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aliceg8

Tomato highs and lows

aliceg8
15 years ago

Well here it is the middle of August and I'm just reflecting on the Tomato year. It's somewhat disappointing compared to last year. Last year I had 3 plants - my much loved Black Tomato, a Bush Celebrity and a Yellow Pear. All three produced very well and we were eating tomatoes starting in July and making nice sauce.

This year I have 4 tomatos - the Black again, Soldacki, Yellow Pear and Chocolate Cherry Tomato. I've had 2 fruits ripen on the Black and both had blossom rot. One I had to throw away, but the other we could cut away and eat the rest. The Soldackis have yet to ripen. We've had a few Yellow Pears and a few Chocolate Cherries.

There are lots and lots of the YP and CC tomatoes to ripen yet. Very little of the big tomatoes.

So that's the down side of this year. I changed the position of the tomato plants this year in the garden, so I'm thinking that may have had something to do with slow start.

On the positive side, I'm absolutely in love with the Chocolate Cherry tomato. The plant is huge, covered with fruit and they are the sweetest tomato I've ever eaten. If you have kids I would think this would be the ideal plant to grow. The other thing that really impressed me about this variety is that I bought it mail order, a tiny plant, for only $2.95. It's far outstripping all the other plants in production. And from a tiny little guy it's grown to over 6 feet tall and still growing!

Alice,

happy and sad in Fort Collins

Comments (31)

  • david52 Zone 6
    15 years ago

    Here, it hasn't been that great - the dreaded 'mater-crud hit, so I lost half the plants, and its now, already, getting down in the 40's at night, which means tough times for ripening tomatoes. Usually by now we're in full swing, but I doubt we've eaten a dozen big ones off of 30 odd remaining plants. Even the Sungold, which by now are usually coming out of my ears, are barely ripening.

    That chocolate cherry is good. I have two plants and I'm saving the seed.

    I'm going to start picking them green and letting them ripen indoors - its just too cold at night now.

  • emagineer
    15 years ago

    Big plants, lots of tomatoes and nothing has turned. I've been taking mine in when large enough to ripen. Forgot to look at our lows, but the highs will be in the mid 60s the next two days. This has been a really odd planting season.

  • highalttransplant
    15 years ago

    This is my first year to grow tomatoes, so I have nothing to compare it to. I have nine different types, and the only one to ripen so far has been Sungold, but I should have given them another day or two, since they weren't sweet at all. San Marzano, and Cherokee Purple have a couple tomatoes that are starting to ripen, but the rest are taking FOREVER, especially the Black Cherry! Lots of green ones on all of the plants though, so hopefully it won't be long.

    Next year, I am definitely going to try and get them in the ground earlier. It was the very last day of May when mine got planted out. When did you guys get yours in the ground?

    Our nighttime temps are still in the 50's, but it is supposed to drop into the 40's by the weekend. I think it is just a little cold front coming through, and should come back up after a day or two. Please tell me it's not time to pull out the row cover already!

    Bonnie

  • cyclewest
    15 years ago

    This has been an unproductive tomato year for me, too. I didn't do a good job of hardening my seedlings or protecting them this year, so that pretty much killed all of them off. I bought four plants in gallon containers at Costco that I think I got into the ground in late May, they struggled, but seem to have come back. I returned from a week out of town to find one of the plants totally dead, not sure if it was blown over/out of the ground, but the others don't appear to be affected. And, of course, our first ripe tomato had fallen from the vine and was being enjoyed by pill bugs and slugs.

    The remaining tomatoes are volunteers that I transplanted from various areas of the yard into the garden. Surprisingly, they are about the same size now as the Costco gallon transplants, but the Costco plants have more tomatoes developing. Of course, I haven't yet figured out whether they are romas or celebrity from last year, or if something else got into the mix from before that.

    Last year, I started so many plants so early, I got really experimental and it paid off, with about 8 or 10 plants producing heavily and filling my freezer for sauce, soup, and anything else we could mix it with, not to mention fresh salsas. This year, the volunteer tomatillo population is producing like mad, but there are no tomatoes to make salsa, and in another sad note, no jalapenos to make tomatillo/ranch salad dressing.

    I guess I better start searching for the tomatillo recipes, most of them are larger than golfballs this year!

