Tomatoes!

I love fresh tomatoes! There's just nothing better in the middle of the summer than a sweet tomato fresh off the vine. That's really the reason for this year's gardening attempts.

I REALLY WANT FRESH TOMATOES THIS SUMMER!

So today's post is about my tomatoes. I planted a variety in hopes that a few of them do great in buckets. Because I'm container gardening, I chose the obvious Patio Tomato (pictured top). This one is doing fantastic so far, and only a few weeks in the buckets. I have a total of 4 small tomatoes showing on this one plant. Very unexpected, and thrilling! This plant is by far the smallest tomato plant in the garden, yet is producing already like a champ!

Growing up, my favorite variety, and producer of the most important item in the garden (in my humble opinion), was the Sweet 100 tomato. Why most important? I just loved picking fresh, red grape sized tomatoes and popping them in my mouth. We never had enough plants for my personal liking. So, having 3 daughters of my own who love tomatoes, this is the most important plant for me this year as well. I planted a total of 4 Sweet 100 varieties (pictured above). I also picked up 1 Porters Dark Red Cherry tomato variety (right). I'm anxious to see which does better. The Red Cherry is older than the Sweet 100s, so he's obviously a bit fuller.

Up next are a couple of random picks, that will hopefully bode well. I wanted a different variety, and chose Lemon Boy, a yellow meat variety. This one seems to be fairing quite well so far!. We have a handful of blooms and one small green tomato in process. You'll notice in the picture to the left, the plant seems bare at the bottom. We had a lot of rain (very unusual for the Lubbock area) over the course of 1 week and all of my tomatoes picked up a fungus of some sort. I am by no means a horticulturalist, so couldn't tell you what fungus it was. Most leaves at the bottom were brown spotted and starting to turn yellow. Because of this, I sprayed them with fungicide and I pinched off a lot of these damaged leaves. Most of the plants are LOVING the fact that I relieved them of the damaged leaves, but Lemon Boy here is a little slower to fill out. I think I pinched him later than the others or something, I don't recall. He'll be beautiful again in a couple of weeks, I promise! So keep checking back for the next update on tomatoes to see how he's doing!

OK, last on my variety list is Ace 55, pictured to the right. This is an older variety, from what I can learn. My husband picked this one because 'it looked healthy'. I'm ok with that! The Ace 55 is my only determinate tomato. It's said to be low in acid, too. That's probably a good thing!

So that's my Tomato Story! I'll keep you updated as the year progresses to let you know how we do. My mouth is watering now for fresh tomatoes! YUMMY!!!