:lol:
That Golden Jubilee tomato is 5 1/4" in diameter and weighs 2.25lbs.
That is why his tomato plants looked so big. He is only 3 1/2 foot tall…
Tomatoes in full production mode now and having a hard time keeping up. I canned 20pints of homemade fire roasted salsa and made 3 gal of pico de gallo yesterday. Only to go out and pick another 49 tomatoes in the evening.
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I am coming over, and I have nachos… 
Well, I got off to a late start this year because I was creating raised beds, which took a lot of work.
I have a huge problem and need some advice. I spent a whole day planting out my pepper transplants. I put in 180 bell pepper plants, and they were doing great. I woke up the very next morning at 5 am to a thunderstorm. Laying in bed, thinking, “well, this could actually help things…” until I heard the hailstones hit the window. We had dime-sized hail for about 5 minutes, which completely shredded most of the leaves on the plants.
I watched them for about a week to see if they’d recover. They started to yellow, so I gave each plant a good scoop of vermicompost or regular compost for a nitrogen boost.
Now they’re recovering well and putting out new leaves all over the place. My question is whether or not I should pinch off the lower growth (some leaves are shooting out pretty much at the soil line) to promote growth at the tops. I’ve kept all of the new leaves on so far, figuring they’d help the plants produce energy to get going again. Now that I have a few new sets of leaves up top, should I strip the stubby lower leaves?
I’ll post some pics of the whole garden once I feel it’s presentable…
Bad luck on the hail! :evil:
We just got our first measurable precip today since May! :shock:
Personally, I would let them be, and not snip any foliage. I think the sun will make them do their thing at the top, and if they need the NRG from lower leaves, they will senesce them off by themselves.
You do have enough of a sample to be able to trim 90 and let the other 90 be. Might as well do some experimentation. I am a total manipulator at heart.
Good luck. The relationship of the farmer and Mother Nature is a good lesson to learn. I am sure the boyz will get plenty a peppa come August.
cheers.
It is about Garlic time in my garden.
[quote=“gregscsu”]freakishly large produce.
[/quote]
Baratone, picking those maters green seems odd to me. Do you ever leave them on and taste a difference?
In my experience, a bursting ripe tomato that has ripened on the vine is amazing and cannot be matched by one picked green.
But I only pick green maters right before the freeze of late fall.
What are your thoughts on that?
I agree on the pepper plants I would just let them do what they will.
[quote=“pinnah”]
Baratone, picking those maters green seems odd to me. Do you ever leave them on and taste a difference?
In my experience, a bursting ripe tomato that has ripened on the vine is amazing and cannot be matched by one picked green.
But I only pick green maters right before the freeze of late fall.
What are your thoughts on that?[/quote]
IME with the varieties that I grow (Better Boy, German Johnson, and Golden Jubilee) there is very little noticable difference in taste. Its not like I’m picking them “green” or force ripening. They are picked within 24hrs of being completely ripe and cracked from the heat. (I might add that they are only picked this way in the severe heat. )Once the membrane is cracked they begin to lose their juice and the quality will go down hill in a hurry. The fruit will begin to rot very quickly.
Right now my 9 tomato plants are in full production mode and produce an average of 30lbs of tomatoes per day. I sell most to a vendor at the local farmers market for $1.00 per lb. He sells out of my tomatoes everyday and has great reviews with customers upset that he does not have more to sell.
This method may not work for everyone or all varieties. But, the quality is great and there is no way I can store 30lbs a day of tomatoes if they are cracked and starting to lose juice.
[quote=“Baratone Brewer”]
there is no way I can store 30lbs a day of tomatoes if they are cracked and starting to lose juice.[/quote]
This makes perfect sense to me, thanks for the explanation.
I ate my first sun gold cherry tomato last night.
My heirlooms are just getting growing and starting to set some fruit; I will not get any fatties before August!
Thanks for the feedback on the peppers. I think they’ll pull through fine, but they definitely got set back a couple weeks by that hail… I am trying an experiment with a couple different soil additives recommended by a buddy of mine who is a turf specialist. Basically, they’re both forms of gypsum, adding calcium (and one adds humic acid, I think) and the overall goal is to remove some of the excess magnesium. Apparently, our glacial soil is very high in magnesium, which tends to make the clay set up really hard. I’ve definitely seen that firsthand. So the magnesium forms Epsom salts and leaves the calcium behind. Then the magnesium sulfate should become soluble in water and leach down to the subsoil, leaving the upper layers rich in calcium and looser. We’ll see what happens.
Anybody else growing quinoa? I decided to try it this year. Again, I got a pretty late start on the garden but with the recent heat and humidity, things are really taking off! I think I have a good chance of getting some nice quinoa.
My hops are getting nailed by what seems to be tiny leaf-hoppers. I’m not sure what they are, but the leaves are browning back from the tips and looking really nasty. I have tons of hops from last year in the freezer, so if I don’t get a max harvest this year I’ll be fine. It’s just a bummer to see such damage to the plants. 