  • ianb_co
    15 years ago

    Lows: ripping out the two cuor di bue plants when they were thigh-high and the leaves began to curl and yellow; I feared curly top virus, but in retrospect it was probably my using round-up nearby on some aspen suckers. D'OH!!! Also, very little fruit set in July's hot weather, so I'm worried that the tomato season may be short.

    Highs: bloody butcher has been producing well for two weeks, though the tomatoes are mostly small (@ 1 1/4" in diameter, The bloody butchers have been bulletproof; no early blight, and no noticeable effect from the flea beetle damage on lower leaves or from the round-up incident. Black cherry has been more susceptible to blight, though not so much that I've had to spray with fungicide. Both have been very strong growers (6' tall) and probably have ten or more fruit clusters per plant.

    Not bad for the first year! BTW, plants were seeded on 4/1 and put out on 5/15.

    Ian
    Boulder

  • digit
    15 years ago

    I don't know what kind of highs and lows I'm having . . . Only a few of the Bloody Butchers and Legends have ripened . . . a tiny handful of SunSugars . . . and now, a few small Early Girls.

    The EG's are heart shaped again this year. Last year, I asked the people on the tomato forum what was with heart-shaped fruits wondering if it was weather-related. Rather than jumping all over me, which I half expected, they seemed to think that, yes, it was weather-related.

    We've just gotten back to the 90's here. (Are we having weather that is opposite CO right thru the growing season?) I don't doubt that after 3 or 4 days of this - there will be a rush of ripe tomatoes. The vines look really good and some, like the little Legend plants, are absolutely overburdened with nice sized fruits!

    I think my highs are anticipation; my lows would be waiting. Probably just 2 ways of looking at the same situation.

    d'S'

  • digit
    15 years ago

    On another thread, I was lamenting the advent of blight and bragging about the number of beefsteaks this time around. Didn't have much to do with me, the cool Spring all but eliminated my melons and nearly wrecked zucchini and cuke production, not much goin' on with the eggplants and peppers, either. Apparently, tomatoes have a hidden reserve of strength to overcome such a miserable start and still prosper.

    So, color me happy!

    Thessaloniki trials continued this year with seed saved from last year and seed purchased from Totally Tomatoes. I wanted to try this since the 'niki's from 'o7 were quite late and just made it under the wire before frosts. Supposedly, they should have been much earlier in maturing.

    So, this year I screwed up . . . I planted the seed-purchased plants with the other tomatoes and the seed-saved plants in a God-forsaken corner vowing to do better with running the sprinklers over there when we have a strong wind out of the West which will leave that corner high and dry. Well, you've already guessed that I didn't do a very good job with the sprinklers in 'o8 . . .

    Soooooo those plants matured a few fruits earlier that the others! The plants are small, there aren't many fruits, certainly not of any size, and they've just, pretty much, sat there since about 1 tomato per plant came off them about 7 days ago.

    Meanwhile, over by the overburdened Big Beefs and Legends, the other 'niki's haven't shown themselves to have amounted to much! The other beefsteaks are large/large but not many of the 'niki's have any size . . . A couple turned red and I carried them around in the pickup until they were bruised before trying them for taste. Another screw-up, but there will be more along sometime soon, just not of any size. (My scientific method stinks!)

    Color me perplexed.

    digitS'

  • highalttransplant
    15 years ago

    Highs:

    Cherokee Purple - in spite of chronic splitting, they are the best tasting tomato I'm growing this year

    Was able to harvest enough tomatoes to can a batch of salsa!

    Plenty of cherry tomatoes for salads

    Lows:

    Lost the Roma and Kimberly to cutworms and maggots ... yuck

    Lost the Moskvich to a windstorm, though I was able to harvest quite a few that were almost ripe, and let them finish in the kitchen window.

    San Marzano - bland and mealy!

    Opalka - STILL waiting on a ripe one

    Notes to self:

    Plant out tomatoes earlier next year

    Plant more slicers, fresh eating types, less paste types

    Bonnie
    (who is already making my '09 list of must haves)

  • lilacs_of_may
    15 years ago

    Highs: my Sausage plant in the square foot SWC did great. Big, bushy, and lots of tomatoes.

    Lows: The leave on my Sausage plant in the square foot SWC have suddenly all started to turn yellow. It can't be overwatering because it's self watering, so I'm at a loss to explain it.

