Hey, Dawn -- I grew Nebraska Wedding this summer, too. I have had good yields from it, and it's a good tomato, but not as good as Kellogg's Breakfast. I have had tons of huge tomatoes off the Kellogg's Breakfast plant and it is delicious. I have only one Black Krim plant and I've had maybe two tomatoes from it. There's an additional one ripening on the table and maybe two on the vine. It froze and came back up from the roots this spring. I had a second plant but it did not survive. I also grew some grape tomatoes. I'm not particularly fond of cherry tomatoes and I thought I'd really like these, but they are just more of a pain to pick and keep track of. DH likes the big slicers and DGS doesn't like tomatoes unless they're in something like pizza, spaghetti or ravioli. I did try dehydrading some and I guess I must've missed something. Was I supposed to seed them first? All my dehydrated tomatoes taste more like bitter seed than what I expected. I have been making "tomato puree", though, because we really like the home made tomato soup and so I just add the extra grape tomatoes in with what I'm going to puree. We may come to appreciate them more when our last slicer is gone, as the grape tomatoes are the only ones still blooming. I will probably pull out the other plants as they are all looking pretty bad right now and they are nearly down to their last green tomato. But we had a good run and have enjoyed what we got from the garden. I have some little plants to set out for the fall: more Black Krim, Arkansas Traveler, Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter, and some seed I saved and planted from some big round Arkansas tomatoes we bought at the store for our Memorial Day cookout.

What will I NOT plant again? Probably Mule Team. I didn't get one tomato out of four plants. I just don't have the space to waste in my garden on plants that don't produce anything.

Is there anything I will definitely plant again? Kelloggs Breakfast, for sure.

I also grew some Striped German tomatoes. They were interesting, mid-size to rather smallish tomatoes. I was surprised because I expected the stripe to be vertical. They have red bottoms and they graduate to a lemon-yellow top. Attractive, but not really anything to write home about, IMHO. And I've been getting an occasional "brandywine" red tomato from seed that was named "The Big Red Tomato". It's not big and it's more pink than red so that one really didn't live up to it's description and I probably won't grow it again, either.

As you can tell, I do like the big tomatoes, but I don't like the ones that are all core and that have a big huge scab on the blossom end. Some years ago, I grew seeds my mother had given me. She said they were "German Pink". The vines produced well, the tomatoes were huge, and looked like they were actually three tomatoes all grown together. But it seemed like there was always one lobe that either ripened before or after the other two. So no matter what you did, you either had to cut off a rotten lobe, or a green one. They were delicious, though. --Ilene

I'm getting tons of Romas. Have four tubs of them to can tomorrow - diced or sauced.

The Celebrity tomatoes I bought from the Amish folks turned out to be some kind of really tall Roma. Gorgeous plants though, I must say. Just now fruiting but each plant is loaded. They are very bushy and big around and very tall for a Roma. I am only disappointed in that I needed some regular canning tomatoes as I use a lot of those all year.

I am beginning to get tomatoes from my one surviving Early Girl, who btw is LATE! :) They are good tasting. The other plants got bit and died in those late hard freezes we had, even though I covered them and mulched to protect them. They all survived the first hard freeze, but the second and third one finished them off. Drat!

Super Sweet 100s putting on gobs of fruit as usual - volunteers from last year's that I grew from seed. They are my snacking grapes. Tried making salsa with them, but too seedy. A few have ripened and I ate them right where I found them, still hot from the sun's energy. Yum! Sweet and good.

The Juliet tomatoes I grow in 5-gallon buckets. They always get big, but this year they are already gigantic and the fruit is bigger than they have been for several years. These are for drying, as we love sun-dried tomatoes. They disappear quickly...too quickly!

Aunt Ruby's German Green is one of those late producing tomatoes, but she is beginning to fruit now. Over 7 feet tall. The branches are massive in diameter, perhaps an indication of the amount or size of fruit they produce? I've had to add another cage to contain her. Only growing one this year as I am the only one who appreciates her golden-green deliciousness. I love the ribbed or convoluted shape of the fruit and some people don't like that. Well, I like they way they look, but I am growing them to eat.

