I am not sure how well some of the ones you already have would sell. I suggested those above varieties as market varieties for a combination of reasons,but namely that they produce very consistently and heavily in a good year with the right weather and adequate moisture, have good to great disease tolerance and produce sturdy fruit that won't be crushed easily traveling from your garden to the market and then from the market to people's homes. The issue with raising tomatoes for market is that (whether you like it or not!) most people will want red, round, medium to large-sized tomatoes that are fairly firm in texture, which leaves out many heirlooms that are softer in texture and don't travel as well as commercial hybrids.

With cherry and other bite-sized tomatoes, some people will happily buy and eat yellow, orange or pink ones, but other folks only want red so keep that in mind when you decide what varieties to grow. Texas Wild Cherry tastes great and ought to sell well, but the fruit is really small and many of your future customers likely would like bigger cherry tomatoes more the size of Large Red Cherry or something because that is what they see in stores. A good red grape tomato might sell well at market. I've noticed they sell well in stores packaged as "Sweeties" or something similar in hard plastic containers. Sometimes the only way you can get people to try the other colors is to mix them together with red tomatoes where folks have to buy the other colors to get the reds. In theory, then, they'll try the other colors of cherry tomatoes and decide they like them. I think people would clamor for SunGold once they've tried them, but getting them to buy a color of cherry tomato they've never had before can be challenging. Green-when-ripes don't seem to sell at market, as most people are suspicious that they GWR types aren't really ripe. Sometimes heirlooms sell, and sometimes they don't. It depends on the mindset of the customer.

With paste types, if you are growing for market, you need to have enough for a canning or cooking batch to take to market each week because people buying paste tomatoes tend to either want to cook fresh sauce or make fresh salsa or they want to can, so they don't want just a handful of paste tomatoes---they want a lot of them.

Of the ones that you listed, Homestead and Beefsteak are guaranteed sellers, and likely Porter will sell as well if people at your local market have grown up eating it and like it. Otherwise, it will look like a small, anemic not-quite-red tomato that may not appeal to the average person who isn't into all the different tomato varieties, flavors and colors.

Seeds of most of the varieties I listed should be available from Willhite Seed (located in Poolville, TX) except for Tuxedo. I have Tuxedo seeds if you want some. It was the rodeo tomato a few years ago and people loved it but is very hard to find commercially in small quantities. Let me know if you want some and I'll send them to you. I probably have seeds of Phoenix too, which I got from Willhite a few years back. My Phoenix seeds shouldn't be so old yet that they wouldn't germinate, so I can send you some of those too.

Wait and don't order anything yet. Let me look through my tomato seed packets this afternoon and see if I have the others. You might not have to buy any tomato seeds. I have (ahem) a little seed problem so always have too much of everything because I fail to exercise self-control at seed-ordering time. I'll be happy to send you any that I have that you want.

Being regionally-based, anything that Willhite Seed has will grow well for you, and they usually ship quickly, so if you do order some seeds from them, I think you'll be pleased with their prices and service. Order the smallest size seed packets they have because they often overpack tomato seeds a great deal. Most of the tomato seeds I've ordered from them (except for Phoenix, which was hard to find like Tuxedo back when I ordered it from them, though it is more readily available now) come drastically overpacked so that instead of 50 or 100 seeds, their tomato seed packets often have 300 or more, except for the newest, most expensive hybrid types. I cannot imagine how many they pack into the larger seed packets as I always order the smallest ones.

After I rummage through my seed box this afternoon, I'll come back here and tell you what I have.

If Willhite doesn't have all the tomatoes I listed, then Tomato Grower's Supply Company should have them. I cannot imagine anything, other than Tuxedo, that I suggested wouldn't be available from TGSC but, if I am wrong about that, there's always Totally Tomatoes, Johnny's Selected Seeds, High Mowing Seeds or Stokes.

Thank you so much. Dawn I know you know tomatoes and since I don't eat them fresh well any at all now I have to trust the experts.

I knew you have the same disorder I have actually I think I caught it from you. Lol. SeedAquisitionDisorder but I am not SAD.

Some of the varieties I listed I am growing for personal not market. The tops about what travels well is so important. People don't like to get home with mush. I am designing an insert for my explorer to hold certain Size containers to be as efficient as possible.

High mowing, peaceful valley and rare seeds catalogs did not have any of the variety you listed. I will check Wilhite later when I go to work.

I don't have the Internet and searching on my phone is challenging.

Oh and that's what I am going to do with the cherry tomatoes, mix them up a little. Pink and sung old and reds. The TX wild cherry is mostly for the birds and the puppy. Lol I love the way it grows sprawling all over the place so it will have its own corner to go wild.

