So Texans, Where do you Stand on Tomatoes?

[SpookyShoe]

Little Bing. Supposed to get 18 to 24 inches tall, but mine right now is a little less than a foot.

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Carmello, a very robust plant

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[karstopography]

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My 2 Carmello plants are just getting some vigor to them. They were small when I got them at Riefels. Looks like they are about to set some fruit.

My star plants for setting tomatoes at this stage are big beef and blue ribbon. One Hillbilly plant is setting some fruit. The two Mortgage lifters have set a couple each. Have a maybe 70 tomatoes set so far, should be double that number in a week.

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If the Hillbilly plant sets 1/5 of these blossoms, I’ll still be doing well. Cannot believe the number of blossoms on this plant.

[AlittleSalt]

I'm going to transplant into 5 gallon buckets tomorrow April 15th. I wanted to April the 8th, but those 9 days of well below freezing and uncertain electricity in February threw my schedule off.

We have irises blooming this week in the middle of April - that should have happened around April 1. I have 2 varieties of Sungold that are always the first to produce fruit. Porter which is around 75 DTM, can over-summer here, but I'm planting them in full sun in a place that is out of the way where I have to drag 150' of water hose to - so it'll take effort to over-summer them. And then 2 Big Beef F1 plants which I don't remember the DTM, but it seems like they were around 70 days.

[Paulf]

Been looking at this thread for a while and the lead-in had me thinking of my sort of smart alec answer. Since nobody else will say it, I will. I just hope no Texans stand on their tomatoes. We up north stand next to them in the garden but never ON them. I apologise in advance for my strange sense of humor.

[SpookyShoe]

Arkansas Traveler, an open pollinated pink. 6 oz. fruits.

Bred in the 1960s at the University of Arkansas.

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Nyagous, a Russian brown/red, clusters of 6-8 oz. fruit.

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[SpookyShoe]

People having their dead plants ripped out and replaced has been going on in my neighborhood for many weeks now. Especially Queen palms.

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[karstopography]

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My true date palms, ones I care for, survived. These are 25-30 feet tall and I had someone trim away the dead fronds. My parent’s pygmy date palm apparently died. Really old and tall one. Most of sago palms look alive, although they took a beating.

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This Hillbilly tomato really is a blooming star. Hillbilly seems to take forever to set fruit from the bloom first opening to the tomato for sure setting. I’ve got two of those plants, but the other one isn’t blooming anything like this.

The recent colder, cloudy weather sort of slowed things down some, but I think this week a lot more tomatoes will set. I’ve got tons of blooms on most all of the plants and they all have some amount of tomatoes on them now, from 15 down to about 2 or 3. The next couple of weeks will be the prime setting time I should think.

[TXTravis]

People having their dead plants ripped out and replaced has been going on in my neighborhood for many weeks now. Especially Queen palms.


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Just got a quote for $32k for re landscaping our office. And that's the minimum amount of replacement we can get away with. Glad it's not my money!

[SpookyShoe]

Black Krim

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Carmello

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Cherokee Purple

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[jmsieglaff]

You Texans sure have some beautiful looking tomato plants--very healthy foliage. Do you preventatively treat for fungal disease--if so with what? I battle Septoria every year, it's maddening, I'd have to think septoria is problem in Texas too.

[karstopography]

[mention]jmsieglaff[/mention] I haven’t applied any fungicide in the past. I do remove lower leaves once they get any sign of yellow or diseased look to them. So far this time around, there’s essentially been nothing to remove to date.

This season, I plan to not let my tomatoes linger much at all into the summer. I plan on putting down clear plastic and sun solarizing at least two of my beds for July and August to control nematodes and other issues. I don’t usually carry my tomatoes very far into the summer anyway since they mostly cannot set fruit in the hot weather. My plants are all mostly loaded with fruit now and maybe we have another couple of weeks to set fruit in a big way. My heirloom types all have double digit tomatoes set, One pineapple plant is over 20 tomatoes now, and the hybrids like big beef and blue ribbon have up to 30 fruit set. At some point, it’s a case of diminishing returns for the Spring crop. Maybe If I get the nematodes about all dead this summer I can get in a fall crop of tomatoes because nematodes have been the issue in the late summer and really tamp down plant vigor. Carrying through a tomato plant from spring and all through the summer into the fall takes a ton of extra work this far south into Texas. Not saying people don’t pull it off, but one has to fight too much heat and disease and bug pressures for limited returns.

Might be different in other parts of the state.

[SpookyShoe]

I get fungus, nematodes, and maybe stink bugs every tomato season. It's a race to get ripe fruit before all the damage causes the plants to succumb.. My plants are pretty much done for about the middle of by the end of June.

[karstopography]

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pineapple and Cherokee Purple.

[karstopography]

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And so it begins.

[karstopography]

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Sprayed B.T. This morning since the rain is done. These caterpillars descended upon the tomatoes seemingly overnight. Not much damage, though.

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Didn’t see any rain split fruit. Maybe that will happen when the sun gets up, hope not. Still waiting for the first color break. A week or two away...don’t really know.

[SpookyShoe]

Almost ripe Snow White cherry. I'll pick this truss tomorrow.

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Boxcar Willie was the last plant to set any fruit for some reason.

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[karstopography]

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1st breaker. 3.3 ounce blue ribbon, one of those early setting, low hanging runts to start the season, nevertheless, the ice is broken. I didn’t plant anything labeled early season or cherry/grape. Blue ribbon is labeled 71 days and it’s been about that long since the plants were set out.

[SpookyShoe]

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Picked today, Arkansas Traveler, on the smallish side.. about 2 and 1/4 oz each.

[SpookyShoe]

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Little Bing dwarf. Tart taste.

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[karstopography]

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Picked about 11 pounds so far, only three heirloom types. Some given away, consumed only two so far on a burger. Think we’ll do a capreses salad today. Couple of green ones in there that were accidental knock offs. Those will be fried. Really slow to ripen out there this year with the lack of sun and superabundance of precipitation, no heat either, temperatures staying pretty close to 70 degrees most of the time. I’m pulling them at color break for the most part just to not attract any attention from squirrels which have so far left them alone.

Got a few monster sized Hillbilly tomatoes on the vine. Keep putting on weight with the rain a refuse to ripen. Wonder how big they will get?