Have several volunteers growing here and there and waiting to see what they will be. It may be a canning type. That would be nice. Probably Romas, but they could be German Johnsons as I had them in that area last year, but who knows.

And last but not least, my Brandywines. Two have fruit starting and all have blossoms. One looks pathetic compared to the others. Don't know what's up with it. Maybe because it doesn't not as shade around it like the others have around them. Its leaves are healthy and there are no insects - just not as full and lush like the rest. Can't wait for my first BW.

That's my tomato report.
~ sweetannie4u

Ilene,

For some reason I don't understand, Nebraska Wedding always outproduces Kellogg's Breakfast here, and we like its' flavor more. And, it isn't just "our" tastebuds, because everyone who tastes one begs for more. Every day. Every day, until I tell them the plant has died or stopped producing (even if it hasn't). Kellogg's Breakfast just doesn't give us more than 4 or 5 fruit per plant and the flavor is only average for us. Isn't it odd how you and I have such opposite results?

I don't know why your dehydrated tomatoes have a bitter flavor. Your excess rainfall this year may have diluted the sugars significantly. Maybe Annie has an idea since she dries them too. I don't remove the seeds from mine, but some people do, usually by squeezing them out. I sometimes dry mine plain, but sometimes sprinkled with olive oil or olive oil plus salt or olive oil plus basil or olive oil plus an Italian Seasonings blend.

In my experience, Mule Team is a heat lover and I only have a good year with it if it is NEVER exposed to cold or excessively wet weather. For that reason, in the years I plant it, I tend to get better results from it from August on.....it is like it won't produce if it has lots of water, which is peculiar. Give it little to no water and completely ignore it during the hot weather, though, and it produces really well and tastes great. It's an odd one.

I have grown a lot of different German pinks that sound like your mom's.....Valena Pink, German Johnson, Jerry's German Giant, German Queen, German Head....there are endless varieties of German heritage that are huge, lobed, pink, taste great, etc. Of them all, German Queen was a great producer, but Valena Pink is even better.

Annie,

You're going to be busy with those tomatoes!

Your experience with Early Girl is the same as mine. I've just about stopped growing it for early tomatoes because it seemed like it was producing later and later every year for the last 3 or 4 years. Other so-called earlies I have tried, like Ultimate Opener, Kimberly, etc. haven't done any better. I've switched to Better Bush for early tomatoes, but only because I can buy it in Dallas in late February or March in 6" plantable peat pots and the plants are huge (large diameter main stem) and blooming when I buy them. I put them in containers, haul them into the garage on cold nights, and get ripe ones by mid- to late-April. I don't even bother planting the so-called early hybrids in the ground any more.

My Super Sweet 100s were eaten almost down to the ground by the darned deer, but have now recovered and I may finally get some ripe ones. Usually it is one of my big workhorses, but the deer messed that up this year. (The new deer fence is working, so this shouldn't be a problem in the future.)

I love Aunt Ruby's....it was the first green-when-ripe I ever grew, but this is my second year with Cherokee Green. I may go back to Aunt Ruby's next year, or one of each of these two.

Brandywines! Oh, if only they produced as well for us as they do in cooler climates.....they'd be all I'd grow!!!

Sounds like a great tomato year at your house!

Dawn

Good morning, everybody,
Here's my report:
CHERRY TOMATOES are finally producing ripe fruit; this is the first week I've harvested anything all summer. There are several dozen green tomatoes still on the plants.
BLACK KRIM: two large tomatoes so far, still waiting for them to ripen
PINK CASPIAN: nothing, lots of buds but no fruit set
OLD GERMAN (ORANGE): nothing, no buds
CHEROKEE PURPLE: no fruit set, a few buds

Now I am struggling with early blight, even with a soaker hose and spraying anti-fungal on a regular basis... UGH!

