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July
7 2009 Update:
In my previous update, June 29th,
I think that I was a bit harsh on my judgement of
the Jetsetter tomatoes. First off, the Jetsetters
may just not be one of those varities that does
well in a 5 gallon bucket while the Early Girl's,
a smaller tomato, seem to have no problem in
their containers. Second, although they were
slower on the production side in the beginning,
they are starting to come around and each one now
has about 5 to 7 smaller, green tomatoes along
with the 2 large one's they produced in the
beginning. Either my extra soil and rock mulch
really cooled down the soil to where the blooms
could produce, or it was the UNUSUALLY cooler
temperatures we've had the last week. It's been
great weather for my tomatoes. Rainy, cool in the
70s to low 90s, it has been uncharacteristically
cooler the past week and this has really aided my
blooms and tomato production on ALL of my plants.
The Early Girl tomatoes have
really been doing great. There are about 10 to 12
tomatoes on each plant. (You can't see them all
in the picture below). They have been ripening
and offering very nice, but smaller, 2 to 4 ounce
tomatoes that are very delicious. I attribute the
smaller size to the containers, and not the breed
itself which normally offers tomatoes in the 3 to
6 ounce range.
Three early girl tomatoes in 5
gallon buckets, showing nice growth and
production with great tasting tomatoes. It's easy
to see why this tomato is a gardener favorite.
Great production and 3.5 months
after the seeds were planted, I get these nice
tomatoes that were delicious.
From seed to first
ripeneing, these Early Girl's only took 105 days
to get to this point. (March 20 to July
5) Since I transplanted them at an incredibly
early age of 4 weeks, it wouldn't be accurate to
calculate the days to harvest after
transplanting. Most tomatoes are transplanted at
6 weeks minimum, or 8 weeks average. After
transplanting these above when they were only 4
weeks old, they took a total of 75 days to ripen.
This is outside their normal range of 52 to 62
days, but you have to keep in mind they were
transplanted 4 weeks early. So all told, I think
I was actually one week ahead of the normal
ripening schedule, or exactly on time. Either
way, I think I grew them pretty fast which is
keeping in theme with this website.
Update: July 14th, 2009
Everything has fallen into place
for the Early Girl and Jetsetter tomatoes.
Production has been good on both cultivars, the
Jetsetter continues to produce some really nice
(and surprising size tomatoes). No major disease
problems. I've been watering once a day and have
not fertilized. The rock mulch and moisture meter
have been working out great. The introduction of
lime into the soil has helped.
Check out this nice plate of
Early Girl and Jetsetter tomatoes below. These
were picked over a 3 day period. The larger
tomatoes are Jetsetters, which also happen to be
perfectly round and circular. Nice fruit. This is
what's all about. We're going to eat some, and
then use some to bulk up some tomato sauce we are
making from mostly roma tomatoes. Due to
the Oklahoma heat, the skins of these tomatoes
(and ALL of my tomatoes) are thicker than most
tomato skins. My theory is that the skin needs to
be thicker (stronger) to hold in the water so it
doesn't crack under the harsh Sun. Many tomatoes
here do crack, including the
"Homestead," - which is SUPPOSED to be
heat tolerant.
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