How's your tomatoes doing?

Hey pretty....

Your tomato plant looks really healthy. You must be doing something right! Yay!

I put lots of organic material in the soil of my raised bed, like most of my compost that wasn't even composted yet. Haha. just a bunch of rotting vegetation at the bottom so hopefully as its breaking down its releasing lots of good junk into the soil. I didn't have enough money to buy tons of potting soil and compost to fill my whole bed so I put all of that at the bottom instead.

My tomatoes are all crammed together because I have a very small garden, but they seem really happy. Everything is growing well, except the stuff that can't get the light under the broccoli and tomato plants!

Next time I will space better.

Here's a pic of Selena in the garden, and my new sign I made to scare the kids next door.

I like the sign. :-)

I have a 3yr old grandson that doesn't like veges...oh...he'll eat CANNED green beans (sigh). I'm going to try to involve him in my garden...ie; have him pick some squash etc...and then help me make some dishes with them etc....and then bribe him with some m&m's....to see if if he'll try some zucchini.

i'm a big goof ball. haha. I hope you can get your grandson to eat veggies, i was a weird kid, I really loved lima beans.

That is how I got my kids to eat veggies. My youngest son only likes homemade tomatoes. he loves long beans but eats them when they are still small he can't wait for them to get big. He eats the carrots that grow in containers. That's why I started growing different color tomatoes the kids thought they looked like candy. My youngest son told me I can't sell any if it means his belly is going to be empty.
He also eats the mixed greens I grow and he loves raw spinach and radishes.
The key (I think) was growing it ourselves and not getting them from the dreaded vegetable isle.

I finally got some ripe cherry tomatoes!! Not much to do anything with, but enough to wet my whistle and give me a taste of things to come!

They look yummy Steph. What kind are they? So far my favorite cherries of the season are Sun Sugar and Dr. Carolyn Pink. Brown Berry and Gartenperle are just ok - Gartenperle are waaaaaayyyyyyyyy tiny - lol...

The variety is "volunteer". LOL LOL LOL

That's a hoot! As long as they taste good, right?

I'm sure they're the variety we grew last year, which I think was Large Cherry or something like that.

I am so loving lurking in this thread...

I thought I was crazy for thinking a tomato hornworm was a very pretty creature. Then, when I realized that perpetually hungry little creature in the Madagascar movies is a hornworm, I lost my heart! So now, I just try the relocation thing. I mean, how fast can they crawl back across the yard?

I got so disgusted with my Stinkbug infestation that, yesterday, I cut off every tomato that was in a sorry state of dripping, oozing, BER, etc. etc. I have a large planter of Egyptian onions at the end of my tomato line, so I just chucked the bad tomatoes into that planter. Can ya'll say "Volunteer ARMY?"

I figured if the volunteers do come up, at least they'll be a variety I was trying to grow, so not knowing doesn't matter. I can kinda narrow the varieties down.

Well, I finally broke down the milk jug WSing station. Bet the DH thought he'd never see the top of the spa again. I selvaged all my coco coir from the milk jugs, though. My plan is to nuke it by bowlsful for about 20 minutes, cover and let the steam do the deed. Anything that lives after that, deserves to live. Since I'm in transition, but still need to get my cole crop seedlings going, I'm gonna sow the seeds in the 16 oz. solo cups and just put them all together in the big Sterilite tubs. More easily transported this way. I searched my inventory thinking I had more cabbage seeds than I did. Went to the BB stores and found a couple packets of Early Jersey Wakefield and one other variety. Thinking I still have time to order some Green Comet or Packman broccoli seeds. I've heard Packman's really do well here.

I am having serious angst over leaving two whole yards of veggie garden blend in the TWO new raised beds I just built. That was a $100 load the DH gets to plant flowers in after I'm gone.

I keep thinking all I need is 5 good men with shovels for one hour...and those two beds could be relocated, too...shoot...

Oh, well.

