Last Tomato Planted Plus Sunflowers

We planted our last tomato this morning. Sort of a late set, but it is the Lemon Boy I bought to replace the wind-whipped Hillbilly. The Hillbilly did an unexpected turn and looked as though it might pull through, so I decided not to tear it out, but to wait for my second set of Texas Tomato Cages to arrive and use our extra cage on the Lemon Boy in a spare garden spot. Good thing I waited! After the hail the other night, I will be surprised if anything makes it. The Lemon boy has been set out late, but may end up being our only hope.

Meanwhile, we planted sunflower seeds this morning as well. The as sunset sunflowers, I think. We have waited to do final planting because a fence is being built around the garden. Next year we will get a more normal start a everything will be in place (irrigation, soil, fence, mulch).

Fertilized Tonight

I fertilized tonight. The awful hail storm stripped a good 70-80% of my tomato plants' leaves. I had just fertilized them a week ago with a liquid fish fertilizer, but considering the volume of rain we got before the hail, I figured it pretty much got washed out.

Tonight I fertilized the tomato plants with a half portion of MaterMagic worked into the top two inches of soil around the plant. It says to water heavily after, but the irrigation system will go off tomorrow morning and the plants are fairly watered from the other night. Instead, I finished the fertilizing with about three cups per plant of the liquid fish fertilizer. I figure the liquid fertilizer will have an almost immediate impact while the MaterMagic will feed them over time. The fish fertilizer is 5-1-1, so I'm hoping the higher nitrate will help leaf production and the MaterMagic's 8-5-5 will boost possible fruit setting.

We shall see. We shall see.

All Hail Broke Loose

Welp. It's been a bad run. First we had that awful wind storm. Then last night we were walloped with rain and hail. If it weren't so bad, I'd probably cry. The tomatoes have been completely battered.

I put a hell of a lot of work into getting this garden up. It's the first year here, so probably the most work. I'm not sure if this would have been more devastating later in the season. Perhaps it is better it happened now. We had our first fruits on the Costoluto Genovese, the Uncle Mark Bagby and the Brandywine. Now all the plants are stripped of 70% of their leaves and scarred from the beating. The fruit still sits.... but it looks like someone shot bee bees at it.

I suppose there is a blessing in this. I am the Plant Killer after all. Now that the whole tomato crop has been pretty much wiped out, the rest of the season can be an experiment. I will tinker with fertilizing, watering, see if anything comes back. If we get a single tomato. How it tastes after hail damage.

That's it for now.

To Garden in Colorado is to be Crazy

As I set up my third line of defense on my completely beaten tomatoes this afternoon, a little quip ran through my mind. "Where is your god now?!?" rang over my thoughts. As is often the case in my internal dialogue, I wasn't being serious. But in a wry way, it was a bit true.

To garden in Colorado, I am learning, is to be crazy. The weather pops all over the place here. I remember last summer, when we arrived here from California, every afternoon a fierce thunderstorm broke over what had been a perfect blue sky spotted with the whitest of puffy clouds. I reveled in the dramatic weather, thrilled at being back in the land of thunder and lightning. My New England heart leapt at the prospect of my children growing up familiar with such gorgeous nature. The San Francisco Bay Area has splendid weather patterns as well, but they are milquetoast compared to other parts of the nation and you are lucky to hear one thunder roll a year.

Last summer, as I gloried in the storms, I had clearly abandoned any memory of gardening!

A few weeks ago, my ten tomato plant starts were whipped by incredible winds. One poor little puppy, the Hillbilly, was snapped. I believed it to be a hopeless cause, but it amazingly (limpingly) began to rally. After the wind, I got smart. I took the five Texas Tomato Cages I had, set them around the tallest plants (plus the Hillbilly) and wrapped the base of each TTC with bubble wrap, hoping to create a moderate wind break. It really looked like I had the weather licked!

In the calm weeks between, I set about getting the irrigation system in place and sat back to enjoy a more normal rhythm of fertilizing, pruning, etc.

