Mr. Tomato, Sphinx Moth, and a Garden Fresh Pizza

Please forgive the randomness of my title for today's post.  It's hard to sum up a weekend in just a few words!  Weekends are always busy times in the garden when the weather is as beautiful as it has been.  Sunday's humidity was a bit high in anticipation of the rain that's falling on the rooftop at this moment, but otherwise the weather was sunny with occasional clouds with temperatures in the 80's - great gardening weather!

In the garden on Saturday we harvested a good batch of tomatoes.  They were mostly Amish paste tomatoes which were destined to become our dinner in the form of pizza!  I skipped a step on my pizza making and completely left off the sauce in favor of sliced tomatoes.  After the dough was rolled out I put a little olive oil on the dough then layered it with tomatoes to completely cover the pizza. It tastes pretty good and is a good option if you don't have time to go through all the pizza sauce making process.  I added some basil on top along with several other toppings.

While I cooked pizza our friend Mr. Tomato watched. He was a good friend and we appreciated his presence in the next two pizzas!

We also discovered a sphinx moth resting above our front door.  Sphinx moths are one of the nighttime pollinators for moonflowers which we have growing on our front porch.  His camouflage would have perfectly hidden him from my view had he been on a tree.  However it isn't so effective on vinyl siding!

Among other garden business from the weekend I prepared and planted a new propagation bed for daylilies and irises.  It's about 12 feet long and four feet wide.  I show it to you later in the week.  There are almost 40 daylily and iris divisions planted there at the moment.  While I still have room for more plants I will need to add more rows very soon.

My next Lowe's Creative Ideas project is coming up.  This month the theme is Mum's!  I need to find and interesting way to display some mums.

Looking ahead at the fall season I still have a lot to do including cleaning up the summer vegetable garden, planting my fall vegetable garden, putting together some new raised beds, and even putting up a small greenhouse.  If only time could freeze so I could get it all done!

Don't forget that the 2012 Fall Color project is underway!  I'll be posting tomorrow with a logo you can share on your blog to help get the word out and I'll be telling you about a cool prize worth almost $100 that we'll be giving away to a Fall Color Project participant!  Get ready to share your fall colors!

4 Tomato Growing Tips!

The tomatoes are coming along nicely in our garden which means it's time to do a few important things for them to maximize their growth.  Here are a few quick tomato tips to help you grow your favorite backyard vegetable! (It's really a fruit though!)

Stake your tomato well.  Whatever method you use to stake your tomatoes make sure it will hold the plant.  A good stake or cage will prevent the tomato from coming in contact with the soil and allow good air circulation around the plant to minimize fungal diseases.  Traditional tomato cages will eventually become too heavy with the weight of the fruit to stay up so another method is better.  Try using heavy duty stakes, heavy gauge wire cages with T posts to stake them up, the Florida weave method, livestock panel 'A' Frames or overhead supports with string lines for support.

Fertilize appropriately!  I always hear of someone who goes out and fertilizes their tomatoes intending to get good growth and production.  What actually happens is good growth and low production due to a high nitrogen fertilizer.  Nitrogen will produce leaves and branches but not fruit.  Take a balanced approach or lean toward the potassium and phosphorus part of the NPK rating.  You don't want a 20 foot tomato plant with only 2 tomatoes!  Organic fertilizers have lower amounts of NPK and feed the soil which is the best approach.  If your soil is healthy your plants will be too.  Artificial fertilizers feed the plant right way which will require that you continue feeding the plant to keep it growing nicely.  When the soil is healthy the plants have what they need and use the nutrients as needed.

Prune correctly.  With tomatoes you want to reduce suckering.  Suckers are the little branches that begin to grow from in between other branches.  You can let these grow but if you do your plant will grow lots of branches and have smaller fruits.  The suckers also decrease air flow around the plant and increase the odds of fungal diseases.  If you see signs of disease remove these branches and destroy them - do not put them in the compost bin.  It's also a good idea to clean your pruners between plants as you can easily spread disease from plant to plant.

