Hi Jay,

I think that we all have a great chance of rain in the next three days. Isn't that terrific?

Like you, I'm very thankful for the rain we received last week but we sure need more. I really believe our drought is ending, slowly but surely.

I have been putting plants in the ground. Planted the first tomatoes on Sunday and got rain and hail that night and then a freeze a couple of nights later. The newly transpanted plants survived.

I planted a little yesterday and hope to get a lot of plants in the ground before the rain starts this afternoon or this evening.

We have one forecast low of 44 for next week and that makes me worry a little, but I'll just try to cover stuff up really well if that low stays in the forecast. After what happened to George this week (forecast: 50 degrees, actual: 32 degrees, result: lots of dead tomato plants), I am still a little worried about an abnormally cold night here.

Hope you get all your potting up done, get some rain, and don't have the severe weather there.

I've linked my favorite weather page from the Norman NWS office so everyone can see the lovely rainfall totals they are forecasting.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Rain Forecast Totals & Other Weather News

Severe thunderstorms have formed in west Texas and western North Texas and have begun to cross into Oklahoma (or soon will). At least one of these storms produced a tornado south of Amarillo near Cress, Texas.

I've linked the West Texas/OK radar below.

Nothing here in Love County, but it looks like western OK and the OK panhandle and southwestern Kansas should be receiving rain soon if they haven't yet.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Radar

Regarding the warm temps predicted for next week, it looks like maybe Spring will start for real then. It will probably end in mid-May with temps in the 90s. What are the chances I will get any Brandywine tomatoes this year if that happens?

Scott,

Spring started here at our house this week, I hope, although one night that is going down to 44 next week is making me a little bit nervous. Hail is in the forecast every day, so that means it IS spring, right?

Do you really want an answer to your Brandywine question? Because I think you already know the answer. A lot depends on the size of your Brandywine and whether it manages to bloom and set fruit before the heat arrives. If your experience mirrors mine, you'll be lucky to get 3 to 6 of the best-tasting tomatoes on the face of the earth, and then nothing after that. If you can baby it through the summer, it might set fruit again in the fall when temps fall back into the right range, but you have to "get lucky" and have a late first freeze of fall so the B'wine has a long time to produce and ripen in the fall.

If you truly love Brandywine and think it is worth it, then grow it and be happy with what you get. I only grow Brandyine once every 3 or 4 years (and not this year) because I'd rather devote the space to tomato plants that actually produce tomatoes.

If I HAD to have Brandywine, I'd start the seed right after Christmas, put it in a large container and either grow it indoors in my sunniest window, or drag it outside on warm days, inside at night, etc. I wouldn't be worried about getting any fruit in Jan.-Feb.-March, but just would be trying to get the plant to grow nice and big so that, when warm weather arrives in April, it is ready to bloom and set fruit. Then I'd hope for the best and expect more fruit from a plant that I'd babied into getting large before temperatures reached the right range for pollination and fertilization. Is one tomato variety worth all that? No. If it was, I'd do it every year. : )

You could try to find another tomato that is close enough in flavor to Brandywine that it makes you happy. For me, Brandy Boy fits the bill. You could try some of Keith Mueller's Brandywine crosses like Liz Birt or Gary 'O Senna. You could ask Jay for a report later in the year on Cowlick's Brandy and, if he was happy with its performance, beg him to share some seed. Brandywine is not happy in our climate, and probably never will be which is sad, because I do think it is the best-flavored tomato I've ever had, bar none.

Hi Jay,

Anything to add on Brandywine?

Did you get rain?

It is just beginning to rain here, finally!

Dawn

Argh. Three more hours, just hold off that rain for three more hours, please!

We're out doing the final pre-pour prep in between very scattered rain drops. Cement truck will be here at noon...

(I can't get my kitchen garden going at all until the cement pour is done.)

Brandywine has sucked for me here, too, the couple of times I tried it. Pruden's Purple is the best-tasting tomato I ever grew -- beat even the rare Brandywine that managed to appear.