    The Viva Italia and the Roma have a lot of green tomatoes on them, but so far the only ripe one was a Roma with BER, which I fed to the compost bin. A lot of the other plants are only just now starting to form tiny green tomatoes, and I don't know if they'll ripen before frost.

    I started putting them out the last week of May.

  • david52 Zone 6
    15 years ago

    I grew the stabilized cross of Cherokee Purple and Marianna's Peace, what they call Vorlon, and this year it was stunningly good - I'd taken some over to the farmers market last week, and this week, I had folks come up and ask for it specifically. Previous attempts were so-so. Pink Climber is also doing very well, as are the Cour di Bue. I think the Thessaloniki are one of the ones coming on well now, but got mixed up with labels and DD10's helping.

    On the down side, all the OTV died, and the Aunt Gertie's gold is giving about 2 tomatoes per plant. That one is frustrating. The tomato is really really good, but what the heck, if you only get two per plant.

  • digit
    15 years ago

    So, Vorlon is not a hybrid nor an heirloom but might be, somewhere in the galaxy, simply immortal? Who came up with that name?

    Soooome one may really like the looks of these (Alice?):

    I must admit to a secret desire to grow something like "Brandy Boy" - an heirloom look-alike. A lot of our pleasure gained from growing and eating these things must have to do with their appearance. And, Brandy Boy has looks that appeal, I just wonder about the other qualities.

    Tomande is another hybrid with heirloom looks . . . and they sound so good - early, too! Would growing them be, dishonest?

    I grew up eating Golden Bantam sweet corn . . . it may have corrupted my personal gene sequencing and this kind of thinking is the result, decades later!

    d'S'

  • david52 Zone 6
    15 years ago

    I promise I didn't come up with the "Vorlon" moniker :-). And, I suppose, if somebody crosses two heirlooms, then you'd have a hybrid heirloom? Or an heirloom squared?

    I have some natural crosses growing out there now, which would indicate that my precious heirloom tomato seed saving program is, erm, sorta, well, 'not ready for prime time' just yet - but the potato leaf cross between pink climber and the ox heart that showed up give a plant thats about 8 ft tall, potato leaves, and 1.5 lb oxhearty shaped tomatoes that are awfully good to eat.

  • aliceg8
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    Yes!!! I want the Vorlon.

    I also want/need a larger garden. It's just ridiculous. I'm putting in a new flower bed out front along the sidewalk. It will be anywhere from 4-8 feet wide. I think I will leave a couple of spaces for tomatos since they took up so much space this year (especially the Chocolate Cherry). It won't be the pretty look, but hey, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!

    Today I picked my first Soldacki tomato. Haven't tried it yet. Probably with dinner tonight. This plant and the Black Tomato are struggling this year - I think because they are getting too much shade (blame the cherry and Yellow Pear plants). Here's a description of the Soldacki:

    Plant produces high yields of large 1 lb pink beefsteak tomatoes. Tomatoes are very sweet and turn from green to dark pink when mature. A heirloom variety from Krakow, Poland.

    Alice

  • dafygardennut
    15 years ago

    Nothing to report cuz all my maters are still green :-( Although good news is there are lots of them and haven't seen BER at all.

    Jen

  • digit
    15 years ago

    Oh BER, I've got. That also, almost drives me away from some varieties but I'd probably be trapped into picking 8 buckets of cherry tomatoes, since they seem to avoid that problem, altogether.

    BER would probably occur in my garden under all circumstances simply because the soil is so porous. It would be nearly impossible to maintain consistent soil moisture.

    Alice, just about the prettiest tomato plant I've ever grown is Sweet Baby Girl. I'd almost say "cute."

    Also, if'n they have time to ripen - Husky Red Cherry should be attractive enuf for most any flower bed.

    It is a very compact tomato and has a different foliage than most - silver-ish. I got very impatient waiting for the fruit to ripen and don't quite trust it here. Cherries really shouldn't be that late but you may not have this problem, anyway.

    Both of these are very tasty as well as good-looking choices.

    d'S'

  • aliceg8
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    Digit, you aren't helping at all!! Last year I had 3 tomato plants, this year I expanded to 4. Now what am I to do? I still want my Black Tomato. I loved the Chocolate Cherry. Steve's favorite is the Yellow Pear. I'd like to have on plant for sauce. Now I'm going to add at least another cherry plant since both the ones you mentioned sounded wonderful. Oh, and I forgot to add, my neighbor grew a Currant Tomato that was fabuluous and I covet that too.

