LoganLomato wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 12:46 pm Hello everybody. I’m a relatively new gardener in the very hot and humid city of New Orleans. Really excited to get my tomatoes in my grow bags for this upcoming season.

Would love to talk to and get to know some other folks in the gulf south and Louisiana!

I attempted to attach a photo of my first 16 tomato plants of the season. Hoping that I did it correctly.

IMG_8981.jpeg

karstopography wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 1:54 pm 9b Gulf Coast gardener 250 miles to your west here. I see we have zero overlap on our choices this season for tomatoes. Irma’s Highland and Wherokowhai look to be dwarf tomatoes and I have zero experience with those or any dwarf varieties. New Orleans is either 9b or 10a according to the USDA 2023 maps depending on specific location and apparently New Orleans is already past its last average frost of the season date. Ever since our maps got updated, and a winter or two previously, we’re getting zone 8 cold here every winter including this winter at 18° so little good the updated maps are. Do you think we’ll get a revised map reflective of what’s become our mandatory, obligatory zone 8 cold every winter? Yea, I didn’t think so either.

Our last average frost is February 15 so naturally it looks like we’ll get a significant freeze on the 20th if the most recent forecast is correct. I put twelve of my tomato transplants, my fault for starting them on the early side, into the beds yesterday. I do have some back up plants, nine yesterday morning, now seven since I gave a friend that dropped by yesterday afternoon one of my two remaining Red Barn reserve starter tomato plants and my one remaining Dester reserve plant. So seven tomatoes waiting in the wings should the first tranche of twelve get massacred in a freeze. It looks like I’ll be breaking out the freeze cloth again next week if I have any hope of keeping twelve plants going beyond February.

I like to, rather feel compelled to gamble with frost on the front end getting the tomatoes transplanted early. There’s no point in my mind even trying to grow the late season heirloom beefsteaks I adore if I wait until all possibility of frost is past to get my transplants into the beds. I’m just not interested at all in getting one truss of fruit per plant if even to have the inevitable, inexorable heat shut it all down.

Whwoz wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 3:18 pm Welcome to the Junction from Down Under @LoganLomato . If you are growing the dwarf tomatoes, you may find that their compact growth holds the humidity more and that they may do better being opened up slightly.

leftylogan wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 3:28 pm Welcome to another Logan

We're even using the same 3.5" pots with popsicle stick markers /viewtopic.php?t=6003

bower wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 7:28 pm Welcome from further north. Your plants look terrific!

TerraCayda wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 9:39 pm Welcome! I recently moved from *almost* a perfect Tomato climate in San Diego, CA, to brutally dry & hot Tucson, AZ. I've been an avid tomato grower since childhood, but now I feel like I'm a newbie again. This board has been pretty helpful and encouraging with suggestions. Glad you found us here.

LoganLomato wrote: ↑Fri Feb 14, 2025 4:12 pm

Whwoz wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 3:18 pm Welcome to the Junction from Down Under @LoganLomato . If you are growing the dwarf tomatoes, you may find that their compact growth holds the humidity more and that they may do better being opened up slightly.

Thanks for the tip!! I will definitely pay attention to this! Do you prune them to open them up or use a specific type of trellis?