First Tomato of Summer

 Forgot to take a picture, but for the record, a "July 4th" tomato was ripe and ready on July 8th. Let the caprese begin! 

Tomatoes In Ground! 2026

 May 19th,  97F, laid in the following plants. 

• one volunteer seeded itself; wonder what it is? 
• 1 early girl (bc: early) 
• 2 lemon boys (yellow seems to fool the birds and squirrels, at least so far) 
• 1 "black prince" (bc: who could resist that name?) 
• Something else red & beefsteaky I can't recall. 

Plus an eggplant for good measure. 

[Already growing as cold season crops: 

• radishes (mostly harvested, a few to go) 
• carrots 
• various lettuces 
• various herbs
• marigolds 
• mar de bois stawberries, finally mature after three seasons 
• blueberries
• peas, but they aren't doing well; too shady
• asparagus (can't pick this year; next year) ] 

The Tomatoes Don't Lie 2024

Tomatoes still don't lie, but it's time for a refresh of the data set. 

This year I completely revamped my garden, changing its orientation, having knee-high professional raised beds assembled for me, and importing high quality soil recommended by my garden consultant. He planted my all-heirloom tomatoes from seed (rather than purchased seedlings) in what is now almost a completely different environment, and we planted pretty late in the season. 

Therefore, there isn't really any comparison between what happened this year and what has gone before. 

First tomato of summer was a July 4th yellow cherry tomato (in a brand new bed in a completely different garden spot). I had a great crop of full-size tomatoes, but we had a weirdly rainy season and they took forEVER to ripen. Late July. 

I dug up my tomato plants to make room for  winter crops around Halloween. 

If I keep this blog up instead of calling it cleanly quits or decamping to another platform, then we'll start fresh next year. 

Meanwhile, old data sets.  

2023 

2022

2010-2020

Holy Saturday Tomatoes?

It's probably too early --not sure we really won't have any more below-40 temps -- but when I went to get geraniums for the porch (this is my Easter Saturday tradition -- after 3 pm, the spring flowers appear on the porch-- the tomatoes tempted me and the string of very warm days beguiled me.  There will either be very early tomatoes or this will be a false start and I'll have to re-plant in a few weeks. 

The tomatoes, as we have established, don't lie. 

Tomatoes in ground date: April 8, 2023

God's In His Heaven...

This is how I know God loves me and wants me to be happy. 
 

Sweet Land of Liberty

Image credit: Independence Day, Andrew Wyeth, shamelessly pinched from here. 

The first post-Roe Independence Day, and I'm feeling more hopeful than I have in a while. Not optimistic, mind you, but hopeful! If that great and wicked spell can be broken, so can others. 

I'm not sure why I'm telling you this because I don't expect anyone to understand,  but yesterday at Mass, our genuinely beautiful choir sang America the Beautiful as one of the post-communion hymns. As I've confessed previously, I can't sing that song, especially the later verses, without tearing up, so when it happened it didn't take me by surprise. 

But I was completely overcome with unexpected weeping when we sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic as our recessional hymn. I'm not positive this meaning was intended (though knowing the choir director I think it was), but it felt like a comment on the Dobbs decision, and in an instant, every bit of joy at finally attaining the long-awaited destruction of that wicked legal fiction, every bittersweet memory of all the heroes of the movement who didn't live to see the day, all the sense of alienation from pastors and erstwhile pro-lifers who couldn't muster a bit of happiness or gratitude for the decision came pouring out. I couldn't stop. It was embarrassing! But cathartic. 

Spent yesterday with some old political philosophers and patriots in a small town on the water where they had a great parade and fireworks, and that was also good for the soul. 

For your Independence Day reading: 

Patriotism as A Virtue.  "John Adams calls us to celebrate our country by prayer, parades, and pyrotechnics. I’m with Adams."

My now-perennial posting of Peter Schramm's Born American, but in the Wrong Place. 

Irving Berlin singing God Bless America. 

Oh, and: the first tomato of summer!  Just a cherry tomato, but the promise of things to come! 

 

 

#GOALS

Image credit: @NatureVibes.me

This photo is said to be every variety of tomato on one table. I think the most I've ever planted is five.  Getting ideas. 

 

Tomatoes in Ground, 2022

I hope I don't regret planting early, as Spring keeps advancing and then retreating this season, but as the last half of the month will be busy and this week is nice, I took the day off and put the garden in.  Lots of veggies and herbs this year, but only the tomatoes require commentary. 