    I'm going to have to set up a roadside stand to deal with my excess production at this rate!

    Alice

  • digit
    15 years ago

    Some of us have grown Thessaloniki tomatoes in our gardens this year. I'm curious about the results.

    I just had lunch - meat loaf sandwich. Probably a sliced Big Beef would have been a better choice with the flavorful meatloaf but I wanted to do a taste test with the 'niki's. (I've already reported a little on my trials & tribulations above.

    What I found tasting a tomato from a seed-saved plant is that the flavor is just as I remembered from 'o7. A tomato from a Totally Tomatoes 'niki plant has a different flavor. It is still a very mild fruit but I finally realized where I'd tasted something like this before: it has a slight clover taste!

    I found this a little startling! It still tasted good to me but . . . not what I expected.

    These plants which I'd been concerned weren't keeping up with their Big Beef neighbors do have a few one-pounders amongst the vines. That's encouraging and I'm anticipating their ripening but may need to bring 'em indoors before Tuesday. Temps are supposed to drop into the mid-30's. They are definitely no earlier than the seed-saved 'niki's.

    So . . . what have others thought about their 'niki's and were there other taste surpises in the tomato patches of our RM gardens?

    digitS'

  • david52 Zone 6
    15 years ago

    I set out 6 plants, my first year with them, and my DD came along and pulled up all the plant markers, and then the dreaded crud hit, further confusing things. Is this a slightly less-than-baseball sized tomato, regular leaf indeterminate plant, with maybe 25 fruit on a plant? Or am I confusing this with Rutgers?

  • digit
    15 years ago

    I can never decide where I should put my "stickers." If they are too far from the plant, there's a risk I'll hit 'em with the tiller. If they are too close, the tomato plant buries them and I never see 'em again until after the plants die in the Autumn. And, I never have more than 1 sticker to every 4 plants . . .

    "Is this a slightly less-than-baseball sized tomato . . ." Maybe. Thessaloniki is supposed to be a "mid-sized" but there were ones up to a pound last year and 1 or 2 of that size this year.

    Big Beef is supposed to be an 8 to 12 ounce tomato but I've got plenty this year of a pound and more. (First year out of about 10 in which are so many extra large fruits! I'm very pleased. :o)

    Thessaloniki may grow larger than normal in my garden. And, it is really an heirloom that doesn't look like an heirloom. For the most part, the tomatoes look like supermarket tomatoes - smooth and without blossom scars. They may have a little ruffling and I've noticed that they often have a little streaking just as the fruit begins to ripen. That's soon lost. They are nearly as good-looking as Big Beefs.

    Thessaloniki came to the US in the 50's - that's after we already had hybrid tomatoes like Big Boy. Perhaps, they were introduced as a commercial tomato but were replaced quickly by hybrids. That's just a guess but they do not have any sort of "heirloom look" to them.

    Catalog descriptions aren't the most accurate, often. I've seen them described as acidic. That can't be right. Of course, I've also seen them them as from a "Greek island." That can't be right either - Thessaloniki is a city in the mainland part of Greece.

    Here's a couple of about average size:

    d'S'

  • highalttransplant
    15 years ago

    Digit, I received Thessaloniki seeds in a trade over the winter, but since I only had room for 6 plants (oh, okay, I squeezed in 8 plants, LOL) and 25 different tomato seeds, I couldn't grow them all. The reason I passed this one by, was the word "acidic" in the description. So they aren't really overly acidic? How productive are the plants. In a garden as small as mine, every plant needs to be prolific!

    BTW, I finally got my first ripe Opalka. It was used in a batch of homemade salsa I made this week, but I did take a bite, so I could compare the taste to the San Marzano. The Opalka had much more flavor, and wasn't mealy like the San Marzano. Unfortunately, the Opalka isn't near as prolific and takes forever to ripen. I really only have room for one paste tomato, so it would be great if I could find one that was a good producer, and tasted good too!

    Bonnie

  • david52 Zone 6
    15 years ago

    Thats the one, Steve. I have two plants, and they're giving great tomatoes. I don't find them particularly acidic.

    To be honest, I don't get this acidic stuff. There I am, out in the garden, with 15 different tomatoes that I'm taste testing all at once, rushing around like a squirrel from plant to plant, and it's hard to tell them apart. The only one that really has a distinctive 'tang' to it is Aunt Gertie's Gold, and that one is pretty sharp. My taste buds must be plum wore out, this time of the season.

