Thursday, July 31, 2008

Tomato Update

The incredibly hot and mostly dry weather has not been kind to the plants.  In fact, missing one watering killed off two pots of strawberry plants, a few very young basils, and a particularly beautiful lavender.  I'm going to be better about keeping my potted plants moist.

I spent a good half hour pulling dry leaves off the tomato plants today and the job still isn't entirely done.  They're still going strong, though.  My one complaint is that the not one of the three Brandywine plants have produced so much as a single tomato.  I'd heard that they're not a prolific variety, but sheesh!  I shake the cages every time I'm out there to try and help them along, even though the Oklahoma wind should be enough, and still nothing.  I'll keep taking care of them, though.  They mature later than most varieties, so maybe it was already too hot for them to do well by the time they matured fully.  Maybe they'll give me a nice late crop if I keep them healthy.

Meanwhile, in addition to the occasional cucumber, I'm bringing in a tomato harvest like this every couple of days:

P7310013

And there are always a few over-ripe cherry tomatoes that I throw along the fence-line in hopes of volunteer plants.  I left quite a few on the vine that I felt could stand just one more day of ripening, since I enjoy serving up a bowl of fresh-picked cherry tomatoes at our D&D session each Friday night.

I look forward to having an additional raised bed next year.  I didn't plan for a varied mid-summer harvest this year, but I'd like to have one next year.  Meanwhile, I'm about to start some more seedlings for the fall.  Little broccoli are going strong!

6 comments:

Lets Plant said...

Great looking tomatoes. My tomatoes did not do so well. Apparently you have to water consistently or they crack. Live and learn. I hope one day mine look like yours!

Katie said...

My Brandywine's sucked too. Good haul on the little ones!

Lewru said...

I grew brandywines a few years ago and got 3, maybe, off of them. They were spectacularly wonderful, but not worth the size of the huge plant. I planted Cherokee Purples the next year and they were fabulous. Strange weather, though, this year - all that hot wind, then rain, rain, rain, now dry and hot. Must be hard on tomatoes!

Mick said...

What variety of Brandywine did you grow?
Did you start them from seed or were they store bought plants?
Do the plants have flowers?

I'm pretty suprised that you got nothing from 3 plants.

Eve said...

Really nice tomatoes. All mine did well but the brandywine. My creole and heatwave and celebrity did the best for me.

It will be too hot here for a while to start cold weather crops but I have put in more yellow squash. I just didn't stagger the planting the way I should, so I got one major crops and then it trickled off.

Fran P. said...

My plum tomatoes were a flop too. I'm surprised at some of the other comments about having poor results with other varieties of tomatoes as well. Congratulations on your crop.