Kim, Rare Seeds (BCHS) and Peaceful Valley Farm Supply carry mostly O-P varieties and the ones I suggested for you as a market grower are hybrids because the hybrids have the disease tolerance and firmer fruit you need. Tomato Grower's Supply Company has all of the ones I suggested except Tuxedo, which is very hard to find. Willhite only had three of them and Totally Tomatoes, if I remember correctly, had four. Johnny's Selected Seeds has some of them, but their prices are higher than TGSC and, more and more, they are selling some that I believe are their own hybrids that I haven't tried, so cannot comment on. However, everything I've ever bought from JSS has been wonderful.

I have seed for Phoenix, Tuxedo, Jet Setter, and Supersonic and would be happy to send you some of each. I don't have Celebrity, Big Beef or Early Girl, but I do have Early Doll, which is a newer hybrid that is very similar to Early GIrl and when I grew them in the same year for 2 or 3 years in a row, Early Doll was earlier for me than Early Girl. If you want to try it, let me know. Just email me your snail mail address and I'll send them to you. I've been working this week on putting together some seeds to send to Bon and I'd be happy to do the same for you. Then, when the stores near you get their seed racks in, you probably can find Celebrity, Big Beef and Early GIrl (if you want to try it alongside Early Doll or instead of Early Doll) right there on the seed racks in the stores, and you wouldn't have to order any and pay shipping.

I found Tuxedo and Phoenix because, in different years, they were the San Antonio Rodeo tomato. What I find interesting about the SA Rodeo tomatoes is that they have to produce pretty darn quickly because the San Antonio area goes from too cold to too hot for tomato production pretty quickly, which also is an issue for your part of TX and my part of OK most years. That's why I like to try the San Antonio Rodeo tomatoes--if they have been tried and found successful there, they are likely to be successful here. The SA Master Gardeners group trials tomatoes and picks a fave to be each year's Rodeo Tomato. Then they raise and sell thousands of them during that promotional period (the rodeo is right around their area's tomato planting time which is perfect) and use the profit to fund their Junior Master Gardener's program. I keep a eye on what they're doing every year so that I know which hybrids are testing well in that part of Texas. Being a cat person, I need to try therir 2014 selection, Valley Cat, and their 2015 selection, Bobcat. (Ha! I have real bobcats in my garden occasionally and in our yard a lot.)

You know I'm not wild about hybrids, but I'm growing more than usual this year because the incredibly heavy 2015 rainfall led to lots of foliar disease problems in my garden and I'd like to not go through that two years in a row. It isn't that my plants died because they didn't or that they didn't produce well because they did. However, they looked like crap, particularly after getting 24" of rainfall in the month of May and another foot or more in June. It is just that you want to break the fungal and bacterial disease cycle before it gets entrenched and I think that growing more hybrids this year will help with that. I usually get a dry year after a wet year and that alone breaks the fungal disease cycle, but we were oddly wet through most of 2015 and it looks like El Nino keeps us wet for at least a few months in 2016, so I'm just planning ahead to be proactive and try to break the disease cycle.

There also are a bunch of older, round, red tomatoes (not the kind that I grow a lot of most years since I like pinks, purples and blacks) that were bred several decades ago that have pretty good disease tolerance and good productivity whether they are hybrids or OPs. They were bred back when the breeders believed that flavor still mattered. : ) I have the seeds of several of them (Super Sious, Champion II, Mule Team, Box Car Willie, Marion, the original strain of Rutgers (it has been modified a couple of times) and probably several others and you're welcome to some of those seeds if you want to try them. Let me know. I'll keep feeding your tomato-growing addiction as long as you like.
Dawn

Oh you are so sweet. I appreciate this so much I will attempt to email you and send you my address. I was worried by time payday gets here and I get stuff ordered it may be too late to start from seed. I want to stay close to the planting schedule I had last year and maybe a little earlier for some of it.

Thank you for enabling my addiction. It helps to have friends like you. ♡

Juliet would be another variety to consider. It is a large grape tomato that doesn't crack and it a heavy producer. I didn't have any trouble selling them last summer.

Than you. Is it a red tomato?

Did you get my address?

Oh you are so awesome. I cant wait to get started. My son told me I can only have 4 lights in this rent house because he doesn't trust the electric so that greatly limits my plan.

I won't be able to grow as much for giveaways as I like to.

Wowee!!! Dawn

You are the best enabler ever. I got my mail and better than the load of catalogs...SEEDS. so many to decide how many of each. I know they are all good. I can not wait to get them up and running. Thank you a hundred thank yous.

Kim,

You're welcome. I am a good enabler, if I may say so myself.

