I picked 29 lbs of tomatoes today. Notice in this first picture there are 13 tomatoes on the left side of the photo these are Big Beef. These turned out to be early produces and large size tomatoes. They are suppose to be beef steak type tomatoes but when I slice them open they look nothing like beef steak inside but they do have the very good flavor of beef steak tomatoes. This has been one of the best produces this summer. I have 4 plants.
The group of 26 tomatoes in the center of the picture are Beef Master. These are suppose to be Beef Steak type tomatoes too but when I slice them some look like beef steak and some don't but they do have very good beef steak flavor. These have also been one of the best producers of tomatoes with large tomatoes. I have 4 plants.
The tomatoes at the far end of the photo are real Beef Steak tomatoes according to the label on the plant tray but they do not look like beef steak slicing tomatoes but they do have good flavor. I have only harvested 2 tomatoes from these 4 plants all summer until today. I harvested 9 lbs of tomatoes today. This is one reason I never plant all 1 variety of tomato you can never trust what the label says on the plant trays and you never know if they will be good producers either.
This next picture shows the BEEF STEAK tomatoes on the right side 22 tomatoes here wt 9.148 lbs. I am glad I was not counting on these plants to supply us with tomatoes we would not had many tomatoes at all until today. These 4 plants are loaded there must be 15 lbs of tomatoes on each plant.
I have a total of 12 plants in 1 row, Big Beef, Beef Master, Beef Steak. The majority of the tomatoes we have canned came from 8 plants, Big Beef and Beef Master.
The next rows in the garden are 4 cherry tomato plants. 1 plant either died or got crowded out by other plants. These 3 cherry tomato plants are big producers they make about 4 to 5 lbs of tomatoes every day. I give most of these to my son.
The next row of tomatoes belong to my Son, Early Girl and Rutger. My son planted his tomatoes 2 weeks later than I planted my tomatoes. Early girl is making a lot of good flavor large tomatoes, one of the largest tomatoes in the garden is a 1.3 lb Early Girl. Rutger is doing well making a good supply of tomatoes. There are 4 early girl plants and 4 rutger plants they have been producing about 6 to 10 lbs of tomatoes every day. So far so good heat it not bothering the tomato plants very much this year.
I have 4 more tomato plants called Jet Star I planted these late some time in May they have 14 tomatoes that are almost ready to pick. I picked 2 ripe tomatoes today but I have not sliced or tasted them yet. I have grown these before they are also suppose to be a beef steak type tomato but we will see for sure tomorrow. These are an orange color tomato I don't remember Jet Star ever being orange color in the past.
I have 2 Beef Steak tomato plants that I planted from seeds they are loaded with green tomatoes. I think these 2 plants should be making ripe tomatoes soon maybe 2 more weeks. They both appear to have about 15 lbs of tomatoes on each plant.
I have a 6 foot row of tomato seeds I planted a few days ago they should be up and ready to transplant in a few more weeks perfect timing with cooler weather tomatoes. After tomato plants struggle through this 95 degree weather they never totally recover so the new plants will do better. We sometimes have tomatoes for Christmas dinner if I can keep frost from killing them.
Okra finally took off I got a good harvest of okra for the first time today. Up to now harvest has been 3 or 4 pods every few days. Once okra takes off it will be a nightmare to eat it all, soon it will be making 40 pods every day.
When I plant tomatoes I dig a hole about the size of a 10" flower pot so I can plant the tomato plants deep and take advantage of having the full length of the stem become one large mass of roots. Tomato plants have the ability to grow roots any place soil touches the plant. I put pellet lime and fertilizer in the bottom of each hole. I use a small hand full which is not much. I pick up some fertilizer then shake out what I don't want leaving about 1 tablespoon of fertilizer in my hand to throw in the tomato hole, same for pellet lime. Some times I add nitrogen and sometimes not, you don't want much nitrogen with tomatoes. This year I used Urea not having much experience with urea I was afraid to use much so I used a very small amount about 1 teaspoon if you actually measure it with a kitchen measuring spoon. Fill the tomato holes all with water then return a few hours later when the water is gone. The fertilizer goes into the soil with the water. I don't want the tomato plants to come in contact with any of the fertilizer so I put about 2" of soil in the hole just to cover the spot with 15/15/15 fertilizer. Plant the tomato plant deep, fill the hole with soil, compact it tight, make a donut circle of soil around each plant to hold water so I can water them for a week. Once I notice the tomato plants are starting to grow I never water them again this forces the plants to grow deep roots so they are prepared for this hot 95 degree weather. My tomato plants are 3 feet apart with 5 bean seeds planted between all the tomato plants. I don't care anything about the beans they are only there to supply nitrogen to the tomato plants. Beans are nitrogen fixing they will put a lot of nitrogen in the soil for the tomatoes. I have my whole garden with a row spacing of 3 feet there is a 40 foot long row of beans between each row of tomatoes this should supply plenty of nitrogen to the tomato plants. Beans and tomatoes are both doing good. I have harvested 34 lbs of beans from this part of the garden so far. At this point sometimes I pull all the beans up but there year I am just going to leave all the beans until they die on their own. I got a late start on the garden this year I usually am more organized but this year bad weather did not allow me to get everything planted on time so I planted another 40 foot row of beans just for harvest and a small 6 foot row just for next years seeds. I have already collected a few tomato seeds and will collect more tomato seeds for next years garden. I am going to build a very small green house this winter just large enough to start a few tomato and pepper plants from seeds for next years garden.
I have a total of 12 tomato plants in 1 row. There are 3 cherry tomato plants, also 4 Jet Star plants. My son has 7 tomato plants but they don't count I don't get any of those tomatoes and I give him most of the cherry tomatoes. I have 2 plants from seeds that are not making tomatoes yet. Most of what we have canned in jars came from 8 tomato plants. I give away tomatoes almost every day and we eat all we can eat for lunch and dinner. When the plants were small I sprinkled wood ash on them every day after we cooked on the BBQ grill. I burn tree limbs and sticks in the grill there are not much wood ash maybe a teaspoon full for all tomato plants, peppers, squash, melons too.
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