of the specific monthly weather differences since he went there for college -- and loved the area so much that he never came back! He got married, started a business, and got involved in local community events. This latest thread was my attempt to see roses in February in California. No such miracle, evidently. Thanks -- I do know not to visit at the end of summer, those hot September days. Last time there (early May 2010) I drove down to the San Jose Heritage rose garden, not too hot yet, and spent several hours enjoying and examining (incl. photos) the wonderful old roses so carefully laid out, then drove to the nearby Santa Clara University to stroll along their rose-covered fence. (link attached.) That was the visit I timed for the Sacramento Old Cemetery rose festival and got to meet a few of you Bay Area people. Maybe next time (not this year) I'll be able to meet you, Rosefolly? If there's one place I'd like to live (but DH is solidly based here so I am too), it's California's Bay Area, long may it wave -- oops, and sometimes shake! Carol Here is a link that might be useful: SCU climbing-rose fence

I am a camera phobe from way back. I did buy my first digital camera a few months ago, but I have not figured out how to post pictures from it. I will take pics this Spring, including of the banksie, and this will be an incentive to post them here. Meanwhile, if you go to Cass Bernstein's web site at "www.rosefog.us", and click on "Grand Ave. Giant", you will see a wonderful picture of one of our over 75 year old roses - it turned out to be a giant Le Vesuve. Holleygarden, our banksie lutea (which is only about 15 years old - I planted it myself) does not take up much of the bed it is in. That is because it went straight up the house (with encouragement from me). It is planted at the back of the bed, next to the house. It has formed a giant trunk, which has lovely peeling bark. It branches out at about 3 feet up, and from then on is covered with foliage. So, I have planted some smaller roses in front of it - a Little White Pet, a bush Cecile Bruner and Lavender Lassie, a hybrid musk. The banksie does look stunning when in full bloom - I will try to get some digital pics. The same wall has also got a 3 story high Cecile Bruner on it, which takes over blooming when the banksie is done. Last year for some reason they both bloomed at the same time - it was remarkable. Jackie

Hi Michelle, I'm thinking you're in the same zone as I am (La Jolla, coastal, Sunset 24, standard 10) and facing the same miseries -- the nasty June gloom of coastal marine inversions. We've had a great 7 days this last week-- whoo-hooo.... sunburn city and heaven for the coast after the coldest spring on record in 76 years. Boy was last week a blessing! But now the usual June gloom has arrived and the 5-7 day forcast is for clouds and afternoon clearing, which in my area means it will clear from 3 pm to 5 pm and then the fog will roll in again. Here's my take from the last year and a half...... Like your plants, mine are in containers, and really perked up over the last week with the heat -- in fact I have 3 tomatoes actually showing a red blush right now........ oooh wheee...... OK, now for the reality. The June gloom is here to stay. Not going to go away. Even though we had a perfectly awful spring (which last year was great and gave the 'maters a runnning start that didn't happen this year at all), June is looking normal: nasty. OK, doesn't matter. Your tomatoes will still ripen. You will get very little dropoff of blossom to tomato bud in the next month because the temps won't go very low at night with the inversion, however anything that looks like its going to ripen will take for bloody ever compared to our inland (2 miles....) neighbors. The fact that you are growing in containers will increase the heat levels (better ripening) but decrease the total fruit set and size of the fruits over what you'd get in optimum ground conditions. I got great crops last year, in spite of the June gloom, but they took a long time to ripen and seemed to sit there forever with a faint muddly blush (all container plants as I have no dirt to plant in between deck and pool concrete). The advice I was given and followed which seemed to work was to water generously until a "substantial" growth of fruit had set and then water verrrrry abstemiously -- just enough to keep the plants from seriously wilting (I cheated a bit and underplanted my big pots (25 gal, redwood pots, two tomato plants to a pot) with parsley and marigolds which show the wilt sooner than the tomatoes -- when they wilted, I watered). The fruits that I got (through July-- the June gloom extended here) were delicious, though 1/2 the size of the expected and 1/2 the production that I had assumed from having planted the same plants in Palo Alto for several years before. Forced me to recognize that Palo Alto provides the perfect environment for tomatoes. La Jolla does not. Period. Each plant (San Diego, Green Zebra, Cherokee Purple, and Momotaro) gave approximately 1-2 smallish but delicious fruits a day (as opposed to Palo Alto at 5 full-blown fruits a day during the same period), but that was sufficient for my sort of "daily use" in salads, etc. I never harvested enough (even in August) to have a decent freezer supply for winter. My best "all round" protection last year came from GreenLight Rose Guard. Helped with bugs, fungus, and general pestiness. I supplemented it with BT because I had a big mid-June problem with some kind of inchworm thing (never clearly identified, but BT nailed 'em). My biggest problem hit at the end of July when I was savagely hit with tomato psyllids (see my post/research in the tomato forum). It was a very bad thing and virtually wiped out my "second flush" . With container gardening in this coastal environment, staging your tomatoes is key to getting a long production period. The benefit from being out of the inland extremes is that you and I will harvest tomatoes through January and later-- if we stage the plantings right (make sure you get the last set in by the first week in Nov.). The two plants that I set in at the beginning of October gave me their last fruits and gave up the ghost in the first week of March... Regarding the psyllids. I have seen none so far, but by July (whether I've seen them or not) I will be netting every pot in a fine-guage fabric to avoid the wholesale destruction the dang things caused last year. Hope this helps!