Blossom end rot happens very frequently to the first few fruits on your plant.  Try not to worry about it too much and just remove the fruit.  It's caused by a calcium issue in the plant. Calcium is used to form cell walls in the fruits and without enough calcium the walls break down and rot away the fruit from the blossom end. Either the plant isn't getting enough water to transport calcium from the soil, the plant is getting too much water to transport the calcium, or the soil doesn't have enough calcium in it.  Most likely it's not a soil issue as there's almost always lime available but if it is an issue you can amend with lime or bonemeal.  These will take time to break down into forms usable by the plant. Try to keep the watering schedule regular, water deeply, and do not overwater.  Too much water will also cause the skin to crack.

Use these tips to grow some of the best tomatoes ever!  Remember the best tomato is always the one YOU grew.

5 Things You Need to Know About Growing a Great Tomato!

Tomato planting season is almost here for Middle Tennessee so I thought now would be the perfect time to share some things you need to know about growing a great tomato!  Tomatoes have always been my favorite crop from the garden.  I like tomatoes fresh, cooked, preserved - it doesn't matter how - I like a GREAT Tomato! There are some tricks that will help you grow a great tomato and a few things to watch out for like pests and diseases.  Please enjoy today's Friday Five - all about tomatoes!

5 Things You Need to Know About Growing a Great Tomato!

1. Let's start with the soil. Good well drained and moisture retentive soil is important for tomatoes.  Water logged soil will result in fungal diseases and poor growth. I highly recommend adding compost as it will improve drainage and moisture retention.  It also has beneficial bacterias that will aid the health of your plants!  One of the benefits to gardening in raised beds is the ability to improve your soil easily - or really to start with the good stuff!  If you garden in the ground tilling in or layering compost will improve your soil over time.
2. Tomatoes like to be planted with as much of the stem under the soil as possible.  Tomatoes grow roots along the stem when planted this way which improves their water uptake ability!  Trust me, dry summers make this essential!  Just remove all the leaves except for the top 2 and plant the tomato plant either horizontally in a trench or (my favorite way) in a hole just deep enough for the stem and roots.
3. Tomato vines need something to grow on, lean against, or hold it up!  They get heavy - especially so when the tomatoes themselves start to come.  Keeping tomatoes upright on a trellis or heavy gauge wire frame improves the airflow around the plant which will lower the risk of diseases. Heavy gauge cattle fence panels in an "A" frame work excellent for growing tomato vines.  Don't use the small "tomato cages" from the stores as these are usually insufficient to hold up the plants.  I've used wooden tomato stakes that work OK for holding up the plants but require the gardener to tie up the tomato plants frequently as they grow.
4. 
   Tomatoes have several common enemies like hornworms, stink bugs, white flies, nematodes, and lots of other insects.  Companion planting is one way to prevent them from showing up unannounced on your tomato plants!  Basil works great for repelling the hornworm and flies while marigolds prevent nematodes that grow in the soil.  The list of potential tomato pests is long and frequent monitoring of tomato plants is essential in getting the edge on them!
5. 
   Tomatoes suffer from a few diseases that can be prevented.  If you find a tomato with a blacked and rotting end where the blossom was originally formed you have blossom end rot.  Blossom end rot is very common and nothing to worry about.  It's caused by a calcium deficiency in the fruit that doesn't allow the cell walls to form properly.  The calcium deficiency can be cause by a water problem or a lack of calcium in the soil.  Often during planting gardeners will add a small amount of lime to the planting hole to help prevent blossom end rot.  Adding lime to the soil after the blossom end rot can help too.  Blight is the other major issue that gardeners run into on tomatoes.  Blight is caused by a fungus.  To prevent it water from below and make sure you have a good air flow around your plants.  A fungicidal soap may help once you have it to beat it back enough to still get some good tomatoes.  When the plant is done for get rid of the plant material - do not compost it in your compost bin as it can remain in your compost!  Plant your tomato plants in a different location next year to reduce the risk of re-contamination.  A good crop rotation plan is very beneficial!

I hope these tomato tips help you grow a delicious crop of juicy tomatoes this year!  I can't wait until that first one ripens up.  The ideal planting date for tomatoes here in Middle Tennessee is the first week of May so tomato planting time is coming soon! (I know, some of you already planted this year with the warm temperatures, just remember that this year was unusual and every year is different!)

