Hey everyone! Sharing my progress. This will be my second season in the raised beds, first in the low bed. Fourth year growing. Nearly everything except for the Alyssum started indoors.
Tomatoes started January 11th – planted Feb 22nd; next time I will try to transplant 30 days from seed as they got a little big. This is a bit of an exploratory season for me to see what will work best in addition to the Sun Gold, Punta Banda and early finishing slicers.
Shade goes up at 90F+, hard and fast rule.
Season overall is truthfully 90 days, from Feb15 –> May15. Closer to 110-120 days with shade. June 24th last harvest last year from the lingering cherries in 115F.
- Punta Banda grow bags – 5x
- Yellow Pear – 2x
- Sungold – 2x
- Indigo Cherry – 1x
- White Cherry OG – 1x
- Amish Paste – 2x
- Purple Brandywine – 1x
- Purple Cherokee – 1x
- Apricot Zebra – 2x
- Arkansas Traveler – 1x
- Harvest Moon – 1x
- Black Krim – 1x
- Early Girl – 3x
- Better Boy – 2x
In ground bed has 6 VF Dwarf, 3 Sweet 100, 6 Roma
Additionally, there are 18 pepper plants and 3 squash!
by MicroArthropod
6 Comments
I admire the way you have paid close attention to optimum timing for your own individual growing location. So extremely important and so often neglected or downplayed. That is really such a huge key to a successful home garden. Every year I strive to improve a little on my timing.
If the grow bags start drying out too fast don’t be afraid to put them in a pan of water (or kiddie pool, or storage tote) with a couple inches. I grew tomatoes in the high desert on a patio this way. Worked really well, stole this idea from Larry Hall on YT. I even managed corn if you can believe it.
Your garden is gorgeous. I love this tall beds, they look fantastic.
That is a ridiculously photogenic pup! They even know how to pose!
Everything looks great!! Especially the pooches. Best of luck with your garden this year.
Interesting thread! I’m in NE Texas and must also aim for an early crop because of weather and disease/pest pressure. If I try to grow large late-season heirloom beauties, it is usually disastrous.
Very nice! I’m in southeast Tx and we also have tight seasons. I started planting tomatoes Feb 9 and protected them from the two freezes we got after that (annoying but not surprising). This gave me a huge headstart and several have some very healthy fruit. Last spring by early June the season was over. It was hot, and I had shade cloth, and should have been ok but the pest pressure was sooo bad (curse the leaf footed miner bugs). This year I wanted to start earlier.
Most of my tomato plants are hybrid determinates with quick days to maturity. I do have some longer fruiting varieties and a couple of indeterminates too.
I have had very good success with Yellow Patio Choice and with all of the Hoss varieties I have tried thus far. Bush Early Girl did really well last fall and I hope it will do well in the spring.