Spring Garden-It's time for show and tell

How many of you guys have a couple tomato bushes on the patio or a victory garden in the back yard?
I got started a little slow this year. I plant most everything in containers, in the past so I could move things in the event of heavy rain and wind, and usually stake or cage. This year once I got most everything in it's permanent container, I tore out my muscadine vines I've been trying to grow for the last 7 or 8 years and decided to use the trellis to string all my plants vertically. The trellis will allow me to put a sunshade over the [plants later in the summer when it gets too hot. I got all the containers moved and will prune and tie them up in the next couple of weeks. I've got about 18 tomatoes potted and I'm trying some new varieties this year, Beefmaster, Cherokee Purple, Compari (got this seed from a pack of tomatoes from Publix), and Cherry. I've also got Japanese Black and Sweet 100's which I grow just about every year. Also have Datil peppers and a couple Straight 8 cucumber plants. Everything is 100% organic, including bug juice.

 

That spicy tomato thing sounds pretty good to me. Wonder if I could get a cross.

 

From time to time the birds are attracted to ripe tomatoes and will bust the side out of one pecking at it. Leaf miners, aphids, and catepillars can be a problem so I have started using a product with spinosad (derived from a bacteria) and neem oil, both folliar sprays. I'm gonna try not to use Sevin dust this year if I can help it. Biting into a mealy tasteless tomato from the grocery store is a real disappointment.

 

Worms are added protein.

 

I did not know that. My mind's eye first read pornato. I'm like wtf?

 

Alice's Dark Pink tomato sounds like a rounded, edible, tasty selection. The graft is pretty interesting, only needs a second graft of ground round and it could be a full meal.

 

Well you called it on the worms Auggie, but it wasn't the tomatoes, damned pickle worms struck sometime yesterday and ate holes in the first cuke that was a couple days away from being picked. I pulled it and cut it open and it had about 8 or 10 white worms inside. Damned moth lays the eggs in the bloom buds and the larvae hatch out a couple days later and away they go.

 

I sprayed everything with Neem. I may go to Sevin if it continues

 

garden update - it's still May and temps are soaring early and no rain in sight -while the plants grow and flower, once the temps get around 100 consistantly they stop setting fruit so I need to look into some sort of sunshade
I pruned the datils by 1/3 and trimmed out those branches that drow inward when I first transplanted them from the seed cup and they have responded well, flowers everywhere and now have pods 2" long-they should begin ripening in a couple of weeks-
These are planted in a 3 gallon container which is fine however I wish now I had used at least a 5 gallon pot, makes a world of difference in growth - these plants are about 20" tall

The tomatoes are doing well- I have always staked or caged tomatoes but this year I am using a string trellis with plastic clips and pruned the unnecessary growth, particularly below the fruit. I'm also growing some heirloom varieties which is are new to me-
Below is one I always grow, the Super Sweet 100. This is a dependable grower that seems to require a lot less care than other varieties and is an extremely heavy producer. Small fruit the size of a muscadine grape in strands of 15-20 tomatoes.
Delicious salad tomato aptly named.


The Compari (below) is an Italian hybrid sold commercially and is noted for its sweet flavor. Seed for this tomato is not available and I was told if germinated it would revert back to one of it's cross varieties. I took this seed from a pack of tomatoes I bought at the grocery store and it seems to have the characteristics of the original. Fruiting string habits like the Sweet 100 but larger fruit size in between a ping pong ball and a tennis ball.

Below is the Beefmaster, a hybrid which produces a very large slicer. I have 5 of these growing.

Below is the Cherokee Purple, an heirloom with somwhat large mis-shapen fruit. First time growing this variety, all 4 plants seem to have a bushier growth habit than the Beefmaster. Japanese Black Trifele and another cherry variety are not pictured. I have started some okra in the last week, will see how that works.