Our First Tomato

Discussion in 'Crops & Gardens' started by Babs Hunt, May 21, 2017.

  1. Babs Hunt

    Babs Hunt Supreme Member
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    Sweet! Our very first tomato from our tomato plant and my Honey was sweet enough to leave it on the vine until I got home from the beach so I could pick it. :) That's one of the 563 reasons I love my Honey!
     
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  2. Chrissy Cross

    Chrissy Cross Supreme Member
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    I'm sure it tastes as good as it looks! One of my favorite smells is the smell of the vine.
     
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  3. Babs Hunt

    Babs Hunt Supreme Member
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    Well I will find out tomorrow how good it tastes @Chrissy Cross and let you know. I baked a turkey yesterday for our last meal at the beach Condo and I brought home some slices of the breast (which is my favorite part) which I'm going to make a sandwich with for lunch tomorrow...and put a couple of slices of our first tomato on it along with some mayo! :)
     
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  4. Babs Hunt

    Babs Hunt Supreme Member
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    This is the tomato plant that I picked our first tomato off of yesterday...it's doing really good so far and has the promise of quite a few more tomatoes that we will enjoy from it. :)

    On the other hand, our bell pepper plant is not faring as well. It started out good but something seems to be eating the baby bell peppers before they can get a good start. I did find one pepper hiding under some of the plants leaves which looks like it will make it, and there are other blooms so I'm hopeful we will get a few bell peppers too this year.
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  5. Steve North

    Steve North Supreme Member
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    funny you should mention tomatoes as just this past week, I finally got to turn the soil in our raised gardens..
    That night, the temperature went down to -7c which means we still can't plant anything in the garden just yet..

    I like to plant yellow grape tomato plants as we both like those small sweet yellow grape size tomatoes..
     
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  6. Babs Hunt

    Babs Hunt Supreme Member
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    @Steve North I need the bigger tomatoes for those tomato and mayo sandwiches! :)
     
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  7. Chrissy Cross

    Chrissy Cross Supreme Member
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    Yummy...think I'll have one when I get back from the graduation on Friday. Used to love those. Of course it won't be a home grown tomato but we have some pretty tasty tomatoes in California...all year too.

    We had a few when my ex was here but by the time we had any tomotoes the fruit stands were full of locally grown ones and ours weren't so great anyway.

    We tried the heirloom but only got a few.
     
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  8. Babs Hunt

    Babs Hunt Supreme Member
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    I could not wait until lunch time to eat my turkey and first tomato sandwich...so I'm having it for my breakfast...and just as I thought it would be...our first tomato is delicious! :)
     
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  9. Chrissy Cross

    Chrissy Cross Supreme Member
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    That looks VERY delicious, Babs and I already had breakfast and I could still eat that right now.
     
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  10. Babs Hunt

    Babs Hunt Supreme Member
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    It looks like our tomato plant will do better this year than our bell pepper plant. I just took this photo a few minutes ago and yesterday I picked another ripe tomato off this plant...and now I have two more to pick also. Our first tomato was delicious, so I know these will be too. I think I will make some cheese ranch oven burgers to put slices of these tomatoes on today and maybe a small tossed salad to finish off the steaks and chicken sausage my Honey grilled yesterday.

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    As for the lone bell pepper, it needs to grow a little more before I decide what I will do with that. :)
     
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  11. Babs Hunt

    Babs Hunt Supreme Member
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    This morning I picked that one bell pepper on our plant.
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    It looked like that bell pepper was going to be our only one even though we had lots of blooms. Something was eating the baby buds as soon as the flowers fell off. But this morning when I cut this bell pepper off of the plant I noticed we now have 4 or 5 that are budding well so I think we will have more bell peppers after all. We have gotten 4 tomatoes so far and about 4 more are starting to turn red. And we have new blooms on the tomato plant too. The plants are so tall and beautiful this year...even without the fruits. :)
     
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  12. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    Our tomatoes seem to be growing well this year, too, although nowhere nearly as beautiful as yours are, @Babs Hunt . Because of all of the shade we have here, they seem to grow tall and stringy once all the trees have leafed out. Even when we have really hot weather it does not help because the plants still don't get anough direct sun.
    But anyway, this year, it seems like they are looking better and growing right along.
    Robin has tomatoes that she started in her Aerogarden, and then moved outside into some huge planters that hold water in the bottom, and now they are almost 4 foot tall !
    She has cherry tomatoes and has been eating those for a while now. Robin LOVES tomatoes, and she found a place online that specializes in Heirloom tomatoes.
    She must have bought almost 50 packets of the different tomato seeds, so she will be growing tomatoes for some time to come. She has a nice sunny back deck and back yard; so her maters are thick and bushy, and look awesome.
    She gave me some to try, and I have one that is called Red Currant tomato, which grows in long strands (like grapes or currants) and is a small cherry tomato. The other one is called Black Plum, and it is one of those really deep colored plum tomatoes, which usually have intense tomato flavor.
    I have started some seeds in grow pots, and once I get the last batch of seedlings out of the Aerogarden, then I will start more in there.

    For anyone else who is interested in growing heirloom tomatoes, here is the website where Robin is buying her seeds from. It is totally amazing how many different varieties of heirloom tomatoes that there are ------ over 600 varieties, according to this website ! !

    https://www.tomatofest.com/heirloom_tomato_seed_home.html
     
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    Last edited: Jun 12, 2017
  13. Babs Hunt

    Babs Hunt Supreme Member
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    @Yvonne Smith Can you and @Bobby Cole "prune back" some of trees, etc. that are providing to much shade and let more sun in?
     
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  14. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    We have pruned everything that Bobby can reach with his ladder and pruning saw. These are huge old trees that would need to be professionally cut back, and the gnarly/ugly cedars could be removed completely. However, hiring a tree trimming company is very expensive, and this is not something that you can just find a handyman to do.
    We are pretty much just stuck with having all of these trees in the yard. We can't afford to move, and can't afford to have the trees pruned back; so we just work around this as best as we can.
    Here is what the overhead view of our house looks like, and you can hardly even see the house (let alone the yard) in this picture.
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  15. Babs Hunt

    Babs Hunt Supreme Member
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    Do birds eat tomatoes @Yvonne Smith? I went to pick some more of my ripe tomatoes a little while ago and found this one had a big chunk eaten out of it. I've been growing tomatoes for a few years now and never had anything eat the tomatoes before.
     
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