If I remember correctly, I couldn't find the seed packer of Supersonic that I knew I had, so I just sent you a bunch of other reds that would work just as well. I might have gotten a little carried away stuffing that envelope, but I knew you'd have as much fun unpacking the envelope as I had packing it.

Seed dreams get us through the winter. Have fun!

Dawn

I did have fun looking at all these goodies. They are calling to me as I type.

To have tomatoes in June when do I need to put these out? Also how do I know how much to plant? I kinda have an idea but I am afraid I will not have enough to go to market.

Kim, is the African variety from the Spring Fling the Pink Bertoua from Camaroon that I brought? If so, did you like it? It was certainly productive, but not sweet enough for me and had a lot of seeds.

Yes thank you. I lost my tag and I am soooo glad you chimed in here. I don't actually eat tomatoes...

So I can't say how good it was. But I love the size color and quatity. All my tomatoes went in the freezer to make ketchup and salsa. I managed to get about 20 seeds and will be growing it again. Thank you for this gem.

Most of mine got cooked, and I think that they were good for that. I'm wondering if I would like it better in a hotter, drier year. We'll see.

Kim, Your planting date will be governed more by your soil temperatures, air temperatures and frost-free/freeze-free weather than by whatever date you "should" plant in order to have tomatoes ready to go to market in June. I have no idea what your average last freeze date is there since you're considerably further north and west than I am, so I'd just be guessing. Logically speaking, you cannot plant the tomato plants until your soil and air temps are warm enough for them to grow, and you either cannot plant until the chance of a killing freeze or highly damaging frost is past, or you can plant earlier if you have a firm strategy in place to protect the plants from late cold weather.

My average last frost date is March 28th or thereabouts, but in reality that is just an average. My real last frost date in any given year can vary from March 7th or so to early May. Unfortunately, in much of the 2000s we have had a last killing frost around May 3rd, which is just so far beyond our average last frost date that it is ridiculous, but we still have to deal with it here, and I blame our low-lying microclimate for the late cold nights because Fred usually doesn't get that last bit of cold weather in May and he's not but about a mile away---albeit on higher ground.

In my garden, the single biggest predictor of tomato success is to get the plants in the ground as early as possible in order to get as much fruit set as possible before the kind of summer heat (highs in the low 90s) arrives that will cause blossom drop and shut down production of most tomato varieties. Thus, I push the limits as hard as I can to get the plants into the ground as early as possible, even though the late cold nights are a very distinct possibility for many weeks after I put my plants in the ground. So, for me, here at my latitude, I usually aim to get the plants into the ground in March, and the earlier the better. However, I can go to a lot of trouble to keep them warm, including the use of a very heavy duty frost blanket type floating row cover that gives the plants at least 10 degrees of cold protection. I don't know if that early of a planting date would work for you, and it works for me only if I wait and put the plants in the ground when the soil temperature is consistently staying above 55 degrees daily.

You need to look at the DTM for each variety you are growing (and remember that DTMs are estimates only and real life may or may not give you tomatoes near that DTM). Then, plan on putting 6 to 8 week old transplants into the ground. With healthy 6-8 week old transplants, you can look at your planting date and extrapolate that you are likely to get ripe tomatoes that many days after putting the transplants into the ground, assuming no major weather setbacks occur. So, for me, if I put 63-DTM tomato plants in the ground near the end of March, I'm usually harvesting before the end of May if the weather is halfway cooperative. My main crop tomatoes are more in the 70-75 DTM range, so my big tomato harvest usually begins in early June and then runs for many weeks after that. Our May tomatoes are all for fresh-eating, but once the big June harvest starts rolling in, many of them are being canned, dehydrated or frozen. It usually is total tomato madness, then, for at least the next couple of months. How long it lasts is dependent on when the fruits stop setting and that (for most varieties) depends on the heat.

How many plants to plant? As many as possible. When growing for market, it is always better to err on the side of safety and, to me, that means planting more than you need. Market gardening is somewhat risky because there's absolutely no guarantee that you'll even get a big enough harvest to go to market reliably every week, especially in the beginning. It can take a new market grower several years to work out the best strategies to use to have a great harvest at the right time to meet the market demand.

If you've ever shopped at Farmer's Markets early in the season, then you know that there is a huge demand for the first tomatoes of the year because your tomato customers are just as hungry for a home-grown tomato as we gardeners are. That generally means the first tomatoes to market in the early weeks of the season can sell for a higher price due to the law of supply and demand. As the season goes on and tomatoes become far more abundant, prices can fall unless you're in an area where the demand for fresh tomatoes outstrips the supply.