Diane

Dawn,
We got 3/4 of an inch last night. Fell slow and nice again. Was supposed to rain during the day yesterday. I help with the track meets at a local school and they had talked about cancelling it. Then the sprinkles stopped around 2 so they went ahead and had it. Five minutes after completion the moisture started falling again. Was windy and cool but not too bad. Of course I was in the crows nest so probably easy for me to say. A good chance for the next 24 hours or more. Thankful for what we have received but can use more. I won't say the drought is over. As I get older I'm more like an old man I used to know. Here we started another drought as soon as the last rain was over. Some just last longer than others. LOL
Brandywines!! The results posted here pretty much sum up my experiences. I grew the common strains available for 6-7 years with no more than 3 fruit per vine. Always big, vigorous disease resistant vines. Sometimes no fruit at all. Three years ago I declared no more for me. Grew Lucky Cross two years ago. Produced two large fruits and the best tasting mater I've ever grown. So far here I've never experienced that to die for taste so many have with the Pink Brandywines. I would never admit to being hard headed but decided again last year to grow the Sudduths and Glicks strain. Sudduth's died and Glicks didn't produce any ripe ones. But was a terrible year for all. Had a few green ones at harvest. This year trying the Cowlick's and also the Brandywine Liams. Will report back on results. Now for my observations and opinions. Which along with 2 dollars might buy you a cup of coffee somewhere. I think they need to be started early which I didn't get done this year although I had planned on it. I think anything to give them give them an early start(WOW's, greenhouse, plastic buckets with clear covers help)is a big help. A big early plant that sets fruit before the heat would be ideal but the last few years we have went from frosts to 90-100 degree days in ten days. So that makes it hard. Here myself and other growers have found we get our best production from plants planted to be in peak production from Sept. 1st till frost. And Brandywine doesn't seem to like that window. Why do I still grow them? I ask myself that. Guess it is searching for that taste that you and others have experienced. And I hate to admit I can't grow it. I have found several op's that do well here. Still trying several new ones although my plans are to cut down on that number and increase the number of plants that do well here. Yes I would be glad to share seeds of the Cowlick's or any other varieties I grow with anyone. If they are my own seeds I tell everyone I don't bag but do space all plants at least 4 ft in every direction if not further. Save seeds from the center of the plant. And we have little insect activity to worry about here. All anyone needs to do is drop me an email and then remind me later.
Raining again now. Hope everyone is getting the nice rains we are. Jay

Diane, We liked Pruden's Purple, but still prefer the taste of several others--including Nebraska Wedding, Royal Hillbilly, Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, Indian Stripe and True Black Brandywine. I didn't even grow Pruden's Purple, Cherokee Purple or Black Krim this year, so Indian Stripe and True Black Brandywine had better produce as well this year as they did last year. Hope you get the concrete poured. The heavier rain is veering more and more east of us, so that may be bad news for you.

Jay, Thanks for the update on your Brandywine experiences.

For several years, I tried and tired, planting as many as six Brandywine plants and always, without fail--no matter the weather--getting 3 to 6 fruit per plant. We've always found them to be very tasty. Gave one once, around 2003, to DH's best friend from way back when they went through the police academy together in 1981 and he loved it--I think he wondered why we'd never given him a Brandywine before--but, not being a tomato grower himself, he wouldn't have understood how hard it is to get a ripe Brandywine, much less actually give one away to somebody else! LOL Ive just about given up on them. Brandy Boy and Momotaro both taste almost as good to me as Brandywine Sudduth.

I'm glad you got rain and hope you get more.

It is raining here now and we have puddles and mud. After the last year-and-a-half, puddles and mud are welcome. We had a grass fire very late last night and it was most likely arson since there was no logical reason for a fire to start in that area.....no electric fences, no power lines, no homes, no nothing....just a road and a field of pasture grasses. This rain should stop the arsonists for a few days anyway.

I don't understand the weather any more. We used to have a fairly early warm-up in March and could plant tomatoes, corn and beans then. If cold weather threatened, you covered the tomatoes with a 5-gallon bucket and they were fine. The corn usually came through one cold night fine, and the beans might or might not. Then we could grow everything quite well through April and May and most of June--with the truly wicked hot weather hitting about the third week in June. It worked, or at least we knew how to work with those conditions.

