First isn't always best:
Here's where the Jetsetter disappoints me.
Although the tomatoes are perfectly round and a
beautiful 6 ot 8 ounce sandwhich size, each plant
has only produced TWO fruit. That's it. More will
come, I know. But only 2 so far? That's some high
quality compost in there that my other tomatoes
and vegetables are thriving on.
In comparison, the Early Girl's
are great producers. Sure, they are smaller,
probably going to be 3 to 6 ounces (I'm guessing
at this point), but each plant has 8 to 10 fruit
so far. - That's 32 to 40 tomatoes compared to a
grand total of 8 from the Jetsetters.
So, you be the judge, fewer but
larger, or more tomatoes but smaller? We're still
halfway through the season and a lot can happen
during that time.
A close-up of my Jetsetter tomato
that is going to win the ripe/harvest race.
Here is the Early Girl and
Jetsetter we tracked during our last two updates.
The Early Girl on the LEFT has 9 tomatoes visible
in this photo, while the Jetsetter on the RIGHT
has 2 fruit which are larger and perfectly round.
June 29th Update
Continued...
A Heat Wave, 3 Birds with
Quartz Rock, a Moisture Meter and my Wife's Meat
Thermometer
Shortly after my last update on
June 15th and for the next 2 weeks, every single
day we've had a scorching heat wave with temps 95
to 105 degrees, and a heat index (what it
actually feels like) up to 109. Two weeks of that
and tomato production is going to crash to a
halt. This heat wave that has come in shows no
sign of leaving anytime soon and usually doesn't
come until July. If it had been more considerate,
my tomatoes would have had time to produce more
tomatoes before the temps became too much for the
blooms. (BTW, I list heat tolerant varities of
tomatoes on the Home Page).
To help beat the heat, I decided
to solve 3 problems at one time. Since I had some
blossom rot show up on some other tomato
varities, I poured a cup of garden lime (high in
calcium) onto the top of the soil for each of my
32 five gallon tomato containers. Blossom rot is
caused by a shortage of calcium being absorbed by
the fruit. Ironically, your soil may have enough
calcium, but it often goes to the leaves and
branches first. Blossom rot may also be caused by
too much watering - something I may have
accidentally done earlier this month (June) as I
tried to beat the heat.
| After
adding the lime, I scratched it into the
top 1 centimeter of soil and spread it
around. Second, I used an Army shovel
(very handy with container gardening) to
shovel in another 2 to 4 inches of top
soil for each container. I neglected to
account for rain and water compacting the
soil downward when I first filled them up
with my soil mixture this Spring. This
mistake exposed the roots closer to the
surface and more warmer temps from the
Sun. The growing roots were also in
danger of coming out of the top of the
soil. The third problem I
fixed is the mulch I put down. I made a
risky but good decision to use white
quartz river rock and layed down enough
to cover the soil. It performed better
than I expected as proven by my wife's
meat thermometer and this Moisture Meter.
I chose the white quartz rock as I
thought it would reflect the Oklahoma Sun
better than anything else. I also needed
something heavy that would stay in the
buckets and not get washed away.
About the same time I was
buying the quartz rock, I came across
this moisture meter and immediately knew
it would tell
|
 The Moisture Meter shows
wet although it's 100 degrees out and I
watered 20 hours ago. The rock did a
great job of keeping heat out, and the
moisture in.
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me how well my rock mulch
was doing, and take some of the guesswork out of
watering. If you recall, my plan was to water
once a day until July 4th, then water 2x a day
when the heatwave came - but it came earlier this
year.
In the picture of the moisture
meter above, this particular tomato
(not an early variety) gives a reading on the low
end of "Wet" - although I had watered
about 20 hours before, and the temperatures
outside at the time the picture taken was 100
degrees. In fact, all my tomatoes, Early and
other varities, gave pretty much the same
reading. The white quartz river rock really did a
great job of keeping the heat out, and the
moisture in.
Feeling inspired, I borrowed my
wife's meat thermometer to test the soil. In 3
different samples at about 5 inches deep,
including one Early variety, the soil temps were
86 to 88 degrees. - Nice! Much cooler than what I
was feeling in that 100 degree heat! I believe
the temperatures were even cooler deeper into the
soil.
Looks like I'll stick to my
watering once a day schedule, and may cut back to
a 36 hour schedule.
I'll try to update sooner next
time. Learn from my mistakes.
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