If you do not have a plan in place to protect your tomato plants from cold weather after they are in the ground, then take care not to plant too early. You won't have tomatoes to take to market in June if the plants freeze after being transplanted into the ground. The reality of gardening in the southern plains is that our weather can go from freezing cold to burning hot on a dime, and it can do the same thing by going from very warm or even hot back to being freezing cold. Since tomatoes do not tolerate sub-freezing temperatures for very long at all, you've got to be able to protect those plants when the weather does a 180.

In addition to using floating row cover, you can use Walls O Water, homemade devices similar to WOWs, or even two-liter bottles or cat litter buckets filled with water to help keep the plants warm on a late cold night. In a year when the spring weather stedfastly refuses to warm up as quickly as I like, I put a cat litter bucket filled with water on the north side of each tomato plant. The water in the bucket heats up during the day as the water absorbs heat from the sunlight and the buckets keep the plants warm at night by releasing heat as the water cools. Using a combination of the buckets of water and heavy-duty frost blankets, I haven't lost a tomato plant to frost or freezing temperatures in the springtime since probably 2008 (the years are starting to run together in my memory, lol). It might have been 2007. Either way, the forecast low that year on the night my plants froze was 50 and the actual low at our house hit 32 on an early May night and I hadn't done anything to cover up the plants or protect them because, honestly, by early May, who thinks that a freezing night is still possible, especially when the forecast says "50"? That was the last time I flat out trusted the forecast low and the last time I lost plants. Now I watch my weather carefully and cover up the plants if I think they will need it, no matter what the forecast says. In the years when I set up the cat litter buckets of water (I didn't use them last year, but some years I just know that I need to set them up at planting time and so I do), I leave them in place until around May 5th -7th (because we've never frozen after May 5th-7th).

For me, whatever work I have to do to get the tomatoes planted early is worth it because my yields can be 2 to 4 times higher from an early March planting than from a mid- to late-April planting. It is all about getting the most fruit set possible before the heat arrives. I cannot tell you when the heat arrives because it varies so much, but in an "average" year, the kind of heat the shuts down fruitset usually arrives here no later than the third week in June. The problem is that is a very hot, dry spring/early summer, that sort of heat can arrive in May. In 2011, we started hitting the 90s in April (near Easter), though sporadically, and I didn't even have all my plants in the ground before we began hitting the 90s. By early May, the 90s were here to stay, and the plants set little fruit after that. The plants that went into the ground in March that year produced the best harvest, and the ones that didn't go into the ground until April produced poorly because they hadn't had much time to set fruit before the heat arrived. That's just an example of how the early onset of heat can have a huge impact on your harvest. By contrast, in last year's long, mild, rainy spring to mid-summer weather, my plants set fruit even in early July and some set fruit well into July. Sadly, we have very few years this far south where the plants set fruit all summer long. However, if you have enough plants with varying DTMs, you still can harvest all summer long provided the plants set fruit before the heat set in. That's why I still plant some varieties with 80-90 day DTMs as well as those with 50-70 DTMs....to spread out the harvest over a long period of time.

I check my own soil temperatures daily in March and wait until the soil has been staying at 55 degrees or warmer for 5-7 days before I put my plants in the ground. If you put tomato plants into soil that is too cold, the plants just sit there and don't grow so there is nothing to be gained by rushing plants into cold soil. Raised beds, mounds or ridges warm up before lower grade soil does, and some people (I don't do this) put clear plastic over their soil to help it warm up more quickly....sort of taking advantage of the greenhouse effect to warm the soil.

If you cage your tomato plants, you can turn each cage into a mini-greenhouse by wrapping it with plastic. In years when I did this, I used either 4 or 6 mm plastic and the ever-popular duct tape. I wrapped the cages but left the tops open for air flow. On cold nights, I just threw blankets or floating row cover over the cages to help hold in the warm air and keep out the frost. I usually left the plastic around the cages until early May. In more humid weather, though, the plastic can also hold in moisture and lead to foliar diseases so you have to watch for that.

Hope this info helps you understand the timing of your spring plantings and how to adjust for weather conditions and such. Got questions? Ask them. I've been working to understand how to get away with planting tomato plants as early as possible ever since we moved here in 1999, so I've got tons of experience to share. : )

Dawn

I am going to do everything you just said...

1. Cage and wrap the cages with plastic

2. Check soil Temps daily

3. Have plants ready to go and backups : ) early as possible.

4. Have massive quantity of fleece ready to cover

Our avg last frost is 4-11. But that date is for the neighboring town and we are usually warmer here in the valley. Last year I didn't get my tomatoes out till gasp May. But I didn't have the garden plowed till March so we are ahead of the game there.

We are working on a hoop house that may be up by March. I just have to convince my son I NEED it.

Dawn would 100 tomato plants be enough? Mostly large red with maybe 10 orn20 cherry type?