The last three years or so, we've had recurring cold nights late into April or even the first week and May and that hampers the ability to plant early. Then, in mid-May we zoom into the 90s, often with very hard winds (for May) so it is like a blast-furnance. Plants that went into the ground late enough to survive at night get hit hard by the early heat. I hope this is a temporary shift in the weather and not a permanent one. I am not going to be happy if our "spring weather" has been permanently reduced to 4 to 6 "good" weeks from mid-April to mid- to late-May.

It is getting harder and harder to be a gardener, and is even harder to be a farmer. Last week's freeze has decimated the local wheat crop, so even if you got your wheat through the dry winter, you're not going to be able to harvest it. Some of the local wheat farmers are going to turn their cattle loose in the wheat fields to graze because the wheat is not going to head up because of the freeze damage.

I would say that I wonder what the weather will do to us next, but I don't think I even want to know.

Dawn

Ha! Finished. The entire family, along with one annoyed concrete truck driver, are very, very soggy. But it's finished. :-p

I've grown both Black Krim and Cherokee Black and loved the taste of both. CB didn't produce near as much as BK for me, though. I've not yet tried any of the others mentioned but, of course, now I'll have to. I'm not responsible for my addiction, you see. I blame all of you enablers. I might sue. Would the settlement be paid in cash or seeds?

Diane

I think it would be paid for in big bags of ripe tomatoes. Tomatoes that needed to be eaten immediately, or canned, dehydrated, cooked down into sauce, turned into salsa or frozen. THAT would keep you busy for a while, and feed your addiction. : ) I think you can sue only if you've been harmed, though, and I can't figure out how we have harmed you by enriching your life with the many marvelous flavors (and colors!) of heirloom tomatoes.

You weren't online in mid-winter when I gave away all my 'leftover' seeds of about 100 tomatoes varieties that I've tried and grown in recent years. I was "cleaning out" my seed crate. I gave away virtually everything I had, except for what I am currently growing but I can save you seeds from this year's crops.

Glad the concrete work is done. We had the slab for our barn/garage poured in June 2004--a month in which we had over 10" of rain (yes, us, 10" in a month). It rained all morning, the sky cleared and was blue, the sun was shining, they started pouring concrete....and it clouded back up and immediately began raining again. Everyone was wet, muddy and annoyed but we got it done! I was afraid the cement mixer trucks wouldn't be able to make it make down the waterlogged gravel driveway, but they did.

Over an inch of rain here today. I'm not greedy, but if another inch or two fell, I wouldn't be unhappy.

Dawn

Dawn,
Brandyboy has done reasonably well for me and has been better tasting than the few Brandywines I've managed to pick. A few years ago I gave one plant to my stepdad and mother and their garden has a high wooden fence on the south and a little barn on the west to break wind and afternoon sun. They got 6-8 nice maters. The best I've ever seen from a Brandywine here. This is what has led me to believe a windbreak and afternoon shade helps with them and some others. A wind break helps most here. But with some it just seems they can't take the hot sun. Cherokee Purple, Chapman, Black from Tula, Texas Star, Caspian Pink, Hege's German Pink, Kellogg's Breakfast and Vintage Wine Striped are among those that can do well and also produce well here. But still looking for a way to grow a great tasting Brandwine with fair production. When I do I'll share it. But wouldn't hold your breath for it maybe a while. We got an inch or more everywhere. They are saying a good chance of more. The sun is out and sure looks like it is over. Hopefully we will get some more.
Got home turned out my two older horses and thought they would want the green wheat and grass and wouldn't bother my bare garden I haven't put all the fence back up on. Was I wrong. A few minutes later looked out there and my oldest horse stood in the middle of it. I yelled you know better than that and he promptly left. Going 12 inched deep with every step. Didn't hurt much but he did stomp on a few onions.
Diane glad you were able to get the cement poured.
Guess I'd better get some potting up done. Hope everyone has a wet and good weekend. Jay

If it rains out the party tomorrow, I am blaming Jay. LOL

soonergrandmom,
If it will bring rain here I will be glad to take the heat. LOL. Have broad shoulders and used to it. I do hope you have nice weather for your party. Was a tornado touched down about 70 miles to the north of us tonight. Jay

