Tomato Tuesday Thread (N&C Midwest)..

[BackyardBirdGardner]

Welcome, Midwesterners, to the Tomato Tuesday Thread for 2011's growing season. This should be a very fun idea to play around with until our frosts get us this fall.

The basic idea is to update the status of your tomatoes each Tuesday. Talk about what you want. What you are proud of; what you are puzzled by; etc. Any serious or "pest" type questions should go in a separate thread. This thread is for bragging about our maters, mostly.

This was a brilliant idea from Pattipan that I, and possibly others, are just straight copying/stealing. Almost all of us grow tomatoes. That makes this an easy thread to get everyone involved with. So, let's get active and let's post up our tomato reports.

One word of caution....keep next week's update in THIS thread. We don't need to start individual threads for people or weeks. This should be a huge thread by our autumn frost dates that we can all look back inside and see what a great season we all had.

Happy Gardening!

[BackyardBirdGardner]

Here we go with my update for Week 20 of the year, May 17, 2011.

I am currently growing 3 diffferent varieties of tomatoes. I'm not a fancy gardener. I grow what my family will eat. SuperSweet100 cherry tomatoes (well, and a grape variety that I consider the same for all intents and purposes), Beefsteak tomatoes (for slicing and putting on those burgers and sandwiches), and Better Boy (my tomato starts from seed that are also for salads and tacos and whatnot).

I can tell you that I used to plant deep....dig a big hole and plant up to the tip of the tomatoes. This year, I tried the horizontal method either mentioned in the book or elsewhere. I think it's great! Those plants popped right up and are growing straighter than if I planted them vertically...lol. I imagine this is largely because the MM is so loose. Those roots are likely taking off underneath the surface.

In this first view, I ran lengthwise down my 2x8 dedidicated bed for tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. I have a couple squares of broccoli in there that didn't have a home back in early March, so they landed here. If you look down the length, my BetterBoys are in the foreground next to the cucumber sprouts. Then, the BeefSteaks for three squares. Finally, the Cherries are the back two squares.



Low-angle shot to show a better idea of their size. They have been in the ground about three weeks now and have just taken off like mad...



And, finally, a quick shot of the front view of my BeefSteaks. The broccoli in the foreground is for size relation. The broccoli is around 18 inches tall as of today. The tomatoes are catching up fast...



Now, you go!

[Blackrose]

Ok! My turn!

My tomatoes are about 8 weeks old and are more than ready to get outside in the SFG! Now if the weather would just cooperate. They are getting sooooo big.



I'm also going to try planting them by laying them on their sides. They're so big though, I may have to figure out how I'm then going to get them up the spirals without breaking the vines. I may have to slowly work them towards the spirals.

[Smartchick]

Well, so far I have 4 rieties in the ground and one hardening off this week to join them. I have Fox Cherry (red cherry), Orange Van Goeijenbier (orange cherry), Isis Candy (yellow cherry), and two Amish Paste planted with two Sausage (long Romas) ready to go in the ground as soon as they are hardened off this week. I'm ready to make lots of spaghetti sauce and frozen tomatoes this summer (oh yeah, and eat some too). Right now they are still under their milk jug shelters for a few weeks - something my Gram always did and I do to. These are all starts that I grew from seeds from Wintersown. Woo hoo! They are all still alive despite two days of 90+ degrees followed by a frost. Gotta love Nebraska weather.

I'll take some pictures to show as soon as I'm comfortable taking the covers off. They are not too exciting right now!

[boog1]

heres a pic of the "organic" yellow pear in frount of the slider yellow are supose to be less acidic than red are least thats what the "other half" heard anyways. as the moment they are over a foot tall. these have been in frount of the south facing slider for a month. these were started on the 26th of march






heres a pic of the jet star hybred i bought last year i started almost a month later they are close to 8 inchs already. these i jus started on the under the grow light jus to see if the seeds were any good they spent the winter in the shed. not sure if you can see in the pic is the chew holes something got hungry. last year we planted 6 of these not knowing how big theyed get by the end of summer they were close to 5 foot tall and 3 foot around was not fun tryin ta stake and tie these things up, so this year i was thinkin of going with that thing called "esparing"< sp> tieing it to a trellis i guess is the best way to explain it. today is the only day theres just a chance of showers, the next 7 days according the weather channel is not lookin so bright mostly rain,rain, and more rain.







boog

[BackyardBirdGardner]

Great starts, guys. I can't wait to watch all of us through summer when things really get rocking!

