North Florida Gardening

[PlainJane]

Getting crazy. I’ve never had tomato plants this size the first week of April.
We’re planning our tomato tasting event for June 10th; I hope we have something left.

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[GoDawgs]

Wow! Those are beautiful! I have tomato envy.....

[PlainJane]

Damn I wish it would cool off and rain.
We moved one of the arbors over so we could get a feel for proportions before starting on the next set of raised beds.
Still a mess but starting to feel like one day it’ll be a garden.

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[PlainJane]

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Bush beans tucked around the fig tree are up.
I’ll start more around the other side in 2 weeks.

[PlainJane]

The rain held off so I got the other raised bed filled.
Couldn’t wait to start planting so each bed had a Brad’s Black Heart, Maglia Rosa and a pew peppers and eggplant. All very happy to get out of their pots.

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[GoDawgs]

That's smart to move the arbor around to get a better idea of how things will look.

And those bush beans will look pretty around the fig. I looked hard at the fig here yesterday as those two nights of heavy frost on Mar 20-21 have it looking dead. I finally took out my pocketknife and did a little scratching. Green! And a very close look at some branched revealed very tiny leaf buds swelling. There's hope!

Come get all the cooler weather you want. Yesterday afternoon 86, right now it's 49 (the high of the day) and a 38 wind chill. Come load up the wagon with all the cool you want! LOL!

[PlainJane]

@GoDawgs I’m happy today. We got some rain and it’s now in the 50’s so all my struggling transplants should be able to catch their breath.
Felt so bad for the players and fans at the Masters yesterday. What a miserable mess.

[PlainJane]

First of the 2 3x8’ beds in place. DH has to put the extension on the irrigation feed and staple in the lining then I’m ready to fill.
Tomorrow we plan to bring the other arbor over and get it in place. I would love to get the vines planted and have something to climb besides bamboo poles.

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[worth1]

Killer plants in the pictures.. great work.

[PlainJane]

Thank you @worth1. Grateful that DH is willing to do all the unglamorous part like laying stone, leveling, irrigation plumbing, etc. while I get to do the filling and planting.

[PlainJane]

First time growing Spudakee; it’s doing well and settling a fair amount of fruit.

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I moved some other grow bags to make room for spacing the tomatoes out a bit more and did a major pruning as early blight is as usual making an appearance.

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[PlainJane]

Thoughts so far.
I’m easily a month ahead of any other growing season despite starting seeds roughly the same time (right after Christmas).

Amalfi Orange is a total monster growth-wise but disease prone. We’ll have to see how fruit set and flavor compare to other favorites in the color spectrum like KBX, Mary Reynolds, Claude Brown’s Yellow Giant.

First to harvest is again Maglia Rosa. Reya Rey was close behind and a beautiful little salad tomato.

Hoosier Outlaw Black Cherry is another giant. The fruit are salad size in big trusses. Have some at color break on the counter so flavor will be judged this week.

Green Doctors Frosted is also a monster so I started pinching off the tops. Should start to ripen soon.

One of the Grandma Oliver’s Chocolate seemed to be the early blight locus so I removed as much of it as I could leaving the 2 fruit trusses. I have another plant which so far seems ok.

The only tomato comparatively underperforming is Brad’s Black Heart, but I’ll give them a pass as they spent 2 months in temporary pots until the raised beds were ready. Only 1 fruit on each plant so far.

[Barb_FL]

I still have my September Amalfi Orange plant and it is still producing nice tomatoes despite 2 hurricanes, near freezing temps at Christmas time, this past week of horrendous wind, now tons of rain. I am impressed with it and will definitely grow again. I am surprised yours is disease prone already.

I've only grown the KBX or Kelloggs Breakfast, not your other 2. In the past I've grown Chef Choice Orange as the orange.

[PlainJane]

@Barb_FL, was your plant huge, kind of like Green Bee?

[Barb_FL]

I haven't grown Green Bee since it first came out. All my plants get huge, square cages with extensions, then string ties to the next cage. I didn't notice it being larger than the others.

I have so much wind where I live, every cage is attached to a T-Post. But we had a very challenging season. My original GGWT plant is still pumping out a lot of tomatoes too.

[PlainJane]

Trying to show scale; sorry for the quick stovetop photo.

Group of Maglia Rosa at color break, 2 Hoosier Outlaw Black Cherry at color break and a ripe Reya Rey.

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[Barb_FL]

Have you grown Reya Rey before? or tasted it yet? I had never heard of it.

[PlainJane]

It’s a fairly new creation by Artisan Seeds @Barb_FL[/mention, and my first time growing it.
Sure is a looker!

[PlainJane]

No sooner did I plant out the ‘Incense’ and ‘Inspiration’ passion flower vines the Gulf Frits found them. I don’t have the heart to remove the caterpillars so I’ve ordered 2 more vines in hopes I can get ahead of the game.

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[PlainJane]

Second 8’x3’ base is installed and leveled. The bed itself knocks together in about 15 minutes.

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