Then, last night we were battered with an incredible storm. The rains were intense from 7-2 AM, coming on heavy then light. But at two.... the weather ended everything. We had 30 minutes, easily, of drilling, damning hail.

Today, we are expected to get more. So, my new design includes putting plastic trash bags on the top of each cage and hope that will save them more misery.

The Lazarus Hillbilly Tomato

Against all odds, my Hillbilly tomato plant seems like it is going to live! A few days ago, the poor thing got snapped by some fierce winds. Fortunately, its stem was snapped near the base and I had planted my starts pretty deeply. They were all about 16 inches in their pots, so I popped off the first sets of leaves near the dirt and set them in at about 8-10" in height when I planted out on May 15th. This means they had a deeper root system from the get go -- about 8-10".

When the winds struck the other day, my daughter and I rushed to save the plants. We dug this one up, created a deeper hole, added plenty of water and some fresh MaterMagic Organic fertilizer. Then we staked it to a spare bamboo pole I had sitting around.

I pretty much gave up on the plant, but figured it would be an interesting experiment to give it a few days. Welp, here we are a few days later and the Hillbilly has gone from a limp, weedy looking thing to something with a little punch in it. Here's a shot of it starting to perk up! Notice that it is now set within a Texas Tomato Cage that has been wrapped in bubble wrap as a wind and direct sun barrier.

And Then There Were Nine

We are new to Colorado, so the rhythms of its weather are still new to us. For instance, I wasn't aware that there were such high winds here. Last winter, the wind whipped through our back yard a few times with so much power that it moved the barbeque as well as a bench on our back patio! It even pushed around our (then empty but still quite heavy) garden boxes which were sitting on the back patio! One particularly forceful gale knocked down a large section of pretty antiquated fence.

It turns out that Denver can be a pretty windy place -- especially out here on the outskirts, not in the city itself, where there are lots of tall building to break the gusts us. It makes sense if you look at the topography of our continent. Denver is east of the Rockies -- like directly east. Further east of Denver are plains, plains, plains. North and South of Denver there aren't any mountain ranges. When the wind picks up from the North, South or East, what's there to stop it?

If you'd like to watch a fascinating, real time map of wind currents on the continental US, look here:

http://hint.fm/wind/ (yes, it's a weird looking URL, but it really goes to a cool site!) Here's a still shot from just now:

After things started to thaw and the first tulips appeared, things settled down. A fellow at the dog park told me it is most blustery in spring and fall, but by the time we set our plants out a few weeks ago, things seemed mellow. I assumed the plants could take a little blowing around.

Whoops.

Last week we had two days of really strong winds. Just crazy strong. Not as bad as the big guys of the winter, but fierce for knocking around plants and trees. I still didn't have my little guys in cages, much less stakes. It had been good, hot weather, so I hadn't used my wall-o-waters either --- which I'd purchased specifically for wind protection more than heat (though next year I will set them out earlier and use them as little greenhouses -- we just weren't ready to go with the garden that early since we were still transitioning it from a wasteland of pebbles, decades-old mulch and bindweed).

I noticed the wind while driving home from dropping the children off at school. The trees were being whipped about. They looked to beautiful. I was admiring their dance when I suddenly thought of our little babies in the side yard!

Sure enough,  the poor little plants looked so wind battered by the time I got home. I rushed in, got out the wall-o-waters and started filling them up as fast as I could. This is a somewhat lengthy and annoying process, taking about 10 minutes per cloche. I got 3 or 4 plants done, focusing on the tallest ones first, and then the wind quieted down. I wasn't sure about how the plants would handle the heat cast by the wall-o-waters, so I decided to leave the rest un-cloched and see how the protected ones fared over the next day. Plus, I couldn't figure out how I'd water them, since I didn't have my drip irrigation set up yet.

The next day, the winds stayed down, but the heat was up. The poor plants looked like they were sweltering in their little tents. I had asked the woman I bought my principe borghese starts from if she thought it could get too hot in a wall-o-water, and she'd never seen it. Clearly she hasn't been ridiculous enough to leave them on in 90 degree heat!

