June 20, 2007

a baby tomato!

Its a very exciting week. School’s out, summer starts soon, the town pool is open, AND I have purple peas and baby tomatoes in my garden! It can’t get much better than this. I can almost taste a fresh garden tomato ….. This tomato is a Rutgers. There are also baby fruit on my Chadwick’s cherry. Last year I found my first baby tomato on June 22. So this year’s is almost exactly the same date. Even though I bought bigger plants that bloomed much earlier this year, the plants…

June 12, 2007

watching for the first tomato

I’ve had nice tomato flowers for a couple of weeks now – but no baby tomatoes. I though maybe it was because we had no bees around (which concerns me too). But in checking into this I see that bees are not an important pollinator of tomatoes. It seems more like the wet weather may be the culprit (maybe affecting our bee population too?). We’ve had perfect temperatures for tomato fruit set, but our rainfall has been higher than usual, with a lot of drizzly damp days without much sun…

June 9, 2007

tomato tepees

It seems like a real garden now that the tomato tepees are up. The posts are 1x1x 10 ft poles cut from pine 2×4’s. Most of them are 10 or 15 years old now, but a few were freshly cut last year. I like this tepee structure because its very strong and easy to assemble. Its also completely removable each year so I can rotate the planting location. This year, I am growing my tomatoes against the house. I took these pictures early in the morning when the only sunlight…

June 1, 2007

tomato blossoms

Yippee! The tomatoes are blooming already! My challenge this year is to get a ripe tomato 2 weeks earlier than last year year. Last year’s first was July 31, so this year I’m shooting for July 17. Marc at the Garden Desk is working on a red one by his birthday on June 24. Wow! And it looks like he’s going to achieve this. Unlike Marc, who raised his plants from seed, I bought my plants from a local nursery this year. Nevertheless, I am surprised to see them blooming…

May 22, 2007

updated tomato varieties

I miscounted the number of varieties of tomato plants I have: Really only 10 different varieties, 20 plants. I have Brandywine (3), Early Girl (3), Marglobe (3), Big Beef (3), Big Girl (3), Big Boy (1), Moskvich (1), Chadwick Cherry (1), Rutgers (1) and New Girl (1). These are all red tomatoes, mostly large ones. I have a mix of heirlooms (Brandywine, Moskvich and Chadwick), old non-heirlooms (Rutgers and Marglobe) and hybrids (Early Girl, Big Girl, New Girl, Big Boy and Big Beef). I’m looking forward to comparing these.

May 21, 2007

tomatoes are in!

The tomatoes are in! They are in the foreground here, with hay mulch between them. I planted 20 plants, 16 different varieties. Solanum lycopersicum

May 18, 2007

tomato bed

I did succeed in preparing my tomato bed this week. I clipped the rhododendron way back (I couldn’t bear to get rid of it), added 4 barrows full of compost and turned it all in. Then the rain storm moved it. Solanum lycopersicum

May 15, 2007

baby tomato plants

This looks like a family portrait of tomatoes! (Everyone line up and smile!) I have collected quite a few plants (35) and will give half to my parents. I have the following varieties: Moskvich (1), New Girl (1), Early Girl (6), Big Beef (6), Rutgers (1), Big Boy (1), Chadwich Cherry (1), Marglobe (6), Big Girl (6) and Brandywine (6). The Big Boy plant is an extra large one with flower buds already. I assume this means it will produce ripe tomatoes sooner. I’m still trying to get my first…

May 11, 2007

tomato plants

I’m starting to collect tomato plants. I usually plant 18 tomato plants. The varities I have are: Chadwick’s Cherry (heirloom), Rutgers, Moskvich (heirloom), and New Girl. I’ve never grown any of these before. I was just looking at my records from last year and noticed that last year it rained almost non-stop from May 8 to May 20. I didn’t plant my tomatoes until May 23rd! I hope to do better this year. The weather doesn’t look too bad for the near future. Hopefully the tomatoes will go in early…

May 8, 2007

making space for tomatoes

Sunday we moved a big yew bush out of my new tomato area. We replanted it in a nice shady spot behind the house where I have struggled to grow plants for many years. This hardy bush will probably do well there after it recovers from transplanting. Only the giant rhodo left to move.

weeks and counting until my last spring frost