Bounty for the day..It's Down Hill From Here

In spite of this month's heat today's pick of maters is the best especially for the large red F1's. The temp for the past 14 days have been 101º, 102º, 101º, 103º, 102º, 101º, 101º, 99º, 102º, 103º, 102º, 103º, 106º, 107º and so it goes!

A close look at the maters in these pics will reveal calcium spots deposited from their daily shower bath in the afternoon when it heats up real good. The maters love their shower bath. Actually all the plants in the garden suck up to their shower bath. It seems to get them thru until the sun goes down then the soaker hoses come on.

So here are pics of maters, several varieties of peppers, one cuke, and two Zephyr squash. There should be enough okra in another week to cook up some bacon, okra, onions, garlic, tomatoes, and squash all together and from the garden for some finger lickin' good okra gumbo.

The backdrop is my latest raised bed measuring 4 1/2 feet wide by 16 feet long and 16 inches deep. It contains 3 1/2 yards of rose soil for good drainage.

Total weight for today's maters is 36 lbs and 1 oz. Total Y-T-D 145 lbs 4ozs.

A flat of mixed varities..

Top Gun - 7 lbs 2ozs

Roma - 2 lbs and Chocolate Cherry 2 lbs 5 ozs

BHN-444 - 4 lbs 9 oz and Health Kick - 1 lb 10 oz

Very Nice Texas! We do shower baths here as well. You have us beat with the heat though. Now if you only had some fresh GA shrimp to go with that gumbo! :)

seray53,

How I would love some fresh shrimp? Guess I will just have to make do with lots of Richard's Andouille sausage.

Just as good!

texas...how do you like those chocolate cherries? taste like any other cherry tomato? i'm growing the 100's and they are delicious...first ones are a good size but they get smaller the older the plant...virginia

virgin,

I find that I prefer the chocolate cherries to all the other cherry tomatoes I am growing this year. All my cherry tomatoes are growing in 5 gal grow bags filled with straight coconut coir. I don't know if that is the reason, but my 100's are not all that tasty.

Texasrockgarden: That is some bounty there, your chocolate cherry toms look to be darker in color than mine, I really did not like the taste of mine as well as some of the other toms. Never tried the topp gun, how do they rate in your opinion in taste? I do like the health kick and the 4th of July pretty well, the sweet baby girls are good also.
joy

Joy, Are you letting the chocolate cherries get ripe enough? The top gun is an average tasting tomato allowed when to vine ripen. It has average meatiness and the skin isn't so tough you have to use a hack saw to slice one. It taste good on super sandwiches.

All the tomatoes I planted produce good tasting fruit if allowed to vine ripen!!! When picked early to avoid bird pecking the taste is more bland. The bad birds around have been eliminated thank goodness. So most of my maters are now ripening on the vine.

The health kick at first I didn't like the taste or the tough hide. These later ones are somewhat better tasting, but the skin is still tough. I doubt I'll grow it again, although I have save a few seeds. The HG fruit growing in a straw bale taste best. I'm leaning toward to using more straw bales next year. To me plant performance from growing in straw bales is just so outstanding and the whole growing process is easy.

HOLY! 145lbs of maters? Wow!! I see a lot of sauce in your future. What has been your best producing/favorite tasting tomato this year?

Ray_Der_Phan....no sauce yet - just a bunch of happy neighbors.

"best producing/favorite tasting" still too early to tell. The triple digit temps and the daily shower baths this past week have really made the cherry tomato plants bloom like crazy.

So far I am leaning toward the dark ones for taste such as Indian Stripe, J.D.'s Special, Black Krim, Black Zebra, and Chocolate Cherry, but this is not to say these are the best. They are working for me based on my gardening techniques. Other folks using a different growing regimen will have totally different results.

Even with this heat about every 6-10 days I alternate feeding liquid Hasta Gro for plants with MG - Tomato. I use foliar spray and pour on 40-80 oz of the liquid mix per plant. As soon as the plants start to loose their green color I spray and pour on 20 oz of Epsom salt mixed 1 tablespoon per gal. By the next day they have greened up again and appear happy.

Indian Stripe and JD's are 2 I really wanted to grow this year but didn't get any seeds. Next year I will have both planted. Chocolate Cherry might be added as well. I've been hearing good things about it from numerous people. But it's gonna be hard to replace the cherry toms I like.... Black Cherry, Sungold, Sweet 100 and Sun Sugar.

Speaking of Epsom salt.....I need to give a few of mine a dose. Last year was the first time I tried ES and it really does green up the plant for a little while.

I'm looking for an early tomato that I can oust when summer gets here, any idea what kind I should plant next time round? I do like the big meaty ones.
joy