Planted five varieties: 3 heirlooms and two sure-things, including some yellow cherry tomatoes. Usually I don't plant cherries b/c Mr. Weed doesn't like them. But today it occurred to me that I don't have to serve them to him, and could still eat them myself.  

The ground was full of worms everywhere I dug, which is a very good sign my efforts to build up the soil over the years are working. 

Fingers crossed! Cuz I sure ain't paying inflationary prices for no cellophane, colorless, store-bought tomato! 

May 9, 2022 

The Tomatoes Don't Lie, 2021.2

Just picked these. It's November, people.  Day 1 of the Christ the King Novena.  Tomato season keeps extending itself.  Normally if I plant in May, the vines are spent by the end of September or into October. 

The Tomatoes Don't Lie, 2021

The first tomato of summer ripened while I was on retreat last week, so it's unclear whether it was picked June 24 or 25th.  In any case, that's one early tomato -- and well ahead of all its brethren heavy yet green on the vines today. 

I think I neglected to note the day they went in the ground as 4-inch plants: May 2, 2021 

Just for tomato gardener's almanac purposes: 

2020: tomatoes in May 6, first ripe fruit July 4

2019: tomatoes in May 11.

2018 tomatoes in July 9 (outlier year: yard unavailable b/c of work being done) 

2017 tomatoes in June 10 

2016: tomatoes in June 9 

2015: tomatoes in May 30 ; first tomato Aug 9 

pre 2015 data 

Past Due Tomato Blogging

Practically the only thing I use this blog for anymore is garden records (and my reading list). So it's especially pathetic that I didn't bother to note here the first tomato of summer (I did post it to facebook which is even more pathetic, but we won't get into that now). 

At any rate, for the record: 

First tomato of summer came July 4, 2020.

It was a great season for a while. By the end of August it rained so much that there was loads of the fruit on the vines but it never got enough sun to ripen.  First frost didn't come until the beginning of December, so I had fruit -- somewhat anemic fruit, but fruit-- all through November. Pulled out my vines and winterized the garden on Black Friday. 

Tomatoes in Ground, 2020

The wifi went out Monday, which was fine by me because there were no snow days this semester and I've been weeks and weeks without a true day off.  The weather was gorgeous, and I bought plants, went for a walk with a friend, and then spent the rest of the day in the garden.

I almost planted everything on Palm Sunday, but it's been a cool Spring and I didn't feel confident we were past frost, so I held off until the first glorious, gorgeous May day.

But now they're saying it may snow on Friday? Yikes!  No snow in Jan-Feb, but snow in May? Skeptic though I am, that is some freaky climate change.


Or maybe not. On a lark I went and consulted the external memory drive and discovered this has actually been the pattern for a few years now. Snow would be novel, but cold and rainy all the way through May & June has been the new normal. Why is it that what happened when I was young trumps my memory of what has happened the last 5 years in a row?

To wit:

2015
2016
2017
2018

I might lose my four varieties of tomato, peppers, beans and various herbs. But the good news is, the spinach which I planted against reason since it's a cool-weather crop, may come up before Fall after all.

<googles tomato blankets>

Tomatoes in Ground, 2019

The ground's been ready for tomatoes since mid-April and I've just been lazy. Four cultivars this year, with one cheat: I bought one hybrid variety that's already in a gallon-sized tub. Might have to DQ it from the "first tomato" race later on. Then three heirloom varieties in varying colors.

Mmm. Tomatoes.

The Tomatoes Don't Lie, 2018

All records are off this season, for reasons previously explained.  But for the record, First Tomato of the Season = August 1.

Data for years 2005-2016

This is the only tomato post I can find for last year. A record-keeping fail, apparently. But I note this is at least the 3rd year in a row where May and June have been "strangely" rainy and the hydrangeas love it but the tomatoes don't -- and there's a jungle in the backyard.

Tomatoes in Ground, 2018

I thought I was going to let my tomato patch lie fallow this summer -- it rained almost every day of the Spring, well into June, and was uncharacteristically cold. But then we had some landscaping done and the nice men built me a brand new raised bed, larger than the old one, and there was all that nice soil sitting there doing nothing, so....

