The Crafty Cultivator

All the tomatoes are officially out in their final places!

One new thing I have done this year is to mulch them. It is looking like this year may be dry, so I am trying to minimize the amount of watering I will have to do. This should also help stop any soil splashing up into the leaves and introducing diseases.

Normally, my tomatoes would be up against our garage wall because it is the warmest place of the yard, and also the most protected from hail. However, since we are re-doing the patio at some point this year, I didn’t want to have to move them part way through the growing season. My solution: Tomato Island! I have grouped all the containers around our old fire pit, and stashed (almost) all the tomatoes there. They get a little more sun here, but are a little more exposed to the weather. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I can get them covered in the event of hail.

But for now, I am just going to go variety by variety and update on their progress so far.

Tiny Tim

This micro little plant is on the back steps. Tiny little flowers are just starting. My mom has the other plant I started, and I’ll be interested to see how it grows for her too. (This is a determinate variety, so I won’t be pruning suckers off of this little guy) the photo is deceptive on size, so I added a second showing the flowers just starting. It should give you a better idea on how tiny this plant really is…. And how good it is at collecting Ava’s hair (Ava =my big dog). Also, because little Tiny Tim is a bit purple, that is a sign that I should get some food to it pretty soon.

Tumbler

This is the winner in ‘First to set fruit’ completion. Soon I’ll be able to tell you how they taste! But it is pretty great to be able to have some tomatoes set in May! These are also in a hanging basket on the garage so I will have to move them once Patio construction starts, but they are easy to move, so can stay where they are up until I am forced to move them.

Green Envy & Chadwick’s Cherries

These are growing fantastic and I think they will start producing flowers soon. Currently residing on the patio, but will be moved to Tomato Island as soon as I get some ambition to do so. 3 plants in this pot was probably too many, but I will be feeding these to keep them going… They should do fine.

Yellow Pear & Principe Borghiese
These are also growing fantastic, and also have to make the move to Tomato Island. I also have 3 plants in this pot, which may be too many but we’ll wait and see. The Yellow Pear has flowers growing in front of your eyes, and the Principe Borghiese plants are starting to send out flowers too. I also notice from looking at these photos that I should get in and prune some of the suckers out before they get too big.

San Marzano

I was worried about these sensitive little snowflakes making it through the frost setback, but they have done it. Because of the setback, I will probably leave the 2 bottom suckers on each plant to grow. Also, I put the 3 plants in the largest pot to spoil them a little. Hopefully they will reward my little bit of generosity with a glut of paste tomatoes.  This is probably the best example of how/where I trimmed the frost killed bits off of the majority of the plants hit by the frost.

Mortgage Lifter

Flowers are just starting on this one, and they are huge! Luckily the frost didn’t get this plant, so my hopes of having a giant tomato from it are still alive. I plunked my Habenero pot bottom into the soil in this pot, so I hope this tomato doesn’t mind its spicy new neighbour.

Black Krim

This little guy is coming back from the frost quite well, so I hope to have a good harvest if I can keep them safe from any bad weather we may get.

Cherokee Purple 

Also made it past the frost, and is looking strong. I am keeping my fingers crossed these are successful and I can finally taste one of the worlds favourite heirloom tomatoes!

Marglobe

I left this one a little taller when I chopped the frost bitten bits off, and now every sucker has taken off! Which is good, because it is a determinate variety and I need to remember to leave them on anyway.  It was too hard to get a decent photo of the whole plant… but you can see some more of it in the background of the Cherokee Purple picture.

Manitoba

This was the only tomato in the greenhouse unaffected by the frosts. It is also a determinate variety, and we should have tomatoes from it in 55-60 days.

Now looking at the pictures and editing this post, I have noticed that I should probably get out and feed the tomatoes with a little liquid fertilizer, and prune the suckers. I should also mark out which are the Determinate varieties to remind me to not prune those ones.

Well, that is the tomatoes so far! I’ll try and get you updated again as soon as we have some more fruits set. Or if disaster strikes, I’ll update you on that. Also over in Tomato Island is the peppers, so I’ll upload an update on them next.