I think 100 is a good number. When I plant that many, I can around 400 pints of tomato products, freeze gallons and gallons of tomatoes, and dehydrate a lot too....and we still have tons to eat fresh and some to give to friends to eat fresh.

Be careful about planting too many cherry types. Ten might be plenty if they are productive varieties. It can take a very long time to harvest all the ripe bite-sized tomato plants during the height of the season. Sometimes it can take me 30-60 minutes just to pick all the ripe SunGolds off one big healthy & happy plant, so multiple that by 10 or 20 plants, and you'll know when I never seem to get all the bite-sized tomatoes harvested before they start dropping off the plant and falling to the ground...I love growing currant tomatoes like Tess' Land Race, but they produce so heavily that it can take several hours to harvestall the ripe fruit from one plant, so I haven't planted TLRC in a few years now. I believe it was in 2012 when Tess' Land Race Currant hit 16' in my garden----8' tall and then it cascaded back 8' down to the ground, at which time I tip-pruned the ends to keep them from growing out into the pathway. I had to stand on a ladder to harvest from the top of the plant, and spent hours just harvesting all the fruit from that one plant. It was horrible in the sense that I didn't have that type of time to spend harvesting from one plant, but then it was great in that the one plant was so incredibly productive. When tomato hornworms showed up at the top of that plant (and only on that plant, ignoring all others), I couldn't decide whether to be unhappy to see the hornworms or to feel both happy and relieved.

I know there are worse problems to have than having more tomatoes that you can harvest, but if it means you are out in the dark harvesting by the headlights of the Jeep, then it really is a problem because, at our place, the snakes and skunks are out in the dark and I shouldn't be out there at that time. That may not be a problem if you aren't plagued by venomous snakes and skunks.

Dawn

I had a black snake startle me in the tomato area that got out of control. I never picked any more in that area again. That plant was so loaded with fruit too.

I will stick with 5 sungold and 5 red cherry. 100 large reds and maybe 10 heirloom, for locals mostly.

. Could I put more than 12 per 40 feet?

It is hard for me to venture back into a place where I've seen a venomous snake. If it is non-venomous I just ignore that area for a day or two before I go back in, or I send the chickens in. If a snake is lurking, the chickens quickly become hysterical and let me know. The problem is my brain doesn't let me forget "a venomous snake was here", so I have to push myself, even days later, to go into that area to harvest.

I do stop hand-weeding in any area where I've found a venomous snake. It just isn't worth getting bitten. Usually, though, if I've kept up with the weeding and have a lot of mulch down, even an area that doesn't get weeded once the snakes appear will not get too much out of control.

In last year's constant rain, I didn't keep up with weeding very well after a certain point, but there also weren't many snakes in the constantly-flooded garden. The snakes last year tended to stay up on the higher ground around the house and garage, so I had to deal with them there, but not so much in the garden.

Your spacing just depends on many variables. I have spaced determinate tomatoes as close as 18" to one another and have been perfectly happy with the results. It works better in a drier year with less rainfall and humidity which means less disease pressure. With indeterminates, my favorite spacing is 4' apart and it gives great harvests, but I generally lack the self-discipline to space them that far apart. I usually space them 3' apart. Having said that, some years I've spaced them 2' apart on purpose (in an expected drought year, and only because I irrigate) and have had plenty of tomatoes. I do use cages that keep them strongly vertical, and that is important.

In choosing to plant more closely, I weigh the factors that affect production---soil fertility (with the really good soil in the front garden, I get good yields from crowded plants, but not so much with the poorer soil in the back garden), moisture (crowded plants will compete for moisture so adequate irrigation if rainfall is skimpy is a must, but if growing dryland style, wider spacing is absolutely essential) and airflow/disease pressure (better airflow = less disease).

I could argue for closer spacing and make a convincing argument. For example, maybe you get fewer fruit per plant, but with more plants in the same square footage, your overall yield might be higher. Or, with closer spacing you may get less fruit per plant, but the payoff is that the plants are so close that they shade the ground and keep weeds to a minimum, leaving you with less weeds to pull or hoe out.

I also could argue for wider spacing and make a convincing argument. Wider spacing gives the roots more room to roam, which ultimately means healthier plants that might be more productive. Wider spacing also means better nutrition per plant as the plants can take in nutrients from a wider area. Wider spacing generally means healthier plants because better air flow reduces the likelihood of foliar diseases. Wider spacing often means less Blossom End Rot, (which I rarely have trouble with anyway) because there's more moisture available to less crowded plants, and evenly moist soil reduces the incidence of BER.

