Balloon Fiesta is here and it's bloody cold

Mother nature always knows when Balloon Fiesta comes to town. The first week in October is always colder than the rest of October. Sunday night will be our first hard freeze of the Fall here in the mountains. They are predicting mid-20s here, which is always a couple of degrees high. It will be low-20s and the end of the tomato season.

I have been bringing the tomatillos in at night for the last couple of weeks. They are doing quite well. I hope to keep them going until the end of November. At that point, it will be so cold in the morning that I won't be able to put them out in the morning before work without the threat of freezing.

The Tomatillos Are Loaded With Fruit

The tomatillos are as prolific as I was led to believe. It might be a little hard to tell in this picture, but there are lots of fruits on each plant.

I've never grown tomatillos before and I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew what they looked like ripe at the grocery, but had no idea what the intermediate stages were like. This is my chance to figure it out.

Tomatoes are pretty easy to figure out: The blossom cluster forms, the blossoms open, the blossom self-pollinates, the sepals curl way back and the tomato fruit starts to grow. If the sepals don't curl back, then the flower probably didn't pollinate and the blossom will close, dry up
and fall off. Sometimes it doesn't pollinate, but it also doesn't close and fall off. These are interesting because the ovum tends to swell a little bit, but it doesn't really grow that much.

Tomatillos are harder to figure out. It's hard to tell how the fruits are progressing, because they are shrouded by a husk. The progression goes something like this: blossom forms, blossom opens, blossom pollinates from the other plant, blossom closes a little, the husk grows crazy fast and the rest is a mystery :) I hope the fruit is growing in there, but you can't tell.

The husks are very cool looking. I spotted one that looked like a little hot-air balloon - the dried up blossom looked like a little basket hanging down. It lost the basket and totally changed shape by the next day when I had the camera with me. The plant with the more vine-like growth has really great looking husks (left below). The other plant with the large leaves and more vertical growth has husks that aren't as variegated (right below).

But the nights are getting cold around here. We're looking at the low-40s for the rest of September and down into the low-30s the first week of October. I'm determined to get some ripe fruit off these plants. So I think my plan is to bring the tomatillos plants into the garage at night and put them out during the day.

Catching Up on the Tomatoes

It's been a while since I've written anything. There hasn't been much going on. Just eating tomatoes for lunch and making sauce.

I thought I was loosing tomatoes to BER after the Phoenix trip. The tomatoes were wilted and pretty sad looking when we got back. I did suffer some genuine BER, but I also got hit by some sort of bacteria or fungus. Here are some pics. Notice that it is throughout the fruit. I guess it would eventual take over the whole fruit.

I have tossed a lot of them. Some are OK when I cut them open. They go in the sauce pot. Haven't eaten any fresh.

Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with my first year. End of year summary coming soon.

My Tomatillo Plants Don't Look Related

These are my two tomatillo plants next to each other. Click to see them larger.


The left plant is very much a sprawling vine. If not for the cage, it would just sprawl on the ground. The plant on the right has thick stems and holds itself up. The leaves are the most striking difference. The sprawler has small medium green leaves and the other has large dark green leaves. Weird.

Hornworms Suck

What else is there to say? I caught a big one before he could eat the whole plant, but he ate most of the top half. Luckily, it was Celebrity #6 which is the straight bucket container and as a result is the smallest plant with the smallest fruit. On the other hand, I want some fruit off Celebrity #6, because it is the only straight bucket. Does that effect flavor?

And the wasp larva got a small one before he could even get started.


Here's the big one on a branch that has been stripped of leaves and a small fruit that was starting to blush.

So How Do They Taste?

So blogging and taking pictures and fawning over tomato plants is fun and all, but the whole point is tomato sandwiches. BLTs. Tomato and cheese. Just plain tomato on toast. That's what I'm talking about.