Overall, this has been a pretty disappointing year in the vegetable garden. My harvest so far is seven cherry tomatoes and several bunches of basil and mint. Out of all my pepper plants, I've got ONE jalapeno pepper growing. Nothing from my blueberries or blackberries, but those are still pretty new and will probably be next year or 2010 before I see fruit.

The flowerbeds are doing great, though, with marigolds, dianthys, mums, dahlias, petunias, ballon flowers, lillies all going like mad.

Steve, SWOKC

Steve,

It's been a difficult year in many vegetable gardens, so you certainly are not alone. I'd say "Next year will be better", but there's no way to guarantee that. How about, "Next year should be better!"

My results are mixed....but I almost always have a very, very high yielding garden, so even when it is "worse than usual", I still get quite a lot. Most gardeners in Love County are not at all happy with their gardens' performance this year, especially tomatoes and peppers because it got too hot for them too early. Some of them gave up early on their tomato plants. My plants, though off to a slower-than-normal start, have produced well lately. I hope it lasts. In our county, early crops like onions and potatoes have done very well, mixed results on tomatoes and peppers, and pretty good results on most other warm-season crops like sweet corn, melons, pumpkins, okra, squash and beans. Fruit was patchy here....if you were in a lower-lying area, you lost a lot to late freezes. On higher ground that survived the freezes, you saw a lot of fruit blow off the trees during those horrible high winds we had in May. Most people have had good blackberry harvests here. The persimmon trees still have a chance of ripening their fruit since they produce a fall crop.

If you can get your tomatoes through the early blight, perhaps they'll produce in the fall, and the peppers should also produce a lot once the air temperatures fall. Some years Early Blight is very bad here, but since it hasn't rained here much this year, it has been only a minor problem. It rained here this week, though, so I'll probably have a roaring case of EB by Monday.

At least the herbs and flowers are doing well! Of course, it is always more fun when the plants are producing an actual harvest too, but I enjoy gardening even if they don't.

Dawn

Dawn,

When did you plant your tomatoes? By the way, is it okay for me to move my tomato plants to a more shaded but little light area? They're in a big pot.

Mari,

With the spring tomatoes, the earliest ones went into large pots in early to mid-March, and they were already in bloom--a deliberate process to get the earliest possible harvest--my goal is RIPE tomatoes before May 1st.

With the in-ground tomatoes, I normally start planting in mid- to late-March, although I don't remember specifically what day I started this year. It takes me FOREVER to plant, because I do the following: add compost and Tomato-Tone food to each bed, till it in, lay down a woven fabric-type mulch, pin it down to the ground with staples, cut X's in it, transplant the tomatoes into the ground through those X's, water each one in with a watering can containing a water/liquid seaweed OR compost tea mix, cage the tomato with a wire cage, stake the cage with at least two stakes attached to the cages with zip-ties, attach a label to one stake (the label is half-a-slat from a mini-blind, written on with a non-fading garden marker from Harris Seeds, duct-taped to the 3' wooden stake), plant the companion herbs and flowers, and mulch the whole bed with about 2" of mulch and then water the mulch to "pack it down" a little so March winds don't take it airborne. It takes me FOREVER, FOREVER, FOREVER, but the beds are very low-maintenance for the rest of the growing season. I weed religiously early on to keep stuff from sprouting in the mulch. Once it is really hot, I don't do much but harvest.

Due to the repeated late freezes that lasted into early May, my last tomatoes probably went into the bed the first two weeks in May--and those are the ones that haven't produced any ripe ones yet (Supersonic, Rampao, etc.).

In June, I start seed for plants to go into the ground in July. Because everything was late this year, I started them late and they are still pretty small, but I'll put them in the ground next week, I think. Some years I start them in May, but that seemed ridiculous this year since it was so cold so late. Sometimes in June or July I take cuttings from existing plants. They take a week or so to root in water and then I give them a week or so to grow in the dirt, and then a week to transition from full shade to full sun, and then into the ground--so about 3 weeks from cutting to new plant in the ground.