    Bonnie, for a sauce tomato, I'd suggest looking into some of the ox-heart varieties. They're big plants, grow fruit up to and over a lb, very meaty, produce really well, and ripen up around here. I grow Cuir di Bue, but I've tried German Red Strawberry as well. Kosovo is another.

    The advantage is they taste really good fresh as well, and sliced up in a salad, or on a sandwich, they're great. I got seeds......

  • jaliranchr
    15 years ago

    Thess is a wonderful mater and very productive. It can take the heat and keep producing. As close to a perfectly shaped tomato as you can get with and OP. Good flavor. Just a terrific tomato.

    Unfortunately, the jays took a liking to them yesterday and did a real dandy job on about a dozen of my ripening maters. I was not a happy camper yesterday morning. And JD, they got the big beautiful Rainy's. :(

  • digit
    15 years ago

    Thessaloniki is productive but the plants are large. They may not be the best choice when you can only spare them limited space.

    I have only grown 1 paste tomato, that I can remember, in 40 gardening seasons. And, that was by accident - well, maybe there were 2.
    I have often planted Stokes' Lunch Box "saladette" tomatoes. It seems that the terms saladette and plum and paste have all been folded together by the industry. I don't appreciate this but that's another story.

    Lunch Box in 1998 was soooo tasty after a few months of a very hot growing season, I just continued with them year after year. I cannot call them a paste tomato - they are just too juicy. They do have a few problems so I've probably let 'em go permanently now.

    One season I forgot to order the LB seed and picked up Viva Italia at the garden center. I ended up with a paste tomato with that one. It grew and produced very well but just wasn't one that I wanted to eat fresh. I kinda resented that they looked even better than the one I'd really intended to grow.

    I realize that others have more advanced culinary skills and requirements but, without growing paste tomatoes, here is the scene in the kitchen this morning:

    I've made sauce twice so far this month so DW has stepped in for batch #3.

    digitS'

  • digit
    15 years ago

    I like birds . . . I even like the jays and magpies . . . I like the quail . . . but they like ripe tomatoes . . .

    digitS'

  • david52 Zone 6
    15 years ago

    Ok, I went out and checked, and I have two Thessaloniki left, planted 4' apart. I've been picking fruit steadily from it for 2 weeks now, and there is easily another bushel on the two plants. I grabbed 5 of 'em for seeds.

    On a related note, on the other side of the garden I have a new-to-me tomato disease, the full-grown plants turn yellow and the vines die in 3 - 4 days. As the vines were dying, I picked the good looking green fruit and brought it inside to ripen. Ooops. What ever it is, it destroys the fruit as well, they get yellow-splochy, and are worthless in about 2 days. And, it spreads to other ripening fruit pretty easily.

    So I just spent the afternoon chucking away a whole buncha ripening tomatoes, cleaning shelves, and sterilizing everything I can think of with a chlorine spray. I have new spots on my shoes and shorts an t-shirt, as an added bonus, and the greenhouse smells like a swimming pool.

  • irisgirl
    15 years ago

    Just had to chime in here. I didn't plant til May 30th:

    Highs: Almost all of my tomato plants are from seed saved from last year. Lemon Boy is still the most consistent producer, with Rose de Berne close behind. Mortgage Lifter is FINALLY producing, but ripening slowly due to cool nights. Plum Lemon, a paste-type yellow has been a fantastic producer. Bonnie, I will send you seeds if you like. This has been a great find! Romeo (purchased from Tasteful Gardens last year) is also starting to ripen a sizeable crop. Not as flavorful as I would like, but when you blend a whole bunch together to make sauce you wouldn't know.

    LOWS: Have had BER on every single fruit from Chico III (obtained from Trudi_D wintersowing) all season long. Some weird disease has caused 2 of my smaller plants to just curl up their leaves and fall over. No flowers/no fruit. Odd. No time to investigate, sadly.

    Overall, I would say this season has been better than last but not as good as I had hoped for back in March! I will update my list of seeds for any of y'all who may be interested.

  • foxes_garden
    15 years ago

    I wasn't going to grow tomatoes, but I grabbed three plants at the spring swap and planted them out within a week or two of getting them home. Unfortunately I didn't write down what they all were.

