For the Love of Tomatoes

I started my tomatoes from seed in January.  My husband LOVES tomatoes, so this year, we've decided to give prime garden real estate to more tomatoes than we've ever grown.  Since tomatoes don't produce after the temps in the evenings get above 80º, we have a very short time to produce a good tomato harvest.  Also, plants basically fry in the heat of the Texas summer.  The plants were ready to go in the ground on our last average freeze date, March 15th.  I took off a week from work to plant the tomatoes and the other spring veggies.  Here is the hubby planting the maters.

Planting the babies March 18, 2013

Root system of transplants.

Planting deep so that roots can develop along the stem.  We also mixed in a handful of organic veggie fertilizer, a handful of compost, and a handful of earthworm castings. Once planted, we watered with a weak combination of liquid organic fertilizer and fish emulsion.

We planted 3 Homestead 24 plants, 4 Pantano Romanesco plants, 1 Rutgers, and 2 Beefsteak tomatoes.  (We still have some large cherry tomato and tomatillos to plant.)

We got 10 of the tomato plants planted, stopped for the day, watched the news and discovered that a freeze was heading our way in a couple of days.  How frustrating!!  We haven't hardly had any freezing weather and then as soon as we try to start the garden...WHAM!  We spent a couple of days watching the weather and coming up with a plan.  We decided that since the plants were planted deeply (at least 18" deep) and not much top growth was showing, we'd cover them with buckets and hope for the best.  We watered them well to help protect the roots.  My husband also decided that we could use Christmas lights to generate a bit of heat inside the buckets at night to raise the temps inside a bit.

Under the buckets 3/25/13  (obviously from Home Depot!) with Christmas lights.  Wonder what planes flying overhead thought!!  LOL

Freeze burn on leaves.

Some green remains, but a lot of freeze damage.

This one looks really sad.  The poor thing was already in trouble to begin with.  It's stalk had bent during some winds, so we went ahead and planted it about 2 days prior to the cold front.  We planted it deep so that the bend was underground and hoped for the best.

After we uncovered the plants, we gave them some more fertilizer (just diluted fish emulsion this time) and started babying them.  Thankfully, the weather cooperated until this week when we got lows on Wednesday night in the upper 30s.  We once again watered and fertilized well in anticipation of the cooler temps.  Once again, the buckets came out and we covered the babies.  This time, they did fine and everything is green!  We haven't lost one tomato plant yet!  Now, if they'd just start producing, I'd be happy!!

This is the same plant as the middle pic in the set above.  We've cut off all freeze damaged leaves and it's put on new growth and doing great!

This is the little one that had the broken stem and almost died during the first freeze in late March.  Look at it now!  

This is the same plant from above that had almost no green growth on it after the freeze in March that I thought would die.  Lots of new growth now!

I heard today on the news that we might get more cold weather next week.  I have my lights and buckets ready!!  All I can say is that these guys had better produce a HUGE crop with all this attention they've gotten!!  What we do to save our plants!

The Flowers are Starting to Bloom!

While I've been obsessed with the veggie beds and getting them good and going, my flowers have been sulking from attention. They've gotten watered and I've been checking on their progress daily, but I've not been pampering them as much or obsessing over them too much. This afternoon, since it's a nice cloudy day, I went out and really checked on them to see what they were up to and how much they'd grown.

In my preoccupation with the veggies, much has been going on in the flower beds. All of the plants that I got at the beginning of April and that I planted a couple of weeks ago are establishing and doing well. This is a really crummy picture, but you can see the entire bed in it and I don't feel like going outside and trying to shoot another one at the moment.



The white "markers" you see in the pic are plastic forks indicating new transplants to watch out for when walking around in the bed. Forks are easy to write on with a Sharpie marker, too. We're using them in the veggie beds, too. They are cheap if you have to buy them, but you can save them from fast-food restaurants when you go to the drive through.



This daylily, San Antonio Firecracker, put out its first scapes EVER! There are 2 scapes and they are loaded with buds. One has EIGHT baby buds that I can count. I so cannot wait for this one to flower! I have another little daylily in the front yard that's put out its first scape as well. Pure & Simple was a gift to me last summer from a lady on Dave's Garden. I can't wait to see that one bloom either.


This little guy is Rudbeckia "Goldstrum". I planted it very late last fall and it barely survived the winter. Then, after our first good rainfall, the aphids attacked it and the slugs began eating on it. I gave it up for a goner, but when I went to plant another plant in that spot, I discovered one little leaf coming up. That's been about 2 weeks ago, and it's grown a week each week! I think I might have a winner on my hands!


This is the little piece of ground outside my backdoor and under my kitchen window. Last summer, I planted Texas Sage and 2 different kinds of Coreopsis seeds in half of the bed. This is what it looks like now. On the left towards the back is a pink Texas Sage. That big huge thing on the right is a Tall Coreopsis. It is loaded with buds! I can't wait to see it in all its glory. I'm going to save seeds and see if I can't get a few more for other places in the yard. There's actually a smaller coreopsis to the left of it, but it's totally overcome by the Tall Coreopsis. There's also a yellow daylily in the front left corner.


A close-up of the flower on the Tall Coreopsis. It's easily 3" across and they last for several days.


A red Texas Sage is hiding under the big pink Texas Sage. I noticed this little guy sticking his head out this afternoon when I walked out the door. I really think the red is very striking. I winter sowed some of these seeds and have several to plant out in the front bed.


This little scabiosa daily (Pincushion Daisy) was planted last fall. It started blooming late winter and has been going strong ever since. It's a butterfly and bee magnet, too. I love inviting bees and butterflies into my garden. It's good for them since I don't use chemicals and it's good for the plants.

Lastly, because I'm still totally enthralled with the veggie garden, here's a flower on our Straight Eight cucumber plant.



:o)