Summer tomatoes I try to get into the ground no later than July 10th, but it can vary wildly. Last year, for example, the spring plants were waterlogged and didn't do well, so I started replacing them with "fall tomatoes" in early June in some cases and had them all in the ground pretty early. This year is the total opposite--the late start slowed it all down and the lack of rain means a lack of disease, to the spring-planted plants are going strong and there's nowhere much to put the fall plants. So, I'll try to start planting the fall plants next week and have them all in the ground before the end of July. If I can't get them into the ground in July, they won't have time to make fruit before it freezes here.

You can move your tomatoes to part shade....at this time of year, 4 hours of sunlight is plenty, esp. for containers because the soil in them gets so hot.

Dawn

Mariposa,
You can certainly move your potted tomatoes. If they have roots in the ground, gently loosen them first. I've moved mine. I first loosen the soil where I am going to set the pot. That helps them acclimate faster. Water thoroughly, but not excessively.

Dawn,
I have good results from my Brandywines because I give them afternoon shade to keep them cooler. To compensate for Brandywine's intolerance to our high southern summers, I plant mine where they have afternoon shade or filtered sunlight on the east side of my weeping willow, using the tree's filtered sunlight to cool the soil where they grow. Shrubs or other garden plants work well too, like corn, okra, sunflowers, cucumber or bean towers. They especially need shade around their "feet" to aid in keeping them cooler. Don't plant the other veggies too close or you can end up with diseases when the humidity is high. The main objective is to cool the soil and the air around the Brandywines.

This year I am trying to grow them where they have more sun with tall growing basil (Genovese, Lemon or Cinnamon basil) around them. The Basil and Chicory come back each year from their own seed. The tall growing Nasturtiums I planted this spring. They all got a good head-start growing in with the broccoli. By the time the broccoli had finished and was removed and the tomatoes went in, these plants had grown to some size to give the Brandywine's roots some beneficial shade. They also ward off harmful insects. Basil also improves the growth and flavor of tomatoes, so more added benefits.
By the time the weather got hot, the Brandywines had begun to flower and make fruit. I planted Clemson Spineless Okra on the southside of them to give them shade in August. The okra will benefit from the herbs, but also from being near the tomatoes because their shade holds in moisture.

I never get bountiful crops from Brandywines - they only make two or three of their HUGE 2-3 lb tomatoes at a time, but they are not canning tomatoes anyway, so it works out just fine for me. Gives enough time in between for us to eat them fresh as they do not store well. I slice them and marinate them in a balsamic-olive oil-basil vinaigrette. Yum. I also make fresh spaghetti sauce or lasagna sauce with them. It is the best. I love them best fresh off the vines, sliced and eaten warm. Juicy and melt in your mouth good. So worth the wait.

I'm uploading pictures of my Potager to my PhotoBucket Account. Will post that link when done.

Annie

Annie,

I never get a really bountiful harvest from Brandywine either, and this year is worse than most for it. We went from a hard freeze on May 4th to 97 degrees on about May 19th, and I knew right then that the BWs weren't going to be happy. So, their productivity is low this year, but the flavor, as always, is high.

I grow them pretty much the same way you do, with the roots of mine heavily shaded by basils (I think I have 8 or 9 kinds this year), parsleys and other herbs, and some flowers as well, including marigolds and zinnias. I have taller plants to their south and west to shade them, but once our daily highs are in the upper 90s like they are now (98 yesterday, 97 today), it is just too hot for good fruitset. At least the humidity here is pretty low, so not many foliar issues this year. Next year it is their turn to rotate into the part of the veggie garden that gets shade from a very tall pecan tree from about 2 p.m. on and they tend to produce more fruit when grown there. That area is fallow this year with a cover crop.