So, all I can say is you have to experiment and figure out what works best for you. Trial and error is the only way to do it. I rarely plant tomatoes exactly the same way for even two years in a row, because I try to read the weather and understand what it is doing and where it is headed and what the spring and summer probably will be like, and I adapt my planting plans accordingly. If I guess well and plant in the style that best suits the weather I end up getting, then I am a happy camper, and if the weather throws me a curve ball, I just deal with it. And, honestly, I haven't really found a 'wrong' way to do it yet, as we get high yields no matter what I do.

Another argument in favor of closer spacing is that the heat arrives and shuts down fruitset at some point, right? So, the more fruit set I have on my plants when that happens, then the longer and more deeply into summer the harvest will go on. If I can squeeze in 2 or 4 more plants into each raised bed with closer spacing, then I'm going to have more fruit set at whatever time heat starts causing blossom drop. In a milder climate than ours where the plants just get bigger and bigger throughout July and August and continue setting fruit continually and are bearing heavily, it'd be better to have wider spacing to allow for that, but our heat in July and August often shut down fruit set of almost all the slicers, so at that point, the wider plant spacing doesn't help---blossoms still are gonna fall off. With indeterminate cherry types, I don't crowd those because they do set fruit all summer, or at least until the highs are approaching 100 degrees. I prefer 3' spacing for the bite-sized tomatoes at the very least, and 4' is better.

I'm toying with planting at least some of the plants in the Japanese Tomato Ring style, more just to shake things up and do them differently. I haven't used that style in a while, and it would mean abandoning the raised beds and putting the JTR in a flat area and mounding up the soil around the ring. The last time I grew JTW style, I had awesome yields, but it has been a few years. So, I might do it this year just because. I used JTRs a lot in our early years in order to improve the soil during the growing season and I like it. I also didn't have nearly as many raised beds then as I have now, so the area available for a Japanese Tomato Ring area is significantly smaller, but it is an area that suffered in last year's flooding a lot, so rebuilding that area JTR style seems appropriate.

If I had endless space available, I'd just plant all my tomato plants 4 to 5' apart for perfect airflow, etc., but since I have to garden inside a fence to keep the deer away, I sacrifice plant health for closer spacing and more production per square foot.

I never heard of Japanese tomato ring.

I think I will keep the spacing at 12 plants per 40 foot. At least until I get in the garden.

I got my brassica and 100 tomato started finally last night. I have been sick and haven't done much except work.

I started some for other people too. I only got to start 4 flats this year. I think I will do some winter sowing too.

A Japanese tomato ring is a round compost pile, generally inside a woven wire fence to keep it contained, with tomatoes planted around the perimeter of the round compost pile/woven wire fencing. As the compost breaks down, the plants get fed. Some years I have had as many as 4 Japanese tomato rings planted, with 6 to 8 plants per ring, depending on how big around the interior compost pile is. At the end of the growing season, I remove the tomato plants, stakes, cages and the compost ring, and work all the compost into the soil. Then, the next year, I put the rings someplace else. I used Japanese tomato rings a lot in the early years to build my garden soil.

Here is a story about a simple Japanese Tomato Ring.

Japanese Tomato Ring

Mine usually are a lot bigger than the one in the article so that I can have huge compost piles in the middle and can fit more tomato plants around the edges. I also generally insert 4' wide black flexible piping (probably manufactured for drainage or irrigation) vertically in the center of the compost pile to water it. When the plants need to be watered, or the pile needs to be moistened, I use the hose to feed water down the pipe.

I just thow compostable material on the pile throughout the garden season. I get better growth and yields in dry years from the JTR, likely because the compost pile holes and distributes water so well to the tomato roots from the plants that surround the ring. I generally don't use a JTR in a very wet year because in very wet years, my tomato plants need to be in the raised beds at the higher end of the garden. I normally put the Japanese tomato rings at the lower, grade-level portion of the garden.

Japanese tomato rings can be used to grow anything, not just tomatoes. They're really just an enclosed compost pile with something planted around the enclosure. My earliest JTRs, which I had in the mid-1980s at our home in Ft. Worth, were just vines like morning glories and moonflower vines, and I really just planted them to hide the compost pile because the pile was visible from the swimming pool. Once I realized how well plants grew around an enclosed pile, I started planting tomato plants, and later peppers and cukes, around the JTRs.

I haven't started any seeds yet. Too early here, too cold, and I don't like for the plants to get too big before I move them outside. Maybe in another couple of weeks. My usual seed-starting day is Super Bowl Snday. I do have lettuce plants freshly planted in containers, but those plants are from transplants I bought at the store yesterday in 9-packs. The transplants are small, but they'll grow quickly and they will keep us in lettuce until our main crop is sown and has grown enough to eat.

I am testing to see what I can do here. I am planning 3 plantings to see if I can do it this early.