I went and bought some cheater tomato plants (some w/ fruit already on them) and planted 3 cultivars and a bunch of herbs, and there's still room for fall cilantro and lettuce. Throws the "tomatoes don't lie" narrative right off, but hey: tomatoes. And if it stays warm through August, we might even get some.

I may or may not have been motivated as well by a week at the beach with farmer's market tomatoes every night.

Tomatoes in Ground, 2017

For the second year in a row May was rainy and strangely cool. Just looking at the jungle that is my back yard after a month of rain has been making me think, eh, maybe I'll just let the vines take over and not plant this year.

But then yesterday, sunny and strangely cool -- a mere 68F in June-- I said to myself, only a Sith deals in absolutes and only a total loser fails to plant tomatoes. So I did. Went out in the dwindling sunlight after dinner and double dug the garden plot and put in marigolds, three varieties of tomato, and a little basil just for caprese salads later on.  (Oregano, thyme and mint are perennial in my little plot of earth and I never have to plant them; I have to do battle w/ them). 

Couldn't find any yellow varieties in tomatoes this year (I think yellow fools the squirrels), so I'm trying black/purple varieties with cool names like Cherokee Purple and Black Prince in addition to Early Girl (because: "early"). 

I was thinking this was the latest and lamest summer planting ever, but turns out I planted on June 9th last year, too. So we're holding steady. 

Finally Planted My Tomatoes

Sigh. It's going to be a long wait for the first tomato of summer, I'm afraid. In 2005, I had tomatoes by June 23. In 2016, I've only just planted.

It rained every day in May, a thing unheard of -- and it was cold most days. Then I had to go to Rome for a week on some business. So: today was the day.  Only two varieties, as I'll be in and out of town all summer and can't care for everything. Plus, I haven't been super-happy with tomato crop yields the past few years. Could be weird weather (unseasonably rainy, unseasonably cold). I suspect the Black Walnut across the way is poisoning the tomato plants. But just in case it's mere soil exhaustion, I decided to leave my usual garden patch fallow and plant elsewhere this year to see what happens.

So the garden patch is small this year, almost not worth it (except that tomatoes are always worth it): a few tomato plants, a cucumber plant I somehow bought accidentally, new basil, and some transplanted thyme and mint.

In Which I Experiment With Hydroponics

This evening, Vigil of Pentecost 2016, marks the 18th consecutive day of rain in Washington, DC. Perhaps the Lord feels as I do about our presidential nominees.

Just kidding on the picture. I haven't planted tomatoes yet.

Things About A 75F Christmas

It's warm and raining in DC this week. I know half the world celebrates Christmas in warm weather, but for us it's unusual.

On the one hand, the geraniums on the porch, which have never needed changing out for Fall plants this year,  are blossoming, so that's kind of festive.

On the other hand, I cannot get in the spirit of the required bake-and-cook-a-thon for tomorrow's Christmas Eve gathering when the wind is not blowing through the drafty old house making the kitchen the place to be. I had to change into shorts and none of these cakes and pies and casseroles and such seem appetizing.

Think anyone would mind if I skipped the roast beast and roasted veggies and served nachos and cold beer tomorrow instead?

(Which reminds me: I never made the final tomato post of the year. I'll have you know I harvested the last tomatoes of the year the day before Thanksgiving.  That's weird, but quite gratifying, since I planted late this year and expected a piddly season).

Sigh.  Back to the oven.  

The Tomatoes Don't Lie, XI

Finally! I'm used to late June/ early July home-grown tomatoes, but this year only today --when summer is almost over-- am I finally harvesting the first tomato of summer.  The lateness is only partially a function of having planted late (May 30 v. early in May), because I also planted more mature plants than usual -- that factor should be more or less a wash. I think the late and paltry fruiting is more a function of it having been an exceptionally rainy summer ... a la 2013, when it was so rainy, hardly any fruit and I didn't even bother to note when or if I ever got a tomato.

So that makes two of the past three years have seen unusually cool, rainy summers where it was difficult to grow tomatoes. Does that count as a bellwether for climate change?

Last year's first tomato came July 6.  This is a full 5 weeks later.  Bah.

2015: August 14
2014: July 6
2013: No data
2012: July 5
2011: July 7
2010: July 23
2009: July 16
2008: July 12
2007: July 8
2006: July 5
2005: June 23

On the bright side, the rain has been great for the hydrangeas.