Tomato Planting Time

[GoDawgs]

Yesterday was planting day for tomatoes, eggplants and Silver Queen corn. These are the tomatoes up by the house that Pickles planted out and mulched. They're mainly the ones used for canning and slicers, ones we like to do every year. The two eggplants are on the near end and later there will be a few buckets with zinnias and dill on the pallets.

Varieties include one each of Early Girl, Red Siberian, Rio Grande, Creole, Marianna’s Peace, Rosella cherry, Bella Rosa, German Johnson, Homestead and Mom’s Paste.



These are the ones down in the garden and most are either varieties I'm trying for the first time (mostly Russian and German ones; Carolyn seed thru Farmer Shawn) plus a few from last year that I felt deserved a second chance. Last summer they were in too much shade and hopefully that's been corrected this year. I forgot to mulch the pots but will this afternoon.

Varieties include one each of Koroleva Rynka, Honigsüsser Erlöser (orange heart), KBX, Süsse Friesin cherry, Inzhir Rosovyi, Vladyka (pink heart), SOTW, Early Annie and “Fake Annie” . That last one is a potato leaf variety, one of two Early Annies grown last year that was way different from the other regular leaf one right out of the seed pack. So we named it Fake Annie.



The Silver Queen is in a bed this year for the first time and was planted yesterday in seven circles.



The Seneca Sunrise corn planted in a different bed on 4/14 is coming up fine. 16 seeds were sown per hill and will thinned to 8.



The next planting window is May 4-6 when we'll be planting various beans, cukes, squashes, melons, sweet potatoes and okra. At that point the garden will be basically “in”.

[jmsieglaff]

Exciting times, your garden looks great! Rosella cherry was a new to me variety last year, you better believe it's back this year, a very delicious and a bit unique to me. I'm a few weeks away from planting out my warm season things. Are your tomatoes in containers on pallets due to soil nematodes?

[GoDawgs]

Originally Posted by jmsieglaff

Exciting times, your garden looks great! Rosella cherry was a new to me variety last year, you better believe it's back this year, a very delicious and a bit unique to me. I'm a few weeks away from planting out my warm season things. Are your tomatoes in containers on pallets due to soil nematodes?

Thanks for kind words! And yes, Rosella is back after my first taste last year thanks to donated seed from a kind soul.

Yep, there are 'todes in the soil here and there but the real reason is that there's some kind of bacterial wilt in the soil that only messes with the tomatoes. They'll grow great, start setting fruit and then on morning I'll notice a few of the branch tips drooping a little. Uh oh. By the next day about a third of the plant is wilted. By the fourth day most of the plant is wilted. So into buckets and onto pallets it is.

This wilt thing started up with the tomatoes before the nematodes took hold in the garden but I'm pretty sure the 'todes would do a job on the 'maters if they got a chance!