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Thread: Not one ripe tomato yet

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Dec 2013
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    Davy....or any of you traveling through Illinois.....you know....on your way to or from less hostile territory....

    Stop on in and I'll load you up with tomatoes, sweet corn, watermelons, eggs, cabbage, okra, cayenne peppers, maple syrup, home grown wheat.....

    Got cold beer and hard cider the cellar.

    Don't be shy, now.

  2. #12
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    Mar 2010
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    That's mighty generous of you, Sam
    Plato once said, “Wise men speak because they have something to say. Fools, because they have to say something.”

    "Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt." "Men willingly believe what they wish to believe."
    Julius Caesar

    There's no natural calamity that government can't make worse.
    Bill Bonner

  3. #13
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  4. #14
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    Nov 2007
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    None here yet, although just to make things interesting, one VOLUNTEER paste tomato that I transplanted to fill in a spot where an early-started plant succumbed (probably to a cutworm) has several orange fruit on the bottom of the plant.

    How in HECK can a plant that started at least 6 weeks later than the ones I babied indoors be producing first? Gardening! Never boring.

    I'll be saving seed from it, for sure... all my varieties are open pollinated, almost all heirlooms, and I've been slowly getting them more and more acclimated to our weird and often uncooperative climate here. We're spraying weekly with copper, as the potatoes started blighting out badly after three weeks of rain in June... the copper has arrested the blight on those plants and hopefully we'll have potatoes.

    I'm afraid hubby may have overdone the chicken manure on the front garden (we're resting the 2 acre big garden this year, having planted it to buckwheat for green manure and a honey crop- the bees are loving it) because the tomato plants are lush and huge, but some varieties (oddly, the cherry tomatoes are the worst) don't have a lot of fruit. Pantano Romanescos are loaded... if anyone wants to try a truly fantastic flavored beefsteak type tomato, try that one. You'll never see it in a farmers market, much less a supermarket, because the fruit is SO tender, you have to "pick" it by cutting the stem and carefully catching the ripe fruit in your hand... if you try to pick it by pulling it off the stem or breaking the stem loose by hand, your fingers will meet in the middle of the fruit!

    They're sort of a PITA because of that trait (picking a large caged plant one by one with snips is time consuming) but I always grow 3-4 plants just to add them to my tomato sauce... they add a sweetness and depth of flavor I've never seen matched by any other variety.

    Summerthyme

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
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    Daughter just picked my first tomato today.
    It's from the greenhouse and a volunteer, too.
    Beds are full of volunteers

    I didn't plant any of them this year in there.

    I've been getting a few cherries for a couple weeks.
    The one "big" one I got today was only the size of a lemon.

    To add to my woes, not one squash, cucumber or pickle.
    I do have some nice watermelons coming on in the greenhouse
    Plato once said, “Wise men speak because they have something to say. Fools, because they have to say something.”

    "Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt." "Men willingly believe what they wish to believe."
    Julius Caesar

    There's no natural calamity that government can't make worse.
    Bill Bonner

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