I figured out how to lift an edge of the tents and pour some water under. The plants appreciated it.

On the third day, the winds came up again. Fierce and strong. My 5 year old and I rushed to cover the rest of the plants, but it was too late for one.... yes. And then there were nine. Our poor little Hillbilly had been snapped straight down about an inch from the ground. Amongst the wind gusts, I dug the poor plant up, made a deeper hole, watered the hole base well and replanted it with the snapped portion set deep.

Two more days of terrible heat and I finally conceded I could no longer keep the poor buggers sweltering in their tents. I presently have 5 Texas Tomato Cages (6 more on order) and 6 bamboo stakes. With 10 plants, I had to get creative to protect them from the wind without giving them heat strong. I devised a way of setting the cages up and wrapping the bottom 18" in bubble wrap. They are taped in with duct tape. So far, they are holding.

I set up this wind guard for the five tallest plants. Four, really, and one on my little dead Hillbilly looking limp and done. I just couldn't give up on it.

The other plants, the shorter buddies, are staked for the moment. I set two full wall-o-waters (since I had nine of those) around each staked tomato and hope that'll work until my second batch of Texas Tomato Cages arrive.

In the meantime, I've had to admit that the Hillbilly isn't going to make it.

I was at Murdoch's yesterday and spotted a little "Lemon Boy" plant. It looked perky enough, so I bought it and will set it out in the Hillbilly's place in a day or so. This is the first non-heirloom variety I will grow. Sadly, there just aren't that many places to get an heirloom start around here at this time of year, so Lemon Boy it is.

Tomatoes Flowering

Brandywine - Landis Valley Strain

I planted out our ten tomatoes three days ago. Some are flowering. I will do a follow up post describing each tomato later, but at least wanted to note what we have set out. From east to west, the contenders are:
EAST SECTION:
Brandywine - Landis Valley Strain
Uncle Mark Bagby
Hillbilly Lemon Boy planted 6/9/12*
Whole Foods Mystery Tomato planted 6/25/12*
Striped German
Ananas Noir
---
WEST SECTION
Better Boy planted 6/25/12*
Sun Gold
Costoluto Genovese
Costoluto Fiorentino
Riesentraub
Principe Borghese (2 rather weak starts, co-planted)

*not heirloom

Uncle Mark Bagby

Costoluto Genovese

Planting Out Day!

The line up, looking East. Two Principe Borghese coplanted, Costoluto Fiorentino, Costoluto Genovese, Riesentraub, Sun Gold

Partial Line Up, East side, looking West, R to L: Uncle Mark Bagby, Hillbilly, Striped German, Ananis Noir

I've been working on creating a tomato garden all spring. Well, I haven't done much of the work... more like I've hired help and overseen its creation (have a brand new baby and still quite physically limited after some complications).

Hillbilly (L), Uncle Mark Bagby (middle), Brandywine - Landis Valley Strain (R)

Uncle Mark Bagby (L), Brandywine, Landis Valley Strain (R)

We bought our tomato starts on May 4th, the first day of Heirloom Farms' tomato sale. I'm glad we went on the first day. The traffic was terrible to get to it (nothing to do with the sale, just typical Denver weird traffic patterns), but we were able to buy 9 of the 10 varieties I had decided on. The sale is held in two locations, so I figured I'd get the last variety -- Principe Borghese - the next day at the other location (the locations don't have the same variety choices). Boy am I glad we suffered the traffic that Friday! I got to the second location the next day a few hours after it started, and they were totally sold out!!!

Hillbilly

Ananis Noir (L), Striped German (R)

I sort of lingered for a few minutes to talk to the farmer and I'm glad I did. It turns out she had two flaccid, mealy little Principe Borgese's left that she felt were too sickly to sell. I was so grateful that she let me have them that I insisted on buying them. Of the ten varieties this year, they are the only ones I've grown before. This is my third year with them and they have consistently produced well and deliciously.

After a few weeks of setting them out on days and preparing them for rough Front Range life, we finally planted out today!

The tomato garden still lacks a drip irrigation system, top mulch and a fence, but I couldn't wait longer to set the plants out.

