Have a wonderful day! I hope you are getting some rain.
Josephine.
Happy Birthday !!! Tomatoholic!!, from Austin,Texas.
Happy happy day, Michelle! Hope you're having a great time with your 'maters! :-)
Mary
Happy birthday. You'd better have your mater's protected right now. Mine are OK so far, but their not very tall.
Happy Birthday - make it a great one!!
Thanks Y'all!!! How sweet are y'all to remember me and send me bday greetings?!!
Josephine, Maggie, Silver and stownes...I had planned on goofing around in the garden this afternoon but alas, Praise God, we have gotten some rain. Hopeful for more. It soulnds like it has stopped, so I might dig around a bit.
Silver, you folks in F'burg are getting quite a bit of rain according to my Dad who lives there. My maters are pretty small as well except the ones I planted in the Earthboxes...which are huge. I planted out on April 1st thinking that would be early enough. I guess not...with this heat we've had...I'm afraid I won't get many maters. When did you plant your maters out?
Michelle
DH checked the rain gage when he came home for lunch and we had 6/l0 ". Later when it started blowing and raining cats and dogs I had to put on my beech shoes and coat to go out and take my night blooming cereus and epiphyte off their hooks so the pole wouldn't blow down - again. When I went back inside DH says "go out there and check the rain gage". "Right. You're serious?" Well I was dressed for it so I did. In about 1 1/2 hour we got almost 2 " rain.
However, during that 1 1/2 hour we also discovered a leak in the livingroom. The last time we discovered a leak in the livingroom we also found out that termites had eaten about half the 2x4's holding the ceiling up. It had never leaked enough to get through all the umpteeen layers of paint, so we didn't know it was leaking. I think we caught it time though. DH gets to go up in the attic later and see just what's wet.
Mary Lee
Michelle, our maters were planted about mid march or so. They are about 1 foot tall. One has lots of blooms and the other none.
Mary Lee,
I am so sorry to hear about the leak. OH NO!!
Great to have the rain..I certainly prayed for it...but I guess I should have specified that I did not want any hail with that rain? we got some golf ball plus sized hail about 5:10pm yesterday along with some in the middle of the night...3am. However, I read in our paper today that San Marcos got baseball sized hail that broke out everyone's car windshields and sunroofs that were parked at the Outlet mall. Oh my!! So thank the good Lord we did not get that big of hail. It is beginning to get light outside so I'm going to inspect my tomato babies as well as my new Honda Pilot for damage.
Mid March is when I wanted to plant my maters out, but alas, I grew them from seed and they were still not quite big enough until April 1. so I'm a bit behind the others in growth in our zone. oh well. If you'd like to see what the Earthbox does...I'll post a picture from April 3 and the other on April 18. I am hoping DH will buy me a few more of the EBs and so no more tilling and I'll have bigger, better plants.
Here is the one from April 3rd.
Here are the same two on April 18th. They are 3x bigger than any of the maters I planted in the ground.
They are both blooming!
Michelle
tomatoholic, that's very impressive! I've seen those boxes in catalogues, but didn't know if they really worked. What are you going to use for them climb? Every year we have this discussion of what to get for the tomatoes to climb. DH always wants to just give them a pole and I always want something better.
Mary Lee
Tomatoholic, happy belated birthday. bummer about the hail.
silverf, sorry about the leak.
Hi Mary Lee,
I use stakes for the maters. If I have a lot of vines that need to be pulled up, I will use old pantyhose to pull them all up and tie them to a steel stake. Some vines I let sprawl and I will put mulch under the fruit so it doesn't get bruised. But my plants last year got so huge...it was a total jungle and so I gave up after awhile keeping them off the ground. This year I left more room in between and I am pruning the suckers as they become visible between the Vs of the branches...this is to keep them under somesort of control...if that is possible anyway.
Bad news about the hail...my brand new Honda Pilot has 3 big dents in the hood and several little ones. I have not checked the top of the Pilot...I figure that you can't see the top anyway. I have only had the vehicle less than 2 months. OY vey. But the good news is that it could have been worse. AND my maters seem to all be fine except 2 of the smaller ones.
Thanks Voss...it was pretty wild ride down here with the extreme weather!