Blackrose, good luck getting those planted deep w/o a backhoe! Wow, those are tall.

[Blackrose]

Great starts, guys. I can't wait to watch all of us through summer when things really get rocking!

Blackrose, good luck getting those planted deep w/o a backhoe! Wow, those are tall.

I know!!! I may have started them a little early.

Oh well. Live and learn. Hopefully they still give me lots of tomatoes!

[Amy T]

Good to know the vertical method works. Just curious- did you plant any of the side shoots like the book suggests & did it work? Everyone's maters look great! Good luck getting the tall ones planted- hope it all works out.

[nancy]

Here are my babies. I had every intention of getting them in the ground this past weekend; however, the highs the past few days have been in the low 50s. I thought that would have been mean since they have spent their whole lives in the kitchen windows and that would have been too extreme I felt. Hopefully this weekend...



Front left: Riesentraube, Baswraya, and Gold Medal
Back left: Big Boy, and Ananas Noire

The kitchen will lonely without them!

[Goosegirl]

My first round of tomatoes I accidentally crisped, so round 2 was planted in the little peat plugs about 10 days ago. Measuring at 2 inches tall and only seed leaves, I have:

For Sauce:

Banana Legs
Purple Russian
Russian Big Roma

For Fun:

Manitoba
Porter's Dark Cherry
Roughwood Golden Plum

Pics will come if they survive Hubby's care while I am on a 5-day hiking trip.

TC

PS - will miss next Tuesday post because I will be on the last day of the hike!

[randomsideizzie]

I just received my tomato plants in the mail.

Here is what I am planting this year:

3 Little Mamas
3 Steak Sandwich
3 2 Super Sweet 100s (one arrived snapped in half )

They will probably go in the ground tomorrow or Friday. I will take photos once they are not so sad looking and in their permanent home.

[WolfHeart]

better late then never

I took these shots of my maters on Tuesday this is just the first moment that i have had to post them.

This is my better boy mater:


and I got these from Marvin's Organic, they are San Marzano's a paste type mater:


I took a sucker off on of the maters and have it in water now...going to try to propagate it so i can have two of the same type just for fun

[BackyardBirdGardner]

Here we go. Not much has changed in the tomato garden, except the growth. I put up the trellis and they are reaching it now....about 8-10 inches off the ground. They are growing pretty quickly...

[boog1]

heres a couple pics of mine transplanted friday the 20th the first pic is one of the 'yellow pear' that was under the grow light for a month, then in the south facing slider another month then hardened off before getting tranplanted.






now heres what happens when ya get greedy/stupid or any combo of the two this was under the grow light a month, half as tall as the other didnt get hardened off an you can see how sorry it looks, more than likly wont make it.

[nancy]

Ours went into the ground last Thursday. The deer found them yesterday. First is kid's Bed #2



Front row: Ananas Noire, Marigold, Gold Medal
Middle Row: Marigold, Gold Medal, Marigold
Back Row: Big Boy, Marigold, Ananas Noire

The deer ate the Gold Medals. I will try to direct seed them in case they don't grow new leaves.

Here is the Summer Bed:



It has both Baswrayas, a Big Boy, and a Riesentraube, but I'm not sure which is which at the moment. The other Riesentraube is in Kid's Bed #1 and the 3rd Ananas Noire is at home. So far, so good. The weather has been great - warm & humid with great storms the past few days. Everyone seems very happy. I hope to spend some time with them tomorrow after work to "tidy" up. Happy Tomato Tuesday!!