Sungold

Costoluto Fiorentino (L), and Costoluto Genovese (R)

We trimmed the first few branches off each plant (except the borghese plants which were too tiny) and deeply planted them in a hole that had been prepared with some eggshell, Mater Magic, soil and compost. The starts were about 16" high out of their pots and after trimming and setting them in their holes, they were about 8" out of the ground a piece. I wanted them to have a deep root system start as the soil here is very clayish and dense. Really hard to grow through. I figure a deeper base will help them bare up against wind and develop a deep water source. Finally, they were well watered. I put them out at night as I'd read somewhere that they like that --- waking up fresh to being outside in a happy hole. It took a long time to get them out, but I'm happy! Let's hope they are too!

2 x Principe Borgese (L), Costoluto Fiortentino (middle), Costoluto Genovese (R)

More Summer Tomato Crop

I gathered a bunch of our smaller tomatoes the other day for a summer pasta dish. The Scatalone plant was the last one I put in this year. I picked up the start from the farmer's market and it took me ages to find this variety.

It is the most amazingly delicious fruit - so far my favorite variety. Sadly, because it went in last, it's not nearly as large and booming as its predecessor was last year. I must remember next spring to order starts ahead of time for this amazing tomato and get at least two plants!

Here's a shot of a variety of our smaller tomatoes - early ssubukis aliana, isis candy, scatalone, black cherry.

Delicious!

Summer Bounty Comes Rolling In

Our waldo peas seem to be finally finishing. I'm not sure why, but the leaves have developed a waxy white covering that may be due to overwatering. I think I'm going to trim them back so they can fall to compost in the garden box soil. In the meantime, I noticed that there are actually new shoots coming up, which is fantastic because my son LOVES to eat these peas!

Today I'm making a roast pork tenderloin in fig sauce for dinner and we needed figs. We are incredibly lucky that there's a bike path a block from our house. There's an incredible array of fruits that grow along the path and on fruit trees that grace the walk to the path.

We headed out to the fig tree on the path this morning only to discover that the most recent blush of ripe figs had been harvested by others. There are plenty more on the way, and we did manage to find the last few edible ones for our sauce.

Likewise, our pear tree is producing beautifully this year. Above is a shot of the (as yet) uneaten parts of today's bounty. We already ate a lot of peas and some pears and figs!

First Tomatoes of the Season!

I lied right there - in the blog post title. These aren't technically the first tomatoes of the season. We've already had a smattering ripen early, but they never even made it into the house for a wash. We just popped them into our mouths too quickly.

Here's the first photograph of the first (ish) tomatoes of the season. 

There are three varieties shown here. At 1 o'clock is the Isis Candy - very sweet. This lives in the back tomato patch. At 4 o'clock is the Early Ssubakus Aliana, also sweet. It's in one of the big planter boxes on our driveway. 6 o'clock features a small Cherokee Purple. There are monstrous ones hanging on the plant right now that dwarf this little one. It was a tasty tomato on my bagel! Finally, and 8 and 10 o'clock are two Black Cherries. This is the blighted plant, but it's producing well so far (I've trimmed off the offending leaves and stems). The plant does look scrawny, with super long stems and not very bushy, but the fruit is delicious so far.

Aack! My Tomatoes are Blighted!

I'm no tomato doctor. If anything, as per the title of my blog, I'm a tomato undertaker. True to form, it's mid-July and after an early blush of plant coddling over the spring and some booming growth... one of my tomato plants is ailing.

Last Year's Fails: 
Blight on the Brandywine?
Last year, my pink brandywine became extremely sickly. It produced one lonely and mealy tomato and, in the end, it looked a bit like a dog hung on its choke-chain. That's not an image I like to promote, but that's what it looked like -- it had lost almost all its leaves in a slow turning from dark green to pale yellow and this one tomato was on one of the highest branches. It wavered there on this thin neck of a branch as the plant became progressively sicklier and scrawnier. The brandywine was the one plant I had really looked forward to, as I'd surmised the tomato's flavor would be most like my husband's childhood tomatoes. So, I strung the poor thing up pretty high to keep it from drooping over onto the driveway.

