Hello from New Orleans

[LoganLomato]

Hello everybody. I’m a relatively new gardener in the very hot and humid city of New Orleans. Really excited to get my tomatoes in my grow bags for this upcoming season.

Would love to talk to and get to know some other folks in the gulf south and Louisiana!

I attempted to attach a photo of my first 16 tomato plants of the season. Hoping that I did it correctly.

IMG_8981.jpeg

[Homegrwoninillinois]

Hello everybody. I’m a relatively new gardener in the very hot and humid city of New Orleans. Really excited to get my tomatoes in my grow bags for this upcoming season.

Would love to talk to and get to know some other folks in the gulf south and Louisiana!

I attempted to attach a photo of my first 16 tomato plants of the season. Hoping that I did it correctly.

IMG_8981.jpeg

Welcome to the Junction, From Northern Illinois! I am sure you will find lots of helpful things here.

~Sam

[AKgardener]

Welcome from Alaska.. good luck this season

[MissS]

A warm welcome to you @LoganLomato. I'm happy that you found us here. We have some folks down your way that I'm sure you can learn from. Everyone here is so friendly so just hop in and have fun.

[karstopography]

9b Gulf Coast gardener 250 miles to your west here. I see we have zero overlap on our choices this season for tomatoes. Irma’s Highland and Wherokowhai look to be dwarf tomatoes and I have zero experience with those or any dwarf varieties. New Orleans is either 9b or 10a according to the USDA 2023 maps depending on specific location and apparently New Orleans is already past its last average frost of the season date. Ever since our maps got updated, and a winter or two previously, we’re getting zone 8 cold here every winter including this winter at 18° so little good the updated maps are. Do you think we’ll get a revised map reflective of what’s become our mandatory, obligatory zone 8 cold every winter? Yea, I didn’t think so either.

Our last average frost is February 15 so naturally it looks like we’ll get a significant freeze on the 20th if the most recent forecast is correct. I put twelve of my tomato transplants, my fault for starting them on the early side, into the beds yesterday. I do have some back up plants, nine yesterday morning, now seven since I gave a friend that dropped by yesterday afternoon one of my two remaining Red Barn reserve starter tomato plants and my one remaining Dester reserve plant. So seven tomatoes waiting in the wings should the first tranche of twelve get massacred in a freeze. It looks like I’ll be breaking out the freeze cloth again next week if I have any hope of keeping twelve plants going beyond February.

I like to, rather feel compelled to gamble with frost on the front end getting the tomatoes transplanted early. There’s no point in my mind even trying to grow the late season heirloom beefsteaks I adore if I wait until all possibility of frost is past to get my transplants into the beds. I’m just not interested at all in getting one truss of fruit per plant if even to have the inevitable, inexorable heat shut it all down.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

Welcome from America's Dairyland!

The Gotch

[Whwoz]

Welcome to the Junction from Down Under @LoganLomato . If you are growing the dwarf tomatoes, you may find that their compact growth holds the humidity more and that they may do better being opened up slightly.

[leftylogan]

Welcome to another Logan

We're even using the same 3.5" pots with popsicle stick markers /viewtopic.php?t=6003

[pepperhead212]

Welcome to the forum!

[worth1]

Howdy from Central Texas.

[bower]

Welcome from further north. Your plants look terrific!

[eyegrotom]

Hello. Welcome to the Junction

[TerraCayda]

Welcome! I recently moved from *almost* a perfect Tomato climate in San Diego, CA, to brutally dry & hot Tucson, AZ. I've been an avid tomato grower since childhood, but now I feel like I'm a newbie again. This board has been pretty helpful and encouraging with suggestions. Glad you found us here.

[Vanman]

Welcome aboard.

[LoganLomato]

9b Gulf Coast gardener 250 miles to your west here. I see we have zero overlap on our choices this season for tomatoes. Irma’s Highland and Wherokowhai look to be dwarf tomatoes and I have zero experience with those or any dwarf varieties. New Orleans is either 9b or 10a according to the USDA 2023 maps depending on specific location and apparently New Orleans is already past its last average frost of the season date. Ever since our maps got updated, and a winter or two previously, we’re getting zone 8 cold here every winter including this winter at 18° so little good the updated maps are. Do you think we’ll get a revised map reflective of what’s become our mandatory, obligatory zone 8 cold every winter? Yea, I didn’t think so either.

Our last average frost is February 15 so naturally it looks like we’ll get a significant freeze on the 20th if the most recent forecast is correct. I put twelve of my tomato transplants, my fault for starting them on the early side, into the beds yesterday. I do have some back up plants, nine yesterday morning, now seven since I gave a friend that dropped by yesterday afternoon one of my two remaining Red Barn reserve starter tomato plants and my one remaining Dester reserve plant. So seven tomatoes waiting in the wings should the first tranche of twelve get massacred in a freeze. It looks like I’ll be breaking out the freeze cloth again next week if I have any hope of keeping twelve plants going beyond February.

I like to, rather feel compelled to gamble with frost on the front end getting the tomatoes transplanted early. There’s no point in my mind even trying to grow the late season heirloom beefsteaks I adore if I wait until all possibility of frost is past to get my transplants into the beds. I’m just not interested at all in getting one truss of fruit per plant if even to have the inevitable, inexorable heat shut it all down.

I’m a fellow 9B dweller. We had some extremely unpredictable and historic snowfall in New Orleans just a few weeks back, which took out a couple of my herbs and flowers—so I definitely feel your pain with the frost.

In this picture, I have Irma’s Highland, Wherowhakai, and Langston, all dwarf tomatoes. I’m also growing Beryl Beauty, Uluru Ochre, Chocolate Lightning, and Coorong Pink, though I haven’t potted those up yet. I grow exclusively in grow bags, so I expect the dwarf varieties to do best, but I wanted to try some particular indeterminates as well. I’m a big Craig LeHoullier fan, and most of my variety choices were influenced by him.

Next year, I’ll probably start my tomatoes a little earlier—I could have them in the bags by now and be fine. My current crop likely won’t be planted out until early March.

[LoganLomato]

Welcome to the Junction from Down Under @LoganLomato . If you are growing the dwarf tomatoes, you may find that their compact growth holds the humidity more and that they may do better being opened up slightly.

Thanks for the tip!! I will definitely pay attention to this! Do you prune them to open them up or use a specific type of trellis?

[LoganLomato]

Welcome to another Logan

We're even using the same 3.5" pots with popsicle stick markers /viewtopic.php?t=6003

Shoot, I should have named myself rightylogan. Shout out to Johnny’s for the 3.5” pots haha.

[LoganLomato]

Welcome from further north. Your plants look terrific!

Thank you so much!!

[LoganLomato]

Welcome! I recently moved from *almost* a perfect Tomato climate in San Diego, CA, to brutally dry & hot Tucson, AZ. I've been an avid tomato grower since childhood, but now I feel like I'm a newbie again. This board has been pretty helpful and encouraging with suggestions. Glad you found us here.

Really excited to learn everything from square one. I’m sure I’ll find this board similarly helpful in our hot climates!

[Whwoz]

Welcome to the Junction from Down Under @LoganLomato . If you are growing the dwarf tomatoes, you may find that their compact growth holds the humidity more and that they may do better being opened up slightly.

Thanks for the tip!! I will definitely pay attention to this! Do you prune them to open them up or use a specific type of trellis?

Our summer humidity is generally low enough not to cause any problems here. Dwarf tomatoes tend to be stockier and not as easily manipulated due to the shorter leaf internodes. I grow them in short cages as I found that tieing them up single stake often lead to cracking a branch or two. If humidity is/becomes an issue you maybe better off pruning for air flow