tomatoes

[Thomas]

The first two are in and I will be eating one today with lamburgers.

These are from the greenhouse. The ones outside are calling for bathing suits, and until they get them, they are staying curled up and green.

I have never seen this much rain on this consistent a pattern. We have mushrooms growing on the front lawn!

[Innkeeper]

We have six plants now over 3 ft high, with lots of blossoms; but not a single tomato.

[Drew]

I have 4 tomatos on one 3' tall Early Girl.

Drew

[Thomas]

IK,

It is a strange phenomenon. We have tomato blossoms all over our 50 outdoor plants, but just a few tomatoes, and not on every plant.

Anyway, the two we ate were sublime: one sliced on top of lamburger (ground lamb, rosemary, soy sauce, breadcrumb, crushed garlic, and crushed white pepper) and we had the other tomato sliced with sweet basil, which is also flourishing in the greenhouse.

It was a lot of work and it cost some money, but we are glad we put that greenhouse up, as glad as the doctor who's been treating my back [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb/wink.gif[/img]

[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 07-26-2009).]

[winoweenie]

For a perfect 23 out of 23 planings I just pulled the last of my dead tomatoo plants.Every year I get seduced by the ads depicting the large, red, flicking delicious looking red things . I plant...but the correct fertilizer, buy special pots and soil, and just after the 1st blooms, the lil' green sucker appears. Exciditly I grab CB ab show her that I've got a whole pantry full of "Big Berthas, red beauties, etc " coming online. witjhin the 1st week the lil' green sucker is on the soil dead as a whiipen-snort. So far I've spent $6,451 and have yet to harvest a single to-ma-ta-ooooo. Cruel be this desert. WW

[Thomas]

Do you know what's killing them?

What happens to them before they bite the dust?

[dananne]

Our tomatoes are going gangbusters at our farm in Missouri, producing more tomatoes than we can eat fresh. We've got yellow pear, early girl, Cherokee purple, black krim, moneymaker, green sausage, lemon yellow, Mr. Stripey, super marzano, red lightning, Tommy toe, and a few others that didn't do well. The ones above are the ones producing. Here in Atlanta is another story, however. When the temps climbed from the '80s into the '90s, they shut down. So, they're not fruiting right now, and the ones on the vine are still green and waiting for cooler soil temps before kicking back into gear. Since it's stayed cooler up at the farm, those tomatoes haven't shut down at all and have kept fruiting. Not only do we have more than we can eat fresh (we'll do other things with the rest, such as drying, making sauce, etc.), our neighbors have been harvesting fruit when it ripens and we're not up there, so they're feeding them, too.

WW, your soil temps may be too high for them. Just a thought.

On a related topic, my Niagara and Catawba vines took well this year up at the farm. The Mars and Concord did not. Norton goes in for next year, and I'm excited. If the Norton do well, that's what I'm going to use to try my had at making wine. We'll know in a few years whether I have any aptitude at it [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb/wink.gif[/img]

[hotwine]

Just back from the ranch, hotter'n a two-dollar hooker, nothin's growin', cows lookin' at me like "What the blue blazes have you done to us?!" PLEASE send some of that wonderful rain down our way!

[wondersofwine]

I'm on my way to a tomato dinner tonight at Zely and Ritz in Raleigh. They have five such dinners scheduled in July and August and may have to add more. The menu is based around heirloom tomatoes (including the Cherokee purple that Dan grows) grown on Coon Rock Farm near Raleigh. An heirloom tomato expert speaks so I will ask him what WW can do to harvest some tomatoes in the desert.

[Drew]

Wow, you don't need an expert to tell him that he can't grow tomatoe's in sand.... [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb/eek.gif[/img]

Drew

[Drew]

As a side note I always wondered where "sun dried" tomatoes came from.... [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb/confused.gif[/img]

Drew

[winoweenie]

Berry, berry funny Drew-Heimer. I suppose last nite for dinner you had Ball-Parks and kraut with your wine. [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb/wink.gif[/img] WW