English | Espanol
| Francais
| Italiano
| Português |
|||||
Early-Tomato.com -
The Fastest Tomatoes in the West -
Disclaimer: The following Growing Journal is just one way to grow a Early Season tomato plant. There are many different methods, tips and do's and dont's on growing tomatoes. The following method is right for our climate zone, requirements, and situation. We hope that it will be helpful to readers. Also, tomatoes grown in containers larger than 5 gallons, (10 to 25 gallons) will produce more and larger fruit, but 5 gallon is what we have to work with this year. So,... ( See how it all started if you are entering through this page ) 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.
--
Privacy Policy | Webmaster |