In retrospect, I think this plant had blight, especially now that I've read up on the condition more.


Another Blight?
I had another plant go pretty badly, as I recall now. The leaves never got too diseased-looking, but the fruits were all leathery and gross and the plant never really thrived. I think it was the Black Plum. The Illinois Fruit and Vegetable News has pretty good descriptions of some ailments for tomatoes. In the blight description, it mentions "leathery" fruit, which this plant definitely had, but it didn't have so much leaf death.

Blossom End Rot
 I had two plants with an obvious condition last year - blossom end rot. Both the Gourmet Yellow Stuffer and the Scatalone lost almost all their fruit to this last year. The Scatalone is a long fruit anyway, and my understanding is that tomato shape can have an effect on the condition.

This Year's Fail: Blight on the Black Cherry?
So, we're just barely getting our fruits in now with lots of beautiful looking green tomatoes on all the plants... but my Black Cherry has suddenly become a withering plant with brown leaves and browning, soft stems. The leaves have some black speckles too.... is it blight? Yikes!!!

Another Stab at a Brandywine Tomato

At the farmer's market yesterday, I also picked up another tomato plant - a red brandywine. Last year, I had a pink brandywine in a 5 gallon nursery bucket. It did unbelievably poorly - was very sickly, losing what few leaves it developed. Ironically, this was one of the most important plants to me last year, since my husband spoke of how much he missed his favorite tomatoes from Jersey and I was guessing that Brandywines were his variety.

Somehow the pink brandywine managed to squeeze out three mealy tomatoes. In the end, though, it looked a bit like a dog hanging on a choke chain --- I'd slung its one super-long and spindly branch up high, tying it to a bamboo stake to keep the last developing tomato from capsizing the branch and falling ***SPLAT*** onto the driveway.

Needless to say, I'm hoping this year's will fair better. In order to give this one a fighting chance, I put it in a 10 gallon nursery pot with fertilizer-rich soil and some sand at the bottom for better drainage. I couldn't justify putting it in one of the final coveted spots in our northern bed, considering how badly its cousin performed last year.

I've put the brandywine pot next to another 10 gallon pot that has garlic thriving in it from last year (see - that which I've totally neglected thrives -- the garlic was a companion planting for tomatoes last year as a means of keeping aphids away). Both are on the eastern side of the big boxes, so when I hook up the automatic irrigation next weekend, they'll be easy to include.

This year's unsuspecting brandywine experiment... Mwa-ha-ha-ha!!! (front right. Left is garlic)

Tomato Plant Update #3

We planted the tomatoes today, but beforehand I got some shots of them still in thier cups.

Here they are from the top:





And the side:

Tomatoes are Finally In!

It took longer than expected, but the little tomato starts I've been tending since Tammy gave them to me back on March 25. It's been on and off cold at night, and we're still getting some winter rains, but I decided to get them planted out. They're pretty hearty by now and have gotten really big in their little cups!

This is the Early Ssubakus Aliana, in one of the big planter boxes:



Here's the Black Cherry in the other big planter (I put them on opposite ends for maximum spread, and intend to put bell peppers on the empty sides tomorrow).



Here are the Cherokee Purple, Tomatillo and Isis Candy (left to right):

Planting Out Day!!!

It's finally here! May 1st and we are planting out today! Of course, I still don't have the plants' exact locations figured in our garden spaces, so I have to do a last minute research mission online about plant spacing.

Tomatillo - 24 inches

Transplanting Out

Possibly because of the notorious variability of tomatillo plants, there seems wide disagreement about a good inter-plant spacing for them: the range offered runs from 15 to 24 inches. On the one hand, one wants them as close as practicable, to conserve garden space and to encourage the necessary cross-pollination; on the other hand, one doesn't want the plants competing for sun and space. We used 24 inches and were glad we did--they bushed out quite a bit.