Early Girls are not that great. They go from hard to mealy. Not very sweet, but go pretty good with mayo. And the skin is annoyingly thick. If the tomatoes were truly early, I'd let the rest go. But they aren't that early. A week earlier than Celebrity and Big Boy? I'll probably try something else early next year.

Celebrities are pretty good. They are a little sweet. Not too juicy for a sandwich. The meat is tender and there aren't too many seeds. Really good on a BLT. These also get pretty big for the size of the plant. Pretty good 5 gallon container plant. Will probably plant a few next year and take better care of them.

Big Boys are pretty good too. A nice balance of acid and sugar. Kind of juicy, but not too bad. Based entirely on the name, I was expecting larger fruit. They remind me of the Jetstars that my Dad grows. Mmm, good.

Bigger Big Boys

I complained here that the Big Boys weren't very big. Well, as the season has progressed both the Early Girls and Big Boys are producing larger fruit. Nothing approaching 1 pound, but around 6 ounces. A decent slicer.

Don't Leave Your Container Tomatoes Alone for a Long Weekend

Pam and I had a great time in Denver. I didn't play golf, because I was recovering from a nerve injury. But I did get to walk the first few holes and watch the team. They placed third, so we won't be going to Portland for the nationals. We got to see Bert and Lisa and Tank, which was fun too.

But the tomatoes didn't have such a good time. I don't have any kind of automatic watering system. The containers were pretty dry when we got back Sunday night. The Early Girls and Big Boys were very wilted and slouching on the stakes. The Celebrities were also wilted and falling out of their cages. A very sad sight. A couple of the Celebs dropped small green fruit. They have all since recovered to one degree or another. All the blossoms have dried up and no new fruit has set in the past couple of weeks. It hasn't been that hot, so I don't think it's a problem of sterile pollen. I has been rather humid for a week or so. Maybe the pollen is clumping and won't pollinate. One of the Big Boys is having Blossom End Rot (BER) problems. All the fruits that were small when we were gone are showing BER. That's too bad, because I like the Big Boys best.

The Celebs are still looking rather haggered. They are semi-determinates, which I understand to mean that they will stay compact but produce until first frost. Looks like they may not make it to first frost.

Why call it Big Boy?

The first blush has shown itself on Big Boy #4. That's 73 days from transplant. These are small tomatoes. Not much bigger than Early Girl. 6oz at best.

Celebrity Blush

Those big beautiful Celebrity tomatoes have started to blush. That's 72 days from transplant. I sure hope they taste as good as they look. I'm looking forward to these. We'll be in Denver for a golf tournament this weekend, so I hope to come home to a BLT.

More Harvest

Picked the first fruit from Early Girl #2. It's still orange and ripening.


The first couple fruit from Early Girl #1 have ripened on the counter after a couple of days and we had our first bite of fresh tomato. The larger one was ok. A little mealy. The really small one (0.9 oz) was really bad.

The Harvest Begins

The first blush came on Early Girl #1 on July 20th. I picked the first two orange fruit today. I picked early in fear of birds. That's 66 days from transplant.

Beetle on my Tomatillos

I found this guy on my tomatillos.


I think it is this three-lined potato beetle.

Tomatillos

I got a really late start on the tomatillos. I think they were too old for transplant, but it seemed like a fun experiment. They were pretty sad looking after transplant. One came back very nicely and has lots of buds showing (first pics in the strips below). Another has been struggling along with a small amount of new growth and a couple of buds (middle in the strips below). The third is still looking pretty sad (last in the strips below). After transplant, all the leaves dried up, got crunchy and fell off. The stem was thick and healthy looking. A couple of days ago I was examining the stem and notice some new growth at the base of the stem. The new growth has since dried up. At last check, the stem was starting to wither. It can't be good.

