First Tomatoes!! Exciting Photo!

[K8-EEE]

Well....exciting to ME anyhow, I'm a serious tomato fanatic, and not the horrid red-outside-white-outside numbers they sell at the store!



btw I am loving those little red plastic gadgets from Gardener's supply, called Tomato Savers. They keep the critters OFF, keep the food & water concentrated at the root zone and if you mulch around them, completely end weeding in the tomato garden!! LOTS more tomatoes and LOTS less work, can't beat that.

[Blue Gardener]

1. They're Beautiful!

Mine have a long way to go, so I envy you.

[Gormy Cuss]

2. The first red ones are always a thrill.

We're at least 3 weeks from that unless we have a heat spell.

[Kolesar]

3. I have four tomatoes on three plants--in Northern Ohio

Per an article in Mother Earth News, I bought a variety called "Stupice" from www.hirts.com . I warmed the ground with plastic mulch for a month, then put them in the ground on April 28 (two weeks after having five inches of snow). The plants have plastic mulch around them an are under a tent of light-transmitting row covers.

We had two frosts on May 13 and May 14. I took the row covers off yesterday morning.

The largest tomato is "just under" golf-ball size, which is the stated size that Stupice will reach. The proto-tomato started showing about a day after I put the plant in the ground. The plants are about 18 inches tall now.

Enjoy-Fresh-Tomatoes-All-Year

[NJCher]

4. I remember Stupice

Raised it one or two years. I liked 'em a lot. Polish or Czech variety, isn't it?

Anyway, congrats, K8-EEE! Beautiful pic!




Cher

[Kolesar]

5. From the Moravian region of the Czech Republic

I think it is pronounced stew-pee-che', but the staff at Hirts gardens calls it stoop'-ice.

[BOSSHOG]

6. Our Creole Plants are loaded with tomatoes

I planted better bush a bit later but they are catching up in a hurry and I'm gonna have to stake our grape tomatoes. So far a very good season. I got some Arkansas Traveler Seeds for a late planting.

[KatyaR]

7. I'm so freakin' jealous--the way the weather is here right now,

we may never get any tomatoes. First we have two weeks in April where the weather got so cold that you couldn't have any plants outdoors, and now we've had weeks and weeks of nothing but overcast skies and torrential downpours. My tomatoes and all my other plants are not doing well at all.

I had such hopes this year, having invested in a grow light to start as many plants as possible from seed. I have tomatoes, squash, peppers, eggplant, and some herbs and flowers that I started. The herbs are doing well, the flowers are doing so-so (except for the sunflowers, for some reason they're doing pretty well), but the squash is going great guns but is now developing mildew and my tomatoes are just sitting there. They are slowly putting on new growth, but nothing like what they need to start producing.

I'm sure that once this weather ends we will immediately jump into the stifling hot portion of the summer, which will be just as bad.

I'm trying to be optimistic--I go out several times a day and offer encouragement. I'm sure my neighbors think I'm absolutely insane (I'm sure they alread do, so it's not much of a stretch). I'm watering and feeding and thinking positive thoughts. As much as I love an overcast day, this is just too much.

Congratulations on your maters. Can I get a care package? :cry:

[BOSSHOG]

8. You'll end up with plenty of home grown veggies

You have plenty of growing season yet. I jumped the gun down here in South Mississippi and put some tomato plants out in early April and lost them to the frost but I replaced them and now have some seeds starting to poke their heads out so I plan on having homegrown tomatoes from this week through November.