When did you start your Better Boys, Wertach? Are they generally considered to be early Toms?

Congrats on the Squash...you're having a 'sprummer' season this year!

Jan

No Jan, the better boys aren't generally considered to be early Toms. I transplanted them in to the 5 gallon "earthtainers" the last week of Feb.

We had a really early spring and a really late frost. Anytime that they were predicting 50 or lower I would lug them inside. I have a very sunny room that I put them in.

I planted some in the garden early, a week before good Friday and lost 10 out of the 12, even though I covered them with sheets. I knew better but I had plenty of extras. The early girl that survived has some good size toms but still about 2 weeks away from getting ripe. The in ground better boy that survived is just starting to have little toms.

I had some Red Robin dwarf toms that were started last fall in gallon containers, they started ripening in March. They are almost dead now. But still producing.

The plants are spent now due to the heat and stress. I should have shaded the buckets.

I am going to pick the green ones and pull them. I have some more starts from cuttings that I plan to put in the containers after I clean them and put in new medium for fall tomatoes.

A lot of friends want me to help them make their own for next year. They were impressed by the results.

It was really worth the trouble to have extra early full size tomatoes!

I had the same thing happen to an early girl in a 5-gallon bucket. It got huge; I enjoyed tomatoes for a couple of months...and then the heat got it. It still looks ok, but now the tomatoes all have tough skin, no meat, and the sweetness has dropped. I knew this was coming, and had stacked concrete blocks around the bucket to shade it, but with air temps around 100 degrees, there is just no way to keep the roots cool. Next year, when the temp rises to 95 or so, I might literally bury the entire bucket in the ground. There is just no way to container-grow tomatoes in 100 degree heat, or at least tomatoes that live up to my expectations for flavor.

If a hole in the ground is not an option and I absolutely had to make it work, I would build a 2x4 and plywood box with holes in the top for the buckets to set down into, insulate it, and then stick a window unit ac in the side of the box. It would be ugly as sin but I think it would work. Those roots have to stay cool. Shade helps, but when the air temps are over 90, your roots will not be happy. Container growing is great for when it's not too hot. I am starting to think of it as a seasonal thing. It's easy in the spring, but just too difficult in the summer heat.

Congratulations on the success you did have. It sounds like you had as much fun as me :)

I cut off the dead vines just leaving nubs sticking out. I moved the buckets next to my shop, in the shade, with plans to dump and wash them on the weekend after the 4th.

When I went out to dump them they were sprouting back. It was one of those "hmmm" moments, start new or give them a chance.

I decided to give them a chance. I gave them a shot of Miracle Grow. Then moved them to a place that they only get morning sun and filtered sun during the day. I also put an old white sheet around the buckets.

They started growing like weeds. They are 1 1/2' tall and blooming again!

I have some tomatoes that are blushing, kinda small compared to the original's, about 1 1/2" in diameter.

Now I'm thinking about trying to over winter them!

Wertach, that's so cool! ...same thing happened to me--the heat (and me not paying attention) killed all my tomato plants, or so I thought. I yanked a couple plants out of the ground, poked around in the dirt and then left a couple of others for dead. A few days later-WTH? there was a sprout or two. Odd. I took the "deadest' plants out of the beds, put some greengro fertilizer (diluted a lot) on them, and now I've got tomatoes again. I had a bougainvillea plant do the same thing this spring.