In a hot year like this, after I pick the last of the BW that set in cooler weather, I usually cut them back to about 3' tall in late July and have blooms again in September. If an early freeze doesn't get them, I'll get a second wave of ripe ones in late October or in November. The saddest day in the summer is the day we eat the last BW. My BWs seldom get over a pound and a half, but we have low rainfall, and I don't water if I can avoid it.

There is obviously no shortage of tomatoes here....I just wish there were more BWs per plant. I have made spaghetti sauce from nothing but Brandywines and it was so very, very good. (I think the last one that was "all Brandywine" had Brandywine Sudduth, Red Brandywine and Brandywine OTV.)

Im looking forward to seeing the photos of your potager.

Dawn

Dawn,
Our temps here have been the same.
But my potager does have protection on all sides from strong drying winds. On the NE side I planted a red plum tree several year back to shade the chicken house that we built there. It is now a big tree (thanks to the chicken poop) and it affords protection and some shade and helps cool the garden air.
The greenhouse is south of the chicken run so that also gives some wind protection.
To the south is my cottage garden at the back door and beyond that the carport and tall trees so that blocks hot southern winds in the summer.
About 4 years ago I planted a weeping willow to the west of the garden area with the idea to give it afternoon shade. That has worked famously.
My soil however, is very alkaline and sandy with sandstone just below the surface, so it leaches out continually and I have to add amendments year round. I have had to pick out the rock down two feet and all the while build up the soil with shredded wood, leaves and composted wood chips, leaf mold from the woods and cow patties I gathered from the pasture up on the hill so I could have enough depth in the soil to garden. It was only 4-6 inches deep when we bought this place in 1996. Glad I did it back then before I got decrepit - I sure couldn't do all that nowadays. We live on a ridge facing the south west and it is high and dry most of the time. Dries out great in early spring for early gardening, but come summer, I MUST water, water, water, and amend, amend, amend!
Sounds like you and I garden a lot alike even though we have very different soil and you live in a slightly warmer climate. You have a lot more land to garden on too. I rather envy you that, but then again, now I don't need as big a garden like I used to have with all my children out of the nest and scattered all over America. I hate that.
Take care, put on lots of sunscreen and wear a big hat for gosh sakes! Boy, I sure do.

Annie

Annie,

I think we are only the tiniest bit hotter, but y'all are probably usually more humid. (On some days, I'd think the higher humidity would feel great, but on other days it would push the heat index into the stratosphere!)

We have limited protection from south and north winds, but not so much from the west, and none from the east. Our clay holds too much moisture when it rains and not enough any other time, but it is great when well amended. We have one narrow band of sandy soil between the house and garden and that is where the guinea coop and chicken coop are, there under the shade of the big pecan tree. I have cannas and 4 o'clocks and rough-leaf dogwood under that pecan to help shelter the poultry from the predatory birds that like to eat them.

Unfortunately, the soil amending has to be ongoing....year around, year in, year out. I am "only" 49, but wonder how many years I'll be able to garden at the current pace. Already, the heat bothers me so much more than it did 5 or 10 years ago. The garden gets a little shadier as the trees on three sides of it get larger, but I have to worry about their roots encroaching too.

Our soil leans towards being neutral, around 6.8 to 7.2, as long as I keep it well-amended. I had alkaline soil (around 8.0) in Texas, and it was a struggle to lower it any at all. Unfortunately, our place here was once a farm where cotton was one of the crops raised, and there is cotton root rot in the soil. That gave me a lot of trouble in the early days, and there really is no "cure" for it, but I find that the more I amend and improve the soil, the less trouble I have with cotton root rot. Unfortunately, two or three thousand plants are susceptible to it, so I have to watch what I plant.

I don't garden on most the land we have because the clay is like red concrete. Only about a acre or acre-and-a-half of it is tamed, about 3 acres are pastures where the wildflowers and grasses nurture the wildlife, and a little over 10 acres is forested and full of deer, bobcats, foxes, ringtailed cats, ferrets, snakes, snakes, snakes, and tons of other stuff, including possums, armadillos and skunks. We do mow 10' wide paths through the pastures so we can walk through there without stepping on copperheads (been there, done that, didn't care for the experience, but didn't get bitten either).