I used to start seeds earlier than I do now "just in case". Well, heck, nothing died and everything lived and grew and grew and grew and got too big too fast and really was ready to be put in the ground long before the weather was really in the right range for me to put those plants in the ground. I was continually trying to figure out how to deal with plants that were getting too big and too rowdy, so I learned to just sit back and chill and wait a bit longer. It kinda drives me nuts to wait to start seeds, but not as much as it drives me nuts to have plants that are readyto go into the ground in February, when the right time to plant them is March...or April, depending on soil and air temperatures.

Starting seeds later has greatly reduced my stress levels overall, and I like that. I try to use gardening as a stress reducer, not a stress creator.

Fred taught me important lessons in this area by continually planting corn and beans in the ground about a month earlier that we ought to down here. About 80% of the time, his early plantings froze back to the ground not too long after sprouting and he'd be planting for the second time about the time I was sowing seeds for the first time. I learned from watching him that getting ahead of oneself and one's weather rarely pays off. He always gives me a hard time because I don't plant as early as him, but then my harvest seems to be happening about the same time as his, or earlier than his, so I let his gentle harrassment just roll off my back in q good-humored way.

Keep in mind that plants (especially tomatoes and peppers) exposed to soil and air temperatures that are colder than they like often can remain stunted and unproductive for some time (weeks to months) as a result. So, if your seeds sprout and grow and outgrow the indoor space you have for them before the outdoors is warm enough, that can be a problem.

Last year I started my brassica January 3rd. They didn't get in ground until end of march. Waiting for a plow. They were more than ready but everything we put in the ground produced huge heads, except the purple cauliflower.

Now as far as tomatoes I talked the local tomato guy and he said because we are in the valley we don't get as cold as the cap. He usually pushes them out mid March with protection. Only a few of my son's tomatoes are going early. But I will have backups for sure.

Also what about potting up into 2 gallon pots and putting plastic lined tunnel?

What tomato would you guys recommend to grow in a pot.. About grape size fruit color doesn't matter. I need to be able to purchase local not seeds. Years ago I think I grew a small tomato named SunGold?? Not sure, but I remember it was yellow and very good. But it was in the ground not a pot.

Hey Dawn! Just saw this post and was immediately intrigued - I love me a yummy tomato. I'd like to plant a few hybrid tomatoes in my garden - this is my first year of gardening so I'm a newbie at this and I don't have a lot of funds, but what would be the best place to go to get some great cheap hybrid tomato seeds? Would you still recommend Tomato Grower's Supply Company?

Seeds for thee has little sample size packs and the reviews from WS are great. Also 150 shipping.

Kim, Research has shown that broccoli plants produce the best when they are put into the ground at roughly 3-5 weeks of age, at a time when they still are fairly small and have only 3 to 5 leaves. Broccoli held longer in containers (no matter the size of the container) and put into the ground when larger/older are more prone to bolt or to produce small heads. So, I start seeds Super Bowl weekend and aim to put the broccoli plants into the ground sometime in March. If the weather is cooperating, my plants are going into the ground when they are around 5 weeks old.

I used to start them in early January when we first moved down here (I was operating on the timeline that worked for me in Ft Worth, which is about 80 miles south of where I now live) and that was too early. Once the plants were the right size, if I put them in the ground, then late cold weather in the low 20s inevitably set them back or made them bolt when April rolled around (even if the cold exposure was in Feb or Mar.).

Broccoli is a biennial and, if exposed to temperatures in the low 20s for just a week, are much more likely to bolt. Essentially that week of temperatures in the low 20s tricks the plants into dormancy and then as soon as the temperatures warm up, the broccoli starts trying to produce seed and it bolts. That happens because a week of dormany-inducing cold temperatures trigger them to act like the biennials that they are. The broccoli doesn't bolt as soon as the temperatures warm up, because the plants are too small to produce seed, but something unseen has kicked in that makes them start preparing to produce seed as soon as they are large enough. Then, what happens? Your broccoli plants grow and are reaching a nice big size and start forming heads. You're dreaming of harvesting nice big broccoli heads in just a few weeks. What do you get? Small heads. Buttonheads. Then they bolt. Been there, done that, and it is why I don't start broccoli too early.

Any other brassica is not as severely impacted---I can plant cabbage in early February and it never bolts, but if I put broccoli into the ground before the temperatures truly have stabilized and are staying far away from the low 20s, bolting is gonna happen.

Keep in mind that the weather fluctuates from year to year and what works in one year doesn't mean it will work the next year. You have to learn to read the weather you have and plant accordingly. I plant based on what 17 years of gardening here has taught me and the biggest lesson our weather has taught me here is not to plant anything too early. You may learn different lessons there. I only know what works for me here, versus what used to work in Ft. Worth, one zone warmer, when I gardened there. Late winter last year was nearly perfect weather, but all the rain created different challenges from the usual temperature challenges. You know, it's always something.