    One grows orange tomatoes, and I get a ripe one every two days. They're slightly larger than a roma tomato. My 2-year-old daughter ate the first one before I could taste it, and she still asks if we can go check if there's a "ripey mato" from time to time.

    One grows purpley-green tomatoes with a rippled shape... might be the Cherokee purple mentioned above? Those have just started to ripen this week finally. Yummy!

    The last one is still not ripening. Green tomatoes are medium sized and round. I planted that one against the east side of a fence and it might not be getting enough sun. I've got a couple sunnier spots to try tomatoes in next year. We'll see how that goes.

    Thanks to those who brought the tomato plants to the swap! They've been fun to watch growing.

    -Francesca

  • billie_ladybug
    15 years ago

    Tomato notes:

    Margaretta outproduced Sausage and ripened earlier. I made two batches of salsa two weeks ago, one HOT with hot peppers from the garden, any that I could find. I have another big batch of Margaretta to pick, but I have gotten only two or three Sausage ripe. True the chickens have gotten some Margaretta that had BER, but they are not counted in the final tally as they never made it into the house (right over the fence with them). Yellow Pear has been the star it usually is with Pounds of fruit ripened and ready on 4? plants (can't tell how many survived, but they took over the yard). My slicers have been slow, but it looks like they are getting ready to flood the kitchen, if they will just ripen before the big frost. Have the tarp out and ready to protect the plants when that first nasty frost comes.
    I have to agree with Digit? My zucs, cucs and such did not fair so well this year, but on the up side, what survived has been very productive. I miss the zucs though. Spent last Thurs and Fri cleaning the barn and turning/filling compost bins. Have about 3/4 of the garden fence up and I am watching Craigslist for silt fence. Why?? I had some peppers and tomatoes that I did not get planted for a while, they were stuffed into plastic barrels still in their starter cups. They are producing better than the stuff that got planted out "on time". I think the extra heat/protection they got from the barrles made a difference.
    Other notes:
    Raised beds work great. The cinder blocks have kept everything warm and with soaker hoses, I can keep everything moist.
    Snakes really like the extra heat and are helping with the grasshoppers, just make sure it is a bull snake or garder! If it rattles, off with its head!!!
    Do not put more than one row of tomatoes in per bed, to hard to pick and maintain. But great for shading/losing brassicas.
    Here's to next year.
    Billie

  • digit
    15 years ago

    I've been curious about Lemon Boy for quite a few years now - very nearly ordering seed on a number of occasions. You know me; the high-production reputation really catches my eye.

    DW really enjoys mild tomatoes. It seems to me that one could take things too far and have so many of the mild ones that there's no time & space for those exciting, flavorful types.

    Why I'm suspicious about Lemon Boy is that it may not hold up well to the blight. Yellow Pear not only had split fruits, it got sick. Ildi has done real well for me this year but the vines are nearly toast as they succumb to the blight. The fruit is great and Ildi plants weren't too bad - I've seen the disease spread right into the fruit in some varieties. Might Lemon Boy have problems with blight?

    d'S'
    garden gno-manland

  • billie_ladybug
    15 years ago

    Guess I am the oddball. Celebrity has left the garden! Early girl took over the neighborhood, but Early girl, is being the last to chime in, if the tomatoes even get to ripen. She still might beat Lemon Boy though. Cherokee Purple is cracking, the fruits are not ripening and just look horrid. Super Sioux and Spanish Sun are producing nice tomatoes tennis ball size and larger. Yellow Pear is flooding with ripe tomatoes and still trying to take over despite my attempts to tame it. The cats really enjoy stealing the "extra" fruits and playing ball with them on the kitchen floor. It's all fun and games until someone goes SMOOSH..EEW. Just a note to the readers here, all the above are sharing one 4x16 bed, so no one is getting special treatment.
    Pulled another big batch of tomatoes off Margaretta today. Washed and froze them to sauce later. Still waiting for something from Sausage.

    Billie

  • lilacs_of_may
    15 years ago

    Among my dozen tomato plants, I have at least 100 tomatoes. That's the high. The low is that they're all still green! The plants have really hit their stride. Every time I go out there I find several more tomatoes developing. Some of them are pretty big. But they show absolutely no inclination toward turning red. I don't know why. The 10 day forecast shows overnight lows in the upper 40s or low 50s, so they're safe for the moment, but I do wish they'd hurry up.