Loving this garden forum, and I’m extremely jealous of guys like Baratone posting pics of their southern gardens going like ganbusters! :cheers:
[quote=“Baratone Brewer”]Tomatoes in full production mode now and having a hard time keeping up. I canned 20pints of homemade fire roasted salsa and made 3 gal of pico de gallo yesterday. Only to go out and pick another 49 tomatoes in the evening.
[/quote]
Well now we need the fire roasted salsa recipe!
I have canned salsas before but I don’t care for the “cooked” taste of the salsa. I love fresh salsa and usually only can tomatoes or sauce.
I can a lot of slasa every year. Usually well above 60-80 pints per season. Below is the recipe I slapped together this year for the Fire Roasted Salsa. But, my favorite recipe is a salsa that I named “All in” Garden Salsa. Just about everything goes in that salsa.
Fire Roasted Salsa
10lbs tomatoes
2lbs anaheim peppers
10 large jalapenos
4 cups chopped onions
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2cups apple cider vinegar
2 large bunches of cilantro- including stems
4 tsp oregano
1 tsp ground cumin
4 tsp salt
Fire roast all veggies.(Do not cook only char)
Peel char off of veggies and seed the anaheims. (easier to peel if you put them in a paper bag or kettle covered for a few minutes)
Chop all ingredients and place in a large SS kettle and simmer for 10 mintues.
Follow proper canning procedures
Here is my recipe for the “All In” Garden salsa mentioned above.
“All In” Garden Salsa
17lbs Tomatoes
3/4lb Celery
7 Medium White Onions
6 Large Bell Peppers
8 Large Jalepenos
8 Serrano peppers
1 Habanero
2 Bunches of Cilantro
6 Cloves of Garlic
4 tsp Salt
2 1/2cups White Vinegar
All ingredients are coarsely chopped.
Simmer for 30 minutes.
Follow proper canning proceedures.
Here’s a couple crap shots off my blackberry around dusk last night…
The A frame the tomatoes are on stands toughly 6 feet tall…this is my 3rd year gardening, and these plants by far are the tallest, fullest plants I have yet had. Nothing ripe yet, but that wouild be amazingly early for us up here in the frosty state of Maine. I have single strings going from the top to the bottom of the A frame, with trellis clips that attach loosely around the main stalk of the tomato plant…it’s really cool…the netting on the backside of the frame was an afterthought for growing some green beans…not sure how well it will do, but I ran out of real estate in the garden, and still had to have my greeen beans…
Thought I would throw in a shot of the leeks I am trying for the first time…they are growing nicely…and in the background is a row of potatoes sewn in the garden, and then my potato tire tower of terror…I planted a red norland type of new potato, and they are all close to ready for harvesting. Three days ago I dug out a 6 by 6 inch area of the row planted in the garden, and got about 9 2 inch long potatoes…I was extremely pleased. This is my first year growing them, so I had no expectations…All the spuds were beautifully bright pinkish red, no blemishes, and they tasted fantastic in a soup I made with all veggies from the garden…yummmmmm…anyway, enough from me, hoppy gardening…
[quote=“n8young”]Here’s a couple crap shots off my blackberry around dusk last night…
[/quote]
I COULD totally go for the tire tower,
because I am just that trashy,
and they seem very functional!
Do you just kick it over and get all the potatoes?
The tire potato tower is a great idea! I have them in the ground and experimented with containers this year. I am very interested in comparing the yield between the two.
Looking good.
I plan on harvesting my potatoes sometime this next week.
In the meantime, I’m still picking tomatoes like crazy. So far this week I have harvested 241 tomatoes off of my 9 plants.
[quote=“pinnah”][quote=“n8young”]Here’s a couple crap shots off my blackberry around dusk last night…
[/quote]
I COULD totally go for the tire tower,
because I am just that trashy,
and they seem very functional!
Do you just kick it over and get all the potatoes?[/quote]
it is a little trashy, but…I live on a dirt road in Maine…so when in Rome…this is my first year trying it, and also my first year with potatoes…theory is, when the plants all die down, I should have a ton more potatoes than if I just planted them in a row…we’ll see how it goes. My father keeps trying to pawn off more old tires onto me, but like yuou said, not the prettiest yard ornament…but if it works real well, it is definitely a space saver, I might just take him up on more tires next year. it’s recycling at the very least, and I’m all for that. On a side note, I dug up a row of about 10 potato plants…an early red variety. While I must admit, I think I was still a tad too early on the digging, I netted 5 lbs of red new potatoes…considering I spent about $0.50 cents in seed potato for the row, I didn’t think that was too bad. And it was fun to dig and find those little red treasures in the ground. I made a nice red potato and dill salad for a bbq, with almost all the ingredients coming from the garden…
Tomatoes are finally starting to slow a bit, but still producing well. I also harvested a few of my Yukon Golds yesterday and ended up with 35 nice potatoes and lots news.
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