Linda

My cherry tomatoes don't have a chance right now. As soon as they ripen enough the cardinals swoop in and have a nice cherry tomato buffet. I need netting *now*!!! Maybe Lowes has this item. Defininately should have bought this sooner.

Yikes, 2 yards of soil + 2 raised beds? That's a tough pill to swallow, Linda. Good luck.

John, the last time I was in Lowe's they had bird netting. It was located near the large bags of fertilizer.

We bought our netting at Lowe's last year as well. It was out near the fencing supplies close to the outdoor furniture.

I hear a lot of folks talking about birds, rabbits and other varmints bothering there garden, but for some reason I have never had a problem with any of that.

I have a volunteer watermelon coming up next to my peppers. Also there is a volunteer (squash, melon, cuke) coming up as a siamese twin with a bush green bean plant. A couple other vounteers that started next to butternut squash were eaten by a mystery predator - guessing it was a bunny.

Jim - you are totally blessed with not having any varmints. Seems I spend a lot of time on patrol and using preventative measures against them. It gets expensive too.

Here is a nearly decimated melon plant from bunnies on the straw bale

Here is the 'volunteer' made into a siamese twin with a bean plant. These bush bean plants are slow, compared to the bean pole vines that are 7 ft tall in 4 weeks from seed.

Jim -

I have 10 varmints that take care of the other varmints! And they don't eat veggies, but they will eat squirrels, rabbits, mole, voles, birds and occasionally an arm on the couch, if we're not watching!

I have not even counted the invited varmints like dogs horses, and goats!

I have my first "Early Girl" tomato starting to color! YAY! 90 days from setting seed indoors.

I had a Celebration tomato nearly ripen before I left last Thurs and I ate it stnading next to my bales. Yummy. There should be more when I get home - Yahoo!

I do a Hornworm hunt every morning. Only one so far, but I know that will change. I'm also fascinated by them. I love the "eyes" on their sides.

I relocate them. I have lots of american nightshade, and they seem happy to be there. They are the only insect type things that I DO relocate:)

Hey Cat~I'll relocate mine to your place, okay?

Me too!

I have a huge planter of Egyptian onions at the end of the row of tomato EBs. Earlier in the season, I snapped a shoot off one mater and just stuck it down in that planter. Well, last week, I got so disgusted with the Stinkbug infestation I figured if there were no rotten tomatoes left on the vines, there'd be nothing for the Stinkbugs to visit. So, I cut off every rotting and Stinkbug pierced tomato and chucked em all into that planter.

Can YOU say volunteer?

LOL Linda!! We had the 10,000 volunteer tomato plants from throwing the half-eaten by the birds tomatoes into the compost bin this spring. Everywhere we put compost, we had tomatoes!

They look scarier than they really are. That stinger looking this is the horn on the tail end. I have never known one to bite or stab you with the horn, though someone on another thread says they think one bit them. I avoid that possibility altogether by not touching them with my bare hands...

I can honestly say to date I have never been injured by a tomato worm!

That WICKED looked stinger on the rear end is total camouflage, designed to scare the poop outta anyone/anything trying to mess with a hornworm.

Which is why, when you call their bluff and pick them off, they roll over and play dead! And, I do mean, they lay there FOREVER playing dead until they are absolutely positive it's safe to move again! Playing dead is their only defense...

That's what make them so cute!

Stephanie and locakelly, Bring 'Em On!!. I've got plenty of room and nightshades for them, but you'll have to take them into the cowfield. The cows love to play with visitors :)

I'll even share some of my tomatoes :)

LOL! I've been cow-tipping before...

Girl Girl that's something you never admit to.

That must mean Lisa's been cow-tipping before too - lol...

Hey, I grew up in the boonies - there wasn't much to do;o)

Yes, but have you been snipe hunting?

I dunno - what's that - lol?

No I haven't been cow- tipping just heard about it. How about the submarine races? Right up there with snipe-hunting. I htink I have too much free time on my hands. I'm never on the computer this much. It must be the heat!