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07-08-2021 02:31 PM
I just got a reminder of why I grow my own tomatoes.
They are one of the few plants that survived--thrived, even--our recent heat wave. Some are starting to ripen; this morning I plucked a cherry tomato, popped it in my mouth, and thought I'd died and gone to tomato heaven!
It tasted tomato-y, of course, but almost sweet, too; not like the pale, tomato-flavored cardboard bulbs they sell in supermarkets.
Now the trick is to water them but not too much.
07-08-2021 02:34 PM
@GoneButNotForgotten I'm celebrating with you. Mine just started coming in as well! They are like candy!
07-08-2021 02:36 PM
Tomatoes are tough plants. I remember my grandmother using a small tree branch to whack the plants when the blooms wouldn't set and make fruit. They would start holding their blooms and making fruit. You are right to be concerned about water. Too much and they split.
07-08-2021 02:37 PM
Home-grown cherry tomatoes can be like candy. For a few years, I had an enormous vine trained on a cage and wires all the way to my deck on the second floor.. I could just stand there, picking them off the vine and popping them in my mouth.
07-08-2021 03:20 PM
I don't understand tomatoes at all.
My patio plant is awful...the bottoms are spotted with white.
My Sweet 100 plants are planted along the garage and are up to the gutter, growing like crazy
The early girls next to the sweet 100 have some kind of disease, all the branches are yellowed spotted.
But next to that plant is Big Boys and both plants are huge and look healthy.
I can't understand it all. I have a total of 6 plants along side the garage and 1 of them got diseased...makes no sense.
Do you think it was in the plants when I bought them????
07-08-2021 03:41 PM
@GoneButNotForgotten My tomatoes are green, and my worry is can I get to them,once ropened, before a critter does, which is what happened before, and we do have protection, but somehow, they get them.
07-08-2021 03:47 PM
I grew up having farm grown tomatoes. We haven't had a lot of luck with tomatoes here, so I shop the farmer's markets for heirloom tomatoes that taste like "real" tomatoes. Several years ago we grew heirloom tomatoes on our deck and our Bassett hound ate them just as they ripened. We had to compete with her to get a tomato. Only dog I have had that picked tomatoes and ate them.
07-08-2021 03:57 PM
@On It wrote:Tomatoes are tough plants. I remember my grandmother using a small tree branch to whack the plants when the blooms wouldn't set and make fruit. They would start holding their blooms and making fruit. You are right to be concerned about water. Too much and they split.
That is funny, my fil would bury dead fish around the plants. Nothing like fresh garden tomatoes.
07-08-2021 06:55 PM
@Just Bling Early Girls are considered heirlooms & many heirlooms are disease prone.
Cherry: Sungold (H), Sarah's Goldstar Cherry, Fruity Orange, Early Cherry, Sweet 100 (H), Sweet Million
Grape: Jubilee (H), Smarty*, Sugary*
Extra Early: Early Cherry, Supersweet 100 (H), Currant, Cosmonaut Volkove, Early Cascade (H), Daybreak (H)
Early: Cascade (H,V,F,A), Sunrise (H,V,F,T), Early Girl, Lemon Boy,
Moscovich (heirloom), Gold Dust (H,V), Taxi (H)
Main Season: Better Boy+ (H,F,V), Jet Star (H,V,F), Celebrity (H,F,N,V)+, Supersonic (H,V,F), Big Beef (H,V,F, N,T)+, Sunbeam (H,V,F), Ultra Sweet (H,V,F,N), Brandywine (heirloom type), Big Boy (very late), Sunrise (H,V,F), Basket Vee (V),
Mt. Spring (H,V,F), Moneymaker, Palisade (H)
Paste: Roma+ (V,F), La Rossa, Viva Italia, Plum Dandy (H), Nova, Classica (H), LaRoma (H)
Heirlooms: Big Rainbow, Black Prince, Golden Queen, Green Zebra, Brandywine, Moscovich, Mr. Stripey, Striped Roman, Cherokee Purple
Key to letters after tomato varieties:
F = fusarium resistant or tolerant
H = hybrid, but not used if indicated in name
N = root knot nematode resistant or tolerant
T = tolerance to tobacco mosaics
V = verticillium resistant or tolerant
07-08-2021 08:23 PM
@mousiegirl wrote:@GoneButNotForgotten My tomatoes are green, and my worry is can I get to them,once ropened, before a critter does, which is what happened before, and we do have protection, but somehow, they get them.
The chief meteorologist at one of the San Antonio TV stations grew tomatoes in his garden at the station. The birds were the guilty party one year so he started picking the tomatoes when they were just starting to turn. He let them ripen on the counter. He said they were good, but I have never tried it. Worth a thought if the critters get to your ripe guys.
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