Day of transplant


Today


Tomatillos are not self-pollinating like tomatoes, so I have to get at least two of these plants to bloom. The first plant has started to bloom. Some friendly flying critters would be helpful as well. To that end I am trying to figure out what is going on with the less happy pair.
The struggling middle plant and the stem are both in 5-gallon Self-Watering Containers (SWCs). The water reservoir was looking green, so I opened it up. The reservoir was green with stinky algae. I took the SWC with the struggling plant and converted it to a regular 5-gallon top watered container. 24 hours after repotting, the plant is looking good. Maybe I'll repot the stem tonight.

I've completely lost control...

...of the indeterminates. Having multiple stems has turned out to be a bigger problem than I first thought. I chose one stem as the main stem and trained it up the stake. To choose the main stem, I looked for the one that had the best shot of climbing the stake. Some of the secondary stems had some nice fruit on them, so I didn't completely remove the secondary stems. I did prune the growing tip out of the secondary stems and tied them up as much as I could. I had to use bamboo stakes on a couple of them. I was hoping to keep the extra stems from toppling over and keep the main stem cleaned up. But it didn't work out so well. A couple of the secondary stems broke off.

This one had a decent sized fruit on it, so I couldn't bring myself to prune off the whole stem. Also notice that all the leaves on this stem are curled and leathery. Probably stress related, but I'm not sure if it's the excess water mentioned here or if it's something else.

You can see here that the stem broke and then scarred over.

Tomato Lessons Learned - Early Summer

The fruit is setting and the indeterminates are growing out of control. A couple of more lessons learned.

1. The Early Girls are happy to set fruit even when there is a large swing between day and night temps. Don't get me wrong - they set better once the temps stabilize, but it's sure is nice to see some small fruit in mid-June.
   
2. The Early Girls are significantly earlier than the Big Boy and Celebrity varieties. The Early Girls are loaded up with nice medium sized fruit. The others are playing catching up.
3. The Early Girl fruits start to grow very quickly once the flowers are pollinated. Maybe this is why they are earlier than the other varieties.
   
4. It's a completely unscientific experiment, but the Celebrities seem to be just as happy in a 4 gallon SWC as in a 5 gallon SWC. This doesn't say anything about whether they would be happier in an 18 gallon SWC. Here happiness is defined as producing lots of flowers, setting fruit and growing that fruit without catfacing/BER problems.
   
5. In a similarly unscientific experiment, the Celebrity in the regular 5 gallon bucket (not an SWC) is not unhappy, but is not as happy as the ones in the SWCs.
6. I said it last time, but it bears repeating: If your seedling has more than one main stem, trim it back to one. It will only lead to trouble.
   
7. Don't buy the last three crappy looking tomatillos and transplant them at the end of June. It's just too late.

While I'm Waiting...

While I'm waiting for that first bite of tomatoey goodness, I've started planning for next year. I've learned a lot this first year. One of the most interesting things, I've learned it that there are more than 1000 varieties of tomato. And they are not all red. Who knew? In addition to red ones, there are black ones, green ones, yellow/orange ones, pink ones and striped ones. And there are giant ones that regularly produce fruit in the 2-3 pound range.

I've started gathering recommendations on GardenWeb. There are lots of opinions, but after reading many posts some trends start to surface. Here's my list so far. In each category, I have listed the varieties in order of preference (most desired first).

Giant tomatoes are the thing of dreams. Can you really grow a 7 pound tomato? If you want to give it a try, you have to start with a variety that has the genetics to make it possible. 4 pound Big Zacs are not uncommon. Here's what I'm considering.

1. Big Zac
2. Omar's Lebanese (introduced by Dr. Carolyn Male)
3. Porterhouse
   

Red tomatoes (these are mostly beefsteak) don't have to be run of the mill. These get high marks for both poundage and flavor. I'm growing Big Boy this season. If it does well, it may move up the list.

