Hey guys, here's whats going on in my garden-

Hungarian Heart, a bull of a tomato plant, this guy is 6 feet tall and cranking out maters fast !

Damon

Damon, looking good bud!!
Looks like you got some monsters going there. That Paul Robeson with the shoulders is beautiful

Brian

it's a jungle...

happy gardening

catman: salsa...Hermitage...pronto! ;-)

Thursday:

Bunch of Cherries. Mostly coyote with some black cherry and sungolds mixed in.

Clockwise in the basket, from 12:00: Vintage Wine, Vintage Wine, Super tasty, Cherokee Purple, Super Tasty, Black Plums, Parks Whopper (x2) and German Gold in the middle.

Here is the lastest from my yard. In order are Better Boy, San Marzano, Stupice, Kellogg's Breakfast, and Siberian. All are seed grown except for the Better Boy which I bought from the store. Plus the BB is leggy compared to the ones I grew from seed.

Great looking tomatoes everyone...finally the ripe fruit is coming in!

archerb - how many plants are you harvesting those cherries from? Specifically Black Cherry, which I am growing myself.

Here are some pics from late May/early June. I'm very happy with the Florida Pink variety. It makes a huge plant, is extremely productive, and most of its fruits are over a pound, or just short of a pound.

A baby Florida Pink fruit hangs below a ripening fruit:

A wall of Florida Pink. This huge plant is now over eight feet tall and I plan to let it drape over its cage rather than top it off.

I believe this ripening Florida Pink fruit will be over two pounds because it's more than twice the size of the one-pounders my plants have given me:

For some reason the flea beetles love this particular plant (A mystery variety from last year). You can see all the tiny holes they have made in the leaves. Still, this plant is very productive. Befor this picture was taken, it had already given me four nice size fruits (one of which was over a pound), and it has several new clusters of fruit near the top that are quickly growng in size:

More Eva Purple Ball fruits ripening:

Another mystery variety. The fruits have pink and yellow peach-like colors when ripe:

A picture taken in May of my first large fruits. The pinkish one is Florida Pink and the red ones are from my red mystery variety:

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Amish Paste
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Box Car Wilie

I sure wish my maters had fruit. Hopefully I'll see some forming by the end of this month.

Ok, can't remember what this one was that I took a pic of.....maybe carbon, but I'm not really sure...can't see the name tag from this point of view......

These are some ripe Coyote tomatoes.....my kids love them!

NAR

The one thing worse than murdering a tomato person is posting all those big ripe photos for people like me to see....

If I only had more space...

KILL ME NOW!!! ;-)

Or as the kids say "FML"...

Neh...Just another case of TMD...lol.

Sorry what's FML?

Black Cherry

Sweet Million

Sun Sugar

Snow White

Shah dang things are looking GOOD for you folks! More maters to chase down and try because of all these pics ;)
I finally get to enter some color with a whopping 2 oz Campbell 22 that I spied today ;)

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For a time reference, here are pics of the fruitset that I posted on part 5, May 6th ( pics yesterday so one month later). The top pic was a BHN-444 and one month later ...

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The second was Summer Sunrise and one month later ...

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Rain has been a Blessing but .... WOW! Hard to do anything in mud and the Morning Glories apparently love this type of weather :( Did get one row of 6 somewhat reclaimed today ...

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... and vowed to never plant this many again! ( Says I while looking for hearts and Florida Pink and ... in another window) It is sad.

first year gardener.

hope i post these right.

Cinder block garden. these plants are between 3-4 feet tall.

My Big Beef is about the size of a silver dollar.

My Oaxacan jewel in my wood raised bed(aka slower garden bed) surprised me with this little tomato.

same with this san marzano in my wood garden bed.

my stupice has 2-3 other trusses like this one. Very good producer so far.

Same with sun sugar. First to fruitset and many trusses.

Here is a link that might be useful: other garden/tomato pics

Ate my 13th tom this weekend. Planted seeds New Years Eve, in the Garden by Tax Day (4/15), 1st tom by Memorial Day. 24 plants (10 heirloom + Ramapo.

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Here is a link that might be useful: My tomato garden

First year of a real garden. 7 various tomato plants. They are growing so much larger than the poted ones I had last year.

I'm close behind, dangit! ;-)

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- Steve

UPDATE

Great looking tomatoes y'all. Here are some recent shots of mine:

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Homestead in container

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Chris Ukrainian in 16-ounce cup (the only fruit from a stressed, dying plant!)

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Spacemaster cucumber

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Black Cherry!

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Ildi - must start ripening soon, already 1" long

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Black Krim

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Click on the image to see a version with ID labels for each plant.

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Can you count the buds in this truss? Riesentraube.

That's all for now...keep those pics coming!

Humble yet growning Sun Sugar on the porch planted 08MAY

Black Seaman: The first tomato to blush. The first tomato eaten by bugs.

harvested during avg temps of 105. note the slight sunburn on some...these get 30% shadecloth after about 1pm.

and with success comes a little failure ;)
blossom end rot on an unknown variety, which has since corrected and now producing great tomatoes

hah, I like that little deformed yellow pear!

Dinner!

That's a German Strawberry on the sandwich. Here is a pick before cutting:

Dude...you're killin' me with the BLT pictures! =)

got one picture off this morning before the batteries died.

Big boys on the right, grapes on the left. I've got blooms on all the plants. I've been wondering if I should pinch off the first groups of blooms to help with more vigorous growth, but I just can't make myself yet. I've eaten too many store bought lately and my mouth is watering thinking of home growns.

Don't bother with pinching off the first blooms - I pinched off the firsts from a few of my plants, and haven't noticed any difference between them and the non-pinched plants of the same variety. In fact, the non-pinched plants currently have more fruit set than the pinched ones, and the plants are of equal size.