As far as a plastic tunnel, it depends on the size of the tunnel and how much sunshine you have. My greenhouse is just a hoophouse---PVC hoops and wood framing covered with 6 mm greenhouse plastic and 50% shade cloth to prevent overheating. In the winter time, on a day with full sun, if I fail to open the 2 doors and 4 vents in a timely manner, my greenhouse hits 140-145 degrees by 10 am. The greenhouse is 12' wide and 24' long. A smaller greenhouse would heat up even more quickly. Now, imagine how quickly a plastic low tunnel would heat up. I do not use plastic tunnels because I get tons of winter sun, particularly from February onward. I use heavy duty row cover rated to give 10 degrees of frost/freeze protection. The fabric breaths, but not as well as a more lightweight floating row cover only rated to give 2, 4 or 6-8 degrees of protection, so even underneath that 10-degree heavyweight row cover, if I don't leave a couple of feet between the top of the tomato plants and the bottom of the row cover, my plants roast, wilt and die. Guess how I know that? Persistent heat and sunlight in our climate are quite different in cold weather from the conditions faced by plants grown in low, plastic covered tunnels in zones 2, 3, 4 or 5.

Before I bought and started using real row covers, I sometimes covered up my tomato plants with 4 or 6 mm plastic on very cold nights. It kept them from freezing by holding in the heat, as long as I got them covered in mid-afternoon when there still was heat to hold in. I could leave the plastic over them for days f it was cloudy, but if full-day sunshine returned, I had to get the plastic off those beds or the plants would roast. There's an art and a science to growing under plastic, and you kind of learn as you go because it will vary from one location to another and it will vary just as much as your weather varies from day to day. It is a lot easier to master the learning curve if you are at home all day like I am and can check the plants under the plastic to make sure they aren't cooking to death and wilting. That is something you cannot do if you are away at work all day. Plants grown under plastic need good air flow to prevent fungal diseases from developing. Also, pests flourish under plastic in all that warmth too, so for every bit of good you derive from using plastic, there can be undesired side effects too. Greenhouses, for examplel, are warm enough in most winters to keep a spider mite population alive. That's one argument for keeping a cool, not hot, greenhouse, if you don't want to be fighting spider mites in the greenhouse all winter long.

Stockergal, If your container is big enough, you can grow anything you want in it. SunGold does almost as well in a large container (say, something the size of a molasses feed bucket or whiskey half-barrel) as in a small one. You cannot go wrong with SunGold. Juliet is a red grape tomato a lot of people like and it grows just fine in a large container. Cherry Falls is another one, and its plants don't get quite as big as some other varieties. Any variety that makes bite-sized fruit, whether they are round (cherry types), oval (grape types) or perhaps plum shaped (also called mini-Roma types by some folks) will produce great in a container. I also like a yellow grape one called Ildi. I see all of the above varieties in local stores in spring time.

I grow tons of tomatoes and peppers in molasses feed tubs with drainage holes drilled in the bottom some years. If you set them up on a drip irrigation system with a timer it is the closest to work-free gardening you'll ever do. My friend, Fred, gives me the molasses feed tubs. After he saw how well tomatoes grew in them for me, he set up his own container area where he grows tomatoes. He has them on tables and a stone wall to raise them up high enough that he can tend to them without bending over, which considering his age (94) and health history of back trouble, is ideal for him.

If you have only one plant in a container, it probably isn't work setting it up on a dripline unless you travel a lot in summer, but with multiple containers, it is well worth the time and effort.

M Khan, You can buy hybrid seeds right off the seed racks in the stores. Most individual seed companies (and there are thousands) buy their seeds from the same small handful of seed wholesalers who grow huge amounts of seeds overseas. Are you in OK? I've already seen plenty of seed racks in stores in southcentral OK.

Having said that, I buy a lot of seeds from Tomato Grower's Supply Company, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and Victory Seeds.

Dawn

Stockergal, I have to add Large Red Cherry. I got my seeds off a rack in 2014. This thing allways looks like a Christmas tree with quarter sized fruit ornaments. It is not as sweet as sungold, but an excellent salad tomato. I grow it in a 20 gallon pot. A molasses tub would work, too.

i reread this and hope it didnt come across rude. I was running fever last nigh5 so it did nt come across as funny as i was feeling. Any way yall know i would not be even close to where i am in knowledge without. I study and hand on your every word. Beginners luck I guess. My broccoli was over 2 months old when I finally got it out.

The stuff I planted is $Gen cheap seeds and so good for an experiment.

I am pushing to see what works and what doesn't. And I know for sure just because it worked last year is not a guarantee. The weather here is just as unpredictable.