Fertilize???

I planted my tomatoes 5/23. I bought flats from a local nursery. They were off to a slow start, but just this past week, things are starting to grow. Lots of flowers on my Jet Stars with about 5-6 golf ball size tomatoes. Some of my Cherry Toms are still small, with very thin stalks. I am not sure, but I think it has something to do with the excessive early heat that we had a few weeks back when the plants were still young and tender.

Yep very slow. The Tomatoes went in late because of the coldest May I can remember and even when I put them in they just sat in the cold with 40 degree night temps. Even this June the weather has been rather nice recently but not the kind that makes tomatoes grow like weeds. Typically by now we would have a week or two of high 80s and low 90s with humidity where they grow a foot in a few days. It just has not happened this year. Next year I will hedge myself better with cold loving early Toms. The only thing I have in this area is a few dwarf Red Robbins.
On the plus side I have a bumper crop of snow peas. The vine are over 6 feet now. They love this weather.

I don't think July 1 is "late" for tomatoes in Zone 3! Generally tomatoes don't start producing until July in most zones anyway (excluding the very deep South and West), though I know a lot of people really try to get them in the ground early so they can have ripe tomatoes by July 1.

dangould - You're doing fine. I agree that the wait is awful but New England gets most of it's tomatoes in early September. That's indeterminate types. I'm wondering just how tall these 4' plants will be in a couple of months. Too bad they quit making 24'long two by fours. (chuckle)

The waiting is the hardest part.
I have green toms on quite a few plants, so that is something. It won't be long until the question becomes, "what do I do with all these tomatoes?"
My peeve this year is a yellow brandywine, which I planted earliest of any plants, it is quite big, has blossoms, but no fruit yet. Now the lower and middle leaves are turning yellow. I hope that isn't what they meant by "yellow brandywine"!

Here in SW CT I ususally get my first ripe guys at the tail end of July...and this year was unusually cold for May, so I think probably mid August for me...so looks like you are doing ok. :)

Slow here too. Day 64 for the pots, day 59 for the garden and if not for a couple small handfulls from a Red Robin, I'd still be without ripes. First time for them, I like the plants a lot and the toms are fine too.

Sprite has a couple trusses bout half ripe, very prolific. A couple Yellow Pears blushing today. Corolina Gold has a baseball that looks like it'll blush tomorrow, also prolific. Several nice Jet Stars but they've looked close for a while. Jet Star and Lemon Boy have the most large tom at this time but one of the Mortgage Lifters is coming on strong and if something bad doesn't happen, one Cherokee Purple might approach softball size :-)

Health Kick looks like soon but everybody else is still green and growing. One taxi has lots but they don't look close to ripe yet.

I've only been growing tomatoes for a few years, but this is a much slower season compared with last year. I waited until May 31st to plant (two weeks later than last year) because of the cold May we had. I was looking at pictures from last year and I had lots of full-sized green fruit by this time. This year I have a few marble-sized green fruit just starting. Except Stupice which has one or two full-sided. My plants are growing okay, but they are just behind in the fruit production, so I assume they'll produce lots of fruit given enough time.

Mike

Last year I had 5 foot Romas have ripe tomatoes in the first week of July and produced heavily in the second week and continued until August. They started up in September again.
Not a chance this year. They are half the size.

Yes, my plants took a while to get going, but today I found my first red. It was a Campari, this was the second year that Campari came in first. Pic attached. Also, this year I built two Rain Barrels to use to water my tomato plants, etc. That rain water works like "WOW". No comparison to tap water. With two 55 gallon barrels connected together and fed by just the roof of my 10x14 shed, I have not run out of water yet. Pic attached. Yea, I'm saving on the water bill and giving the plants liquid gold from the sky. Now I am looking for two more barrels so that I have a 220 gallon reservoir. My plants are huge this year, I know, too close together, but loaded with flowers. Next year, less plants but more room for each plant. Pic of garden attached.

rocklandguy, what are the big broadleaf plant in your last pic? BTW, your rain barrels are nice. I might have to steal that idea for the up coming season.

I put my Super Fantastics in the ground Memorial Day weekend and have all of 3 tiny green toms so far. Sigh. The plants just sat there doing not much of anything until this past week or so. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a long slow autumn.

Zone 5b....was about 2 weeks behind as compared to other years, but things are catching up. Sungolds-picked 5 this week. The other plants are starting to set on finally. My Matina has clusters. I usually pick these by 4th, it will be 2 weeks for them to ripen. The biggest disappointment is Brandywine....very few have set on so far, though Brandy Boy have clusters. Are Brandy Boys close to Brandywines?

Not much here in zone 5 SE Michigan, either. I started seeds a bit late, at the very end of April, but that worked out fine since it was so freakin' cold this spring, with the last frost in early May. I planted in the first week of May, but the weather has just been plain weird, with what amounts to a monsoon season. Most days they get maybe 5 hours of sun before the thunderstorms roll in. So now they're about 2 feet tall, flowering but no fruit set except on the ultra-early Stupice variety.

Still, even on hot summers here, by July the plants may be bigger, but night temperatures prevent fruit set until after July 4th. So while I'm impatient to get tomatoes, I'm confident I'll eventually get some. As for my watermelon, grrr..., I'm about to call in a shaman to do a sun ritual. What I would give for just two weeks of 90 degree, sunny days!

hey dirt_poet,

The hot weather stuff is just a no show. I ditched the idea of orka this year. I keep losing track of them because nothing spouted for a week or more. When I saw one pathetic seedlings I figured why bother? All the Limas rotted in the ground. The spot is now being allocated for fall crop.

