greendesert I saw you over at the Phoenix Permaculture Guild Forum. Nice site over there. I wish that Nagami kumquat that was offered up was closer. I would have taken it in a second. If you want these varieties very bad you could still start from seed. If you get them in the ground by mid-March they should be alright. Its better to start early to get the plants well established before the summer heat hits. But tomatoes are supposed to be shaded here anyway and I bet they would still produce a decent crop in our long season. Either that or start them indoors in August and put them out 1st of October for a Fall Tomato Harvest.

I will not vouche for how good these online tomatoe plant suppliers are, but it is a start for prices as they are expensive. On a local nursery location you could yellow page shop, but alot nurseries only stock hybrids now. One though that is older is Big Boy, there is an open pollinated version available from Glen Drowns in Iowa, but only as seeds. I would only offer that I know you did not want seeds, but I had to go that route several years ago for several reasons and I never regretted it as I learned I could sprout the seeds, put them immediately into the garden May 1st in my location, under a hot cap the same day and they did just fine with only watering and later caging them. It brings a great deal of accomplishment to save seeds then and start new plants each year as they "become yours". While I am trying Big Boy open pollinated this year, I was impressed last year with Red Pear, Sioux, Druzba, the mid season Oxheart, Amish Rose and for an early determinate Silvery Fir Tree for variety suggestions. Last year Fir Tree and Oxheart was sprouted May 1st and I had ripe tomatoes the first of August to the 14th. I hope that helps some. http://www.appalachianseeds.com/catalog.html http://www.selectedplants.com/ http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/

My Early Girl has the same side branch that look like a 2nd plant because we planted them trenched on their sides. I just gave it another stake for the side branch. In our climate we have such a short window of time for the tomatoes to produce ... let the plant grow as desired. I don't have any container tomatoes, so your watering might need to be different. After August 1st we no longer water to encourage the plant to ripen the fruit. If we have very warm weather and the plants start to wilt we will water just enough to stop wilting. After Sept. 1st we cut off the blossoms and any small fruit because they are not going to mature anyway. Forces the plant to ripen what it has already set. Some people cover their plants to provide protection from 1st frosts and continue ripening. Here by the time frost comes in October the nightly lows are below 50, so essentially refrigerating the tomatoes. We harvest them instead to ripen inside. Heat ripens them not light. Hope that helps~ Corrine

In my garden that rain was driven right into the ground--I could water all day and not see a puddle. Fortunately, I bought a home on a rise and my plateau is about five feet above most of my neighbors--during the storms the neighbors by the storm drains had their yards under water because the drains couldn't handle the volume. Once it stopped raining the water drained rapidly and in two hours the streets were nearly dry. So, if your land is like mine, just dig down a foot and find sand or the rare patch of clay. It drains fine--I don't think your problems are related to the automatic sprinklers--we've had plenty of rain that didn't pool in our soil; the plants got a very good and deep drink but they didn't drown. The problem, I think, is the high humidity and heat. In my own garden, due to this highly stressful weather, I'm seeing some Early Blight problems on a few susceptible plants. I've been treating them with a bimonthly spraying with Serenade, an organic treatment. It appears to be preventing any great increase of the problems on these few plants. I'll paste in link for some info on EB from U of VA. Here is a link that might be useful: Early Blight