Missed the rain and the bad weather last night. A chance today then starts clearing out and warming up. After tonight all predicted lows mid 40's and above. Worked on a cold frame last night. Plan on starting my hardening off this week and planting the end of the next week if possible. Will put buckets around them so won't be hard to cover them if needed. Hope everyone came through last night without any damage and can get serious about gardening now. Jay

Jay,

I have a large pecan tree just west of my garden and it shades the nearest portion of the garden from about 1 or 2 p.m. on. I have planted both tomatoes and peppers at that end of the garden, so they have full sun from sunrise until 1 or 2 p.m., then full to dappled shade during the hottest part of the day, and then a little direct sun very late in the day. They seem to do very well under those conditions and produce much later in the summer than plants that are in full sun from sunrise to sunset. With one or two rows, I may experiment with shade cloth or aluminet this summer. I'm always looking for ways to keep the plants producing deeper into the heat of summer.

At least we have cooler nights a little later in the year than most of the gardeners in most of Texas. When they start posting that the heat has shut down production of their plants, I always start thinking "uh oh, here it comes" even though we almost always get fruit set for anywhere from 1 to 4 weeks longer than they do depending on what the nighttime lows are doing.

The heat is one reason I grow more and more cherry, currant, and grape types every year--they produce like mad and are easy to dehydrate. Then I can enjoy them all winter long. I eat them straight from the bag like raisins sometimes and rehydrate them at other times.

Except for a Tuesday morning low forecast to go to 44, next week looks wonderful weather-wise. After Tuesday morning passes, I'd be planting like a maniac. By then, maybe the ground will be dry enough.

We have an odd phenomenon occurring here that we haven't seen in a long time.....dew on the grass! Fun! Y'all can laugh at me, but our humidity and dewpoint have been so low and is had been dry for so long that we had almost forgotten what dew is. It is good to have it back. They U.S. Drought Monitor still shows us in the "Moderate Drought" category, but I expect that to end soon. We have had a lot of moisture this year compared to the last 18 months, and I pretty much believe the drought has ended. The ponds and creeks, though, are mostly dry so the recovery will be long and slow.

Dawn

Dawn,
I have experienced the same results. Where I used to live I had a big elm tree just south of the SW corner of my small garden area. And a big two story house probably 50 ft to the west. Raised more pounds per plant there than I have anywhere. Made me look like a gardener. Then when I purchased this property it had nothing on the south and west of the garden plot. Had a big tree to the north that I killed trying to get weeds under control. I have planted a few trees around but so far seems the ones on the south side of my garden area have had tough luck. The other thing is if I get them too close I have root problems. I have observed how the Amish garden. They try to plant on the north and east side of trees and also plant sweet corn two rows wide on the south side of all flowering crops. When my sweet corn gets some size the tomato plants closest to it will start setting fruit better. Serves as a windbreak and a shade. I used shade cloth put up as a windbreak and not shade last year. It helped but not as well are the corn. I'm still hoping to get some trees growing and experimenting. One of the new area for my maters this year has a big elm tree to the west. Feel that should help.
Rain is over and looks like a rapid warm up by Wed. Then temps in the high 70's and 80's for several days. Looks like a possible cool down around the end of the month. That is too far out to be accurate though. They are saying 44 for a low tonight and that is the lowest for 15 days if the forecasts hold.
I plan on starting to harden off now and planting out the first around the first or just before. Have plenty of plants so may gamble with a few.
I almost finished my cold frame yesterday. I'm going to take a piece of plywood and use my hole saw and cut holes in it that the plastic cups with fit in and then lay it in the frame around 3-4 inches from the bottom so it will hold the cups upright in the wind when I had the top open. May have to do a little experimenting on size but feel this will work as well as buying a bunch of holders and cheaper.
I may have to get your method for dehydrating from you. Have never done that and might work well for me.
The odd phenomenon we've had is rain. If we can get one more rain in a few weeks should be some wheat this year. If we don't get 2 weeks of hot searing wind. I've been turning my horses out on my patch of wheat I plant around here that they begged for all winter. Now they would rather go hunt the short sprigs of grass starting than eat the wheat. Jay