The Minnesota Midget has been showing life and is about a foot long now. Looks like anything with the name "Minnesota" in it was the way to go. The sugar baby melon is still a bit sluggish. The snow peas are still producing and are now approaching 7 feet on some vines. These have been work horses for a month with a steady stream of pods. What a year for peas.
If the shaman does not work out get yourself some cool weather friends. Its reassuring when a 6 foot vine pats you on the back with one of its tendrils and says "I know how you feel buddy, here, take a handful of pods".

(maddeningly) slow here, too.

i've had three ripe tomatoes so far. lucky early set on for those three.

now just blossoms and a few green ones that will take weeks to grow and ripen.

it is painful to go out and look at the garden.

This thread is working out well. It confirms what I would never have guessed. That we are having a cool grow season. I say this because of what FEDCO says in its catalog under the Oregon Springs Tomato.

http://www.fedcoseeds.com/forms/sds30_cat.pdf

and go to page 62.

"Recommended as a hadge in northern climates for cold summers like 1992, 1006, 2000, 2004. (Do you notice a pattern in these dates?)"

I find it fascinating that 2008 might fit that pattern.

Well last year I tried ot grow Artichokes which like it cool. It has hot and they crooked in the heat. This year I get the feeling is an Artichoke year but I did not try this year after the loss last year.

I also planted my toms later this year which will prove a disadvantage if the season remains cool. Also my toms produced to the end of October. Very late for me. Although we did have several very mild early frosts that did not harm the plants. I really enjoyed the late toms last year. Everything ripened and there were no green ones left at the end.

I hope everything is not green at the end with no ripe ones. haha. that would be funny.

Here is a link that might be useful: go to page 62

I'm in the same boat as everyone else. It is a slow go this year. We had a couple of frosts after Memorial Day weekend, so I was late to get things in. Although for the most part the gardening season has been comfortable for people, it is a little cool for peppers, tomatoes & eggplants. I do have at least flowers on my tomato plants, green fruit on some, but nothing close to ripe. I think it'll be the end of July before I see ripe tomatoes. I'm trying to grow Oregon Spring this year. It's in a container and is just flowering now.

Lets hope for a warm July, August & September!

eggplants, i got. a few.

ate two large purple ones a couple of weekends ago -grilled in thick slices. they were tender and sweet.

now the oriental plant is starting to set on. we should have scads soon. i throw them on the grill whole and serve them with a little good olive oil, salt, fine ground white pepper, and asiago cheese.

it ain't tomatoes, but it's still gooood!

The temp now or the high of the day is not bad. It is not sunny at all. without sunshine there is no or little growth. You must have sunshine to get growth. It is a basic part of photosynthesis. The weather here has been mostly warm to 80 F but humid and dark all day long. some rain almost every day. When we do get some sunshine it is brutally hot with the humidity. So far it has been more comfortable with the clouds. But I have to run the air conditioner some to dry out the air indoors to cut the humidity.

I was happy this morning to find one tiny small marble size green tom on one of the Jet Stars.

Ugh...this weather is frustrating. I'm in southern MA and it's either cloudy or raining. No end in site - we might see sun on Thurs. I don't ever recall being in this weather pattern for such a long time.

I have a couple of green cherry tomatoes - whoop-de-do!

My first seed was planted December 8, 1997. I planted it out March 4, 2008 when it was 14 inches tall. From my 12 tomato plants so far I have picked 33 pounds of tomatoes. Atlanta, Georgia. The early start sure made the difference. Now with the 90, and 92 degree weather and drought I am having blossom drop.

As I planted my tomatoes at different times some are just starting to produce. My Roma that was planted later is full of tomatoes that are still green, with a few just getting ripe.

I have two rain barrels.

My Flicker Photo's of my Rain Barrels

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9235655@N02/611778092/

See my tomato plant photoÂs when they were in pots before I planted them in the ground.

Karyl
=====

Here is a link that might be useful: Photo's before I planted tomatoes in the ground.

I noticed a misstype in my posting from Fedco. the zero and 9 are next to each other and I hit the zero here is the post on fedco corrected.

"Recommended as a hadge in northern climates for cold summers like 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004. (Do you notice a pattern in these dates?)"

obviously it is every 4 years and 2008 ia right on target for cool summer.

Today was terrible dark again. I decided that I missed my opportunity since the soil is staying wet I could have germinated some seed for the fall like chard and beets etc. Anyway I set out some lettuce seed today. I hope it germinates. It is a 75 day lettuce so it needs a longer grow. Jericho Romaine. My favorite. from fedco seed again.

I think it's because of the presidential elections, Dan. LOL! Isn't that a weird coincidence?!

I'm in the same slow boat here with my tomatoes. I'm blaming it on the Presidential candidates........Hillary started campaining it seems like 3 yrs. ago now, and that wore me out!

I'm heading to the paint store to get some cans of red spray paint. Am gonna have red maters one way or another:)
I only have about two dozen tiny maters on a total of 75 vines, so only need to buy one can of paint.

tomatogreenthumb

I like your name. I am growing some tomato seeds called Green Thumb from Sandhill Preservation. I am impressed so far with them. Strong vigorous growth but small compact or rugose growth. I like the way they grow. I am thinking if the tomatoes come out good of trying a lot of these plants close together. I have two in pots that are doing super.

Green Thumb: late, Det, compact plants producing 4 oz., very hard, green tomatoes. After several months of storage, the fruits ripen to a pale yellow with reddish gel around the seeds.

These are a long storage tomato.

k2marsh:

Your seedlings spend 10+ years in cups? How many times do you have to "pot them up"?

An early start could be good, but 10 years?

Tom

Got a few Stupice almost ready here. Should be red enough tomorrow or the next day. Not the most tasty of the heirlooms but I'll take any kind of tomato I can get right now. Otherwise I'm used to the wait, as are most of you.