I love, love, love living and gardening here, but I miss the longer growing season we had in Fort Worth, where the last spring freeze was often in mid to late-February and the first one often didn't hit until mid- to late-November.

Still, I do like Oklahoma better even if it took me 39 years to get here! I envy the rainfall y'all get up there....in a GREAT year here, we'll have 30 to 34" inches and we'll be astounded that we got so much! I can't imagine routinely getting 35" or 40" or more. I'd sure like to try it for a year or two though! Most years since we've been here, it's been more like 26" or 28" or maybe 30" of rain, but one year it was 21" and another it was 24". In a year like that, it gets to where all you can do is water enough to keep the foundation from cracking. So, in a "good year" we STILL have drought here, and in a bad year it is unspeakably bad. I guess it is probably pretty much the same all over Oklahoma....is there ever really enough rainfall in June, July or August (well, maybe at Scott's! LOL).

Our 17 keats have survived their first month and we've only had to kill two black snakes that were after them, although our predator-snake problem is usually the worst in July and August. DH keeps wanting to let the keats out of the brooder cages, but the last two times we did that when they were this old, something got them all, so they are staying in the brooder a while longer. I think the guinea coops is about 95% snake proof, but I am not convinced it is 100% snake proof.

Our bunnies are disappearing, but I haven't heard the coyotes howling at night yet, so think they are still denned up with their young. A neighbor says a friend of his is seeing a cougar occasionally, but I haven't seen any signs of one near us for a couple of years, I think. Maybe it is the bobcats getting the rabbits. It has been such a great rabbit year, but I know it doesn't last long.

The turtle eggs laid in the shrub bed (clay highly amended with compost) have hatched and we have little baby turtles everywhere, and we've had a huge population explosion in the hummingbird gang this year--ruby-throated, black-chinned, and rufous. Life is good! (Hot, but good.)

I am very careful about exposure to the heat and sun. I don't wear sunscreen as often as I should (but I'm better than I used to be), but I always wear hats and, more often than not, I wear long-sleeved cotton shirts in the summertime. All the ranchers and farmers here do that to protect their skin, so at least I don't look like an oddball. (Being an organic gardener in a pretty non-organic county makes me enough of an oddball as it is! Not that I care. I wear my oddballness proudly!)

Dawn

Wow, Dawn, I wish I was there to see your little ones (turtles). I bet they are just so cute!

SweetAnnie - I've moved many a plant with roots firmly attached to the soil beneath the pot and was glad to hear you did that, too! Sometimes they sulk a bit but usually perk up after the shock within a few days.

It's just too hot outside for me right now. Even if I get out there in early a.m., by 9 a.m. it's too hot for my taste. The heat lovers are doing well, though, like datura, morning glories, moon vine, cypress vine, passion vines, zinnias, milkweeds, sennas, blue mistflower, cleomes, lavendar, etc. But the ones that like the cooler weather are being downright petulant!

Susan

Susan,

The baby turtles are the cutest thing. The smallest ones I've seen had shells slightly larger than a quarter. The mama turtle (probably more than one but I only see one at a time) laid them in the grass under a plum tree last year, but the bermuda grass she'd dug up grew back pretty fast, and I am not sure how successful that hatch was. This year she dug a hole in a shrub bed near a young holly shrub and laid the eggs there. That hatch seemed successful as we have tiny turtles everywhere. They used to lay their eggs down by the big pond, but seem to prefer the lily pond up by the house the last couple of years.

I can't stand the heat either. We've hit 100 degrees a couple of days this last week and have more coming this week. I can barely force myself outside long enough to harvest and water the containers and this week I haven't done a very thorough job of either one.

A few more grassfires lately, and for the next two days we'll be helping a fellow firefighter put a new roof on his house. Ouch! Gonna start early, but I bet we're toast before noon.

Dawn