1. Neves Azorean Red (introduced by Dr. Carolyn Male)
2. Earl's Faux (Red Brandywine)
3. Jetstar (hybrid - recommended by Dr. Carolyn Male)
4. Supersonic (hybrid - recommended by Dr. Carolyn Male)
5. Big Boy (hybrid)
6. Mortgage Lifter
7. Big Beef (hybrid)
8. Beef Master (hybrid)
9. Brandy Boy (hybrid)

Now things get interesting. Black tomatoes. Some are a bit more purple than black. Either way they look very interesting sliced a plate. I'm in for at least two of these varieties.

1. Carbon (larger than Nyagous)
2. Nyagous (more poundage than Carbon)
3. Cherokee Purple
4. Black Krim

Pink tomatoes are like reds except the skin is clear, so the color comes from the meat of the tomato.

1. Arkansas Traveler

How do you know when a green tomato is ripe? It doesn't change color. Some of them develop stripes of a different shade when they are ripe. Others just have to be squeezed.

1. Aunt Ruby's German Green

Yellow/Orange tomatoes are supposed to have a sweeter, less acidic, fruity flavor.

1. Kellogg's Breakfast
2. Aunt Gertie's Gold
3. Pineapple

And every tomato addict needs at least one early variety to feed the hunger until the mid-season varieties come through.

1. Big New Dwarf
2. Early Girl
   

Here's my problem - I can't just buy a few seeds of each. Seeds come in 20-30 count packets for $2.50 to $3.00 per packet. Or I could buy plants from a place like The Tasteful Garden, but they are way more expensive and I'm not excited about the prospect of plants shipped through the mail. Seeds last a few years, so I can just start a few of each and keep the rest for the next year. And I could send a few of each to my Dad. He might enjoy a few gardening experiments.

If nothing else, I have plenty of time to decide which varieties and how to get the seeds.

Still Waiting...

The same Early Girl mentioned here now has more than 6 fruits. The other Early Girl has a few flower clusters, but no fruit. Along with the 2 Big Boys, it is dropping blossoms. We had a few cold nights last week, which might be contributing. It was very warm over the weekend and will continue to be warm this week. Hopefully, that will help. The 4 Celebrity's have a few blossom clusters each, but no fruit yet.

No sign of the Ruby Queen yet. It's only been in the ground 12 days, so it may still come up. There are no signs of critters digging in the bed, so I believe the seeds are still there.

Tomato Lessons Learned - The Early Season

After last year's disaster with the Bush Goliath, I decided that this year I would grow tomatoes in containers where I can control the soil, fertilizer and water. After hours of reading, I still didn't get it all right. Here's what I learned about the early part of the season.

1. Keep better track of expenditures. I do it for fun and great tasting, Salmonella-free tomatoes, but I like to know how much I paid for all the gear.
   
2. Keep better track of dates. Seedling purchase, pot up, transplant, etc.
   
3. After the seedlings have made it passed the cell pack stage, put each seedling in its own pot. This seems obvious now, but I didn't realize how fast the roots would grow. I put 27 seedlings in an 18 gallon EarthTainer. In 4 weeks when it was time to transplant, the roots had spread through the entire container. More importantly, the root had gotten intertwined and it was a pain separate them. In the process of separating them, there was lots of root damage. Probably set back growth significantly.
4. When the seedling goes in the pot, only fill the pot 1/3 full of potting mix. As the seedling grows, add more potting mix. This encourages a strong root system.
   
5. Indeterminates with multiple stems are bad in two ways. First, the plant spends lots of energy maintaining multiple stems. Second and probably more important, it makes managing the growth way more difficult. Each stem should have it's own stake or the cage is much more dense. They are basically suckers that grow right out of the ground. If the seedlings show multiple stems, prune back to a single stem.
   

Check back later for Mid-Season and Late-Season Lessons.

Let the Counting Begin

I went out to check the plants this morning. One of the Early Girls has a couple of very small fruits on it. These Early Girls claim to be 55 days from transplant to first fruit. These plants were planted out on 18 May. Today is 25 days. 30 days to go. Not much chance of getting fruit by July 4th. More like the 10th or 12th of July.