Read Some More Friday Five Posts!

5 Plants No Garden Should Be Without 5 Vegetables That I Will Always Grow in My Garden   5 Favorite Trees That I Grow In My Garden  5 Ways to Help Wildlife in Your Garden 5 Ways to Naturally Eliminate Weeds   5 Easy To Propagate Plants from Cuttings 5 Herbs You Should Plant in Your Garden  5 Fun Foliage Plants!  5 Ways to Control Garden Pests  5 Companion Plants and How They Help  5 Things to Do To Prepare You Garden for Spring Planting   5 Vegetables and When to Plant Them 5 Easy Ways to Be Organic   5 Neat Native Plants

Why Add Lime for Tomatoes?

You've probably heard of adding lime to soil.  Farmers and lawn experts recommend it frequently to add to gardens and lawns to help your plants grow, but why?  Why should you use lime for your tomatoes?

Lime is calcium carbonate.  Which leads us to one easy answer for why it might help tomatoes - to combat blossom end rot.  Blossom end rot is caused by a calcium deficiency in the plant cell walls.  Without enough calcium the cells cannot form correctly and break down in the fruit production of the plant.  How does lime correct this?  Obviously since lime is partially made of calcium it does add some to the soil but it also adjusts the pH levels of the soil.  Lime will raise the pH (per Hydrogen) of the soil and will make the soil less acidic.  Plants have certain pH levels that are ideal for their growth and tomatoes prefer to be between 6.0 and 6.8 which is slightly on the acidic side.  Neutral would be 7.0.  Usually there is plenty of calcium in the soil for the plant to use for fruit growth but sometimes it isn't available for the plant because of various reasons like the wrong pH, too much water, or not enough water.

Having a good pH helps microbes break down materials better and improves the transfer of nutrients into usable forms for plants.

Before you go about adding lime to your soil it is a good idea to have a soil test done to check for the nutrient content and the soil acidity.  You can buy tests to check the pH or you can utilize your local agricultural extension service.  Most agricultural extension services will soil test for you at a very reasonable rate.  They can give you some valuable feedback too.  Our University of Tennessee extension can give recommendations based on the types of crops you want to grow.

As plants grow and break down over time the soil tends to gradually become more acidic.  How much depends on a number of factors so it is best to get a test done on your garden soil every now and then to gauge what is happening in your soil.

How much lime should you add?  If you've had a soil test you probably know exactly how much lime you need.  If you aren't going to get a soil test then you can work a small amount into the top couple inches of soil before you plant (if you don't know the soil chemistry you may not even need it).  Lime takes time to break down so it probably won't be immediately available for your plants. Adding lime in the fall after you've cleaned out the garden should give lime plenty of time to break down and make your soil a better environment for growing your tomatoes!

Just Dreaming of Summer Tomatoes

By far my favorite plant from the vegetable garden is the tomato.  I don't buy them from the stores if I can help it as there is very little flavor to be found in store bought tomatoes.  Fresh from the garden is how a tomato should be.  Today on a gray overcast winter day I'm looking back at the tomatoes of the past from my garden.  Those fresh garden tomatoes can't come soon enough for me!

Roma tomatoes are excellent for making tomato paste or sauce.  Of course we'll happily make sauce from just about any tomato from our garden.

Roma

'Cherokee Purple' tomatoes are delicious for slicing and eating.  The 'Cherokee Purple' tomatoes even have a Tennessee connection.

Cherokee Purple

The 'Woodle Orange' tomato is one of the most delicious tomatoes we've ever grown. It's my number one for slicing!

Woodle Orange

'Red Zebra' tomatoes have interesting striping but I didn't like the flavor as much as other tomatoes we've grown. Flavor matters!

Red Zebra

'T.C Jones' is the yellow tomato in the upper left corner of the picture.  I'll grow it again! It was almost as tasty as 'Woodle Orange'.

T.C. Jones (yellow tomato) and other assorted tomatoes!

I love seeing pictures like this! 

'Yellow Pear' tomatoes self-sow in our garden as do the cherry tomatoes.  Once you plant cherry tomatoes you'll never need to plant them again!

Are you ready for fresh garden tomatoes yet?