The only time I would recommend pinching blossoms is if the plants are budding or blooming when you put them in the ground. Once they get established after a week or two and start growing, then it's fine to let any blossoms set fruit.

Just my personal experience and 2¢ (make that 3¢) ;)

I just thought they looked so pretty this morning after the rain...I think I might be losing my mind, just a little bit:

I have a couple of anatomically correct ones. Too bad I can just breed them and skip the planting and growing part1

I took a couple group shots too, they are really starting to pour in now!

I didn't realize the little squash was really a rotten unfertile one at first. My yellow squash has done terrible.

I am so jealous of the ripe tomatoes! I am hoping to pick a few cherries by 4th of July, but our cool June so far seems to be slowing things down.

Opalka plants putting on lots of vegetative growth, but haven't noted any fruit set yet:

Isis candy:

Red currant:

Dang! Y'all are way ahead of me, but I now have a ton of small maters growing...muahahahahaha!!! =)

San Marzano (mmmm...bout 6-7 weeks till first mater):

Early Girl's (bout 5-6 weeks till first mater):

The Infamous, Wildly Mutated Genetically by Mad Horticulturist, Steve..."MONSTER CHERRY TOMATOES"!!! =)

*Both at over 5 feet tall (one close to 6!) on their 3 month (from seed...) birthday. Wow...One plant with 12 confirmed tomatoes (have a ripe one soon...)& 8 more flowers, here they are in their huge (even though they look so tiny) hanging baskets........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................The Baby:

My baby, at 66 inches tall, with tomatoes galore in the process...

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Wow, where'd the top go?

There it is! =) lol...i crack myself up.
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Peace - Steve

Wednesday:
Birds are starting to peck at anything red, even thought I've left them buckets full of water right next to the plants. Can't say I blame them though. Either way, that's why I'm picking them now at first blush.

Cherokee Purple, over one lb.

Here is another view:

Lennie's Oxheart, over one lb.

Another view of the Lennie:

@margocostas

It took me like 5 times reading it to get that comment. Now that I got it, I am giggling like I am 14 or something.

* Posted by catman529 6b (My Page) on
Wed, Jun 10, 09 at 16:27

Don't bother with pinching off the first blooms - I pinched off the firsts from a few of my plants, and haven't noticed any difference between them and the non-pinched plants of the same variety. In fact, the non-pinched plants currently have more fruit set than the pinched ones, and the plants are of equal size.

The only time I would recommend pinching blossoms is if the plants are budding or blooming when you put them in the ground. Once they get established after a week or two and start growing, then it's fine to let any blossoms set fruit.

Just my personal experience and 2¢ (make that 3¢) ;)
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Thanks for the heads up! I went out to inspect everybody after work yesterday, and most plants now have a 2nd set of blooms! Yay! So, I'll leave everybody as is. Personally, I think we're getting great tomato weather right now - mid 80s and sunny for most of the day then rain overnight. Everything is taking off!!! My mouth is still watering over all the ripe ones already.

Here's a few professional (my wife has a business) photos of my baby, my favorite Cherry Tomato plant. Each pic is a different bud set.

Taken by Stephanie Boutin Photography

Peace - Steve

wow great pictures everyone!

margocostas, i've seen a bit of tomato porn but those are some naughty pics ;)

archerb,
i can sympathize with you on the bird damage, we netted all our beds. around here the birds here even love the green ones. we put in a beautiful birdbath on a recommendation, and they still managed to get into the beds and peck around some after the wind rearranged our netting once. bird net is cheap compared to organic heirloom homegrown plus labor right? ;)

tn veggie gardner,
thanks for all the pics, hope your eating maters soon! i wish i had a nice large sunny backyard in tn to share garden space with you and get you off that apartment balcony. feed the wife some good tomatoes and she might let you borrow her camera more, instead of your cellphone pics ;)

rob

Funny that usually in Steve's pics everything but the tomatoes are in focus, but the last set nothing but the tomatoes are in focus

lantanascape,
just noticed your nice greens along with your tomatoes. i could use a good salad with my tomatoes about now in this heat. our salad was awesome until the warmer weather brought the aphids :)

LOL at bdobs ;)
I keep expecting to see a pic of the basket with an 8 ft T-Post sticking up in it ;) That thing is getting up there eh?
How is the damage recovery going Steve? Hope it is well!
Big ripe tomatoes, obscene tomatoes, BLTs, tables/counters full of tomatoes, cute kids, well kept gardens ... Thanks for sharing and Congrats!
( Mopes away to trod through mud/weeds looking for color ... remembers spray paint in barn!)

hahaha...bdobs: Wife took latest round of pics with her 40D. She has a professional photography business, so hers are a tad bit better than the ones I take with my phone camera. ;-)

cozy: Give me about 2-3 weeks and it will need an 8ft tall post! lol...it's quite close to 6 feet right now. Damage recovery goes well. It didn't even phase the plant. I guess I took care of the damaged area well. Yay me. =)

I just finished my most recent post on my blog that has a lot more detail. It took me almost 3 hours to do. Check it out & let me know what you think.

Steve's Garden

Peace - Steve

Wow, now that the harvest is coming in, these photo threads are filling up fast... I'll have to start the next part tomorrow. Anyone want to bet on how many parts we'll have to do before the end of the year? Pt. 7 coming soon....

Thirsty, you're welcome to come up and make a salad. I have lettuce in every bed and don't know what to do with it all. Brought 4 big bags in to work last week. I thought it would be bolting, but the past few weeks we've had strangely cool, wet weather and the lettuces are loving it.

catman: 26 and a half. ;-)

You gotta bet the same amount of money in dollars as the number of threads you're betting on....;)

Gonna start Part 7 now.

To everyone: Please don't post any more pics in this thread!

Thanks! On to Part 7...