Tomatoes - depends on variety
I found some info about tomato spacing here. Since all my varieties are indeterminate, I'm going to hedge my bets with 24-36 inches in between. It's funny, but I recall from last year that the plants with larger fruits stayed relatively smaller, while the littler varieties spread out more... I'll try to plant a small variety next to a large and see what happens! Perhaps I'll alternate with bell pepper plants. 

Transplanting Out

Transplanting out can be done in several ways. Some simply plant in the usual manner; with tomatoes, that means setting them deep, as deep as possible, so that the lowest leaves are just barely above the soil surface. Another technique is trenching: make a shallow trench, say 4 to 6 inches deep, then lay the seedling (which is, recall, 9 to 12 inches tall) on its side in the trench, gently bending the stem so that only the plant's top is above the soil surface (there are some illustrative photos on one of the sites linked below, well down that page). The virtue of this technique is that tomatoes will send down roots from any part of their stem that is in contact with soil, so this way one gets a lot of root, with much of it near the surface, where warmth and water access are better. But (there's always a "but"), on the other hand, the root system isn't as deep as with conventional planting. Dr. Male's recommendation is to trench only for those seedlings that look spindly or "leggy" and are scarcely able to stand upright on their own; the good doctor grows an immense number of tomato plants annually, but we who grow less than immense numbers can afford to overplant and be picky by culling leggy seedlings at transplant time. Still, both methods bear consideration. As you see, peat pots are not felt by experts to be the best approach; but if you're using them, be sure to bury their rims a good inch below the soil level, lest they wick out moisture from the soil to the air.

Here are the tomato descriptions:

Cherokee Purple
80 days, indeterminate — Given to heirloom tomato collector Craig LeHoullier by J. D. Green of Tennessee, it is at least 100 years old and was reported as originally grown by the Cherokee Indians. The fruits are large (twelve to sixteen ounces), dark pink with darker purple shoulders.  Excellent complex flavor, slight sweet aftertaste, perfect slicer for tomato sandwiches!

Black Cherry
65 days, indeterminate — This is a new variety that is very productive with cherry shaped fruits that have the dark, purplish coloring of 'Cherokee Purple'. Flavor is wonderful, very rich and sweet

Isis Candy ~ Warm yellow cherries are uniquely marbled with a red blush to full streaks, lovely and delicious, IND, 80 DTM

Early Ssubakus Aliana - no idea, but the rest look indeterminate, so I'll just go with that...

Fertilizing Tomatoes

As I've mentioned before on this blog, I seriously thought you couldn't fertilize vegetables in order for them to be organic. At least, not until this year. Apparently, that's cool. Here's the skinny on organic fertilizers:

In addition to increasing yield and fertilizing plants directly, organic fertilizers can improve the biodiversity (soil life) and long-term productivity of soil, and may prove a large depository for excess carbon dioxide. Organic nutrients increase the abundance of soil organisms by providing organic matter and micronutrients for organisms such as fungal mycorrhiza, (which aid plants in absorbing nutrients), and can drastically reduce external inputs of pesticides, energy and fertilizer, at the cost of decreased yield.

Nifty!

Anywhoo... Seeing as we're going to finally plant our tomatoes next weekend, I thought I'd brush up on Tammy's hints on tomato feeding. I've already been using the E.B. Stone Organics Tomato and Vegetable Food, but looks like I need to get some Dynamite Mater Magic.

Adding Dirt to the Tomato Starts

In other update news re: the tomato / tomatillo plants - yesterday my daughter and I added a lot more dirt to the cups. It's not getting consistently warm yet, so I don't want to plant them outside just yet, but they seemed so big that I wanted to give them more dirt.

Tomato Plant Update

It's official... I got Tammy's tomato starts just over three weeks ago, on March 25, and they're still alive!

The 2010 Tomato List, So Far

Last week, Tammy hooked me up with five starts - four tomato and one tomatillo. These are the types she gave me, along with the origination of the seeds:

Tomatillo Verde (Baker Creek)
Cherokee Purple (Winter's Own)
Black Cherry (Winter's Own)
Isis Candy (Winter's Own)
Early Ssubakus Aliana (Winter's Own)