PNW - 2013 season
 

Hi folks,

I thought I should start this thread now, as I am sure many of you PNWers have something to brag about by now! :yes:

Our weather has been quite good, so everything in the garden got a great start.

So how is your garden this year? Any ripe tomatoes yet? ;)

Tatiana

It is still raining down here. We had two weeks of warm drought
right at plant out, and it has been raining off and on ever since.
(Saves on watering, anyway.)

Should be a warm weekend coming up, though. Time to get out the
electric toothbrushes.

I'm in Seattle with a rooftop container garden. Its been a great start to the season! I have quite a bit of fruit setting already. Looking forward to the next few weeks of sunshine they are forecasting :D

Miss Lynne,

Your plants look lovely. Welcome to T'ville.

Welcome Miss Lynne! Gorgeous plants with great fruit set :)

What are the varieties you grow this year?

Tatiana

Thank you spacetogrow and Tania! This is my first year gardening. I bought starters from both Home Depot and a local nursery and I am surprised to say the Home Depot plants are by far out producing my local nursery starts.

Tatiana - I am growing Jalepeno and Cajun Belle spicy bell peppers. The tomatos are Hybrid Sweet n neat, Husky red cherry and Bush Early girl.

I also have a gold medal, pink Berkely and Black Krim in my garden but they have yet to set fruit.

My peppers suffer from severe aphids infestation this year, and I am having really hard time to control it naturally. So they struggle, but still try their best to set fruit!

Here are some baby tomatoes in our garden.

The earliest fruit setters were Russian varieties, followed by a few early Polish and Czech varieties.

[QUOTE=Tania;359261]Here are some baby tomatoes in our garden.

The earliest fruit setters were Russian varieties, followed by a few early Polish and Czech varieties.[/QUOTE]
Tania, Larisa looks indescribably beautiful. Nice job!
Marsha

Tania - what an impressive fruit set! Your Larisa, Mauve and Sweet apple varieties are beautiful!

We had an aphid issue here as well. I released lady bugs in the garden about two weeks ago and they nipped my rampant aphids in the bud within 2 days! : )

Last year my Belyi Naliv grew better and ouproduced Vzryv
(reputed to be an "improved Belyi Naliv"), but I liked the flavor
of Vzryv, and it had nice fruit with very little core. So this
year I moved a Vzryv plant to a sunnier spot to see how
it would do with better conditions. It is beside a Fireworks II
and a Siletz, which are somewhat bigger plants, but it has
a little golf ball developing already, so it is admirably early.
(Firework II has little golf balls, too, but the Vzryv fruit is bigger,
so it set first.)

[QUOTE=Miss Lynne;359270]Tania - what an impressive fruit set! Your Larisa, Mauve and Sweet apple varieties are beautiful!

We had an aphid issue here as well. I released lady bugs in the garden about two weeks ago and they nipped my rampant aphids in the bud within 2 days! : )[/QUOTE]

Miss Lynne, lucky you to have these lady bugs around. Mine don't want to stay for some reason... :( I will try again

Looking good you guys,
I really like the look of that ribbed heart Larisa Tania. Is it red or pink?
Karen

Karen, I have no idea what it will be yet, red or pink. Hopefully we'll find out soon :)

EDITED to add: ribbing may be environmental - we'll see how the other fruits will look like.

[B]H[/B]ave a look at our outlook for next two weeks ...........:dance:
no ripe tomatoes yet - but Kimberley is looking good

I'm saving the Cheerful for the ugliest tomato contest :eek:

D., looking great!!!

For some reason the new dwarfs that I grow this year refuse to set fruit, despite on being the most beautiful and large blooming plants.

Here is my Dwarf Kelly Green and Dwarf Emerald Giant (this one did not set a single fruit last year, so I am growing several plants again trying to talk them into setting fruit this time around :) )

For comparison, Demidov, Citron Compact, and Lime Salad Green are loaded with green fruits by now.

First blush!
 

This morning I went out to water plants, dug through the foliage of my Dwarf Arctic Rose, and spotted a tomato turning pink! :D This particular plant was planted in my 5 gallon SIP at the middle of April, and has benefited from a few of our early heat spells. Considering that last year I didn't have any tomatoes until the middle of August, I'm pretty excited to get started on the BLTs early this year!

I tried to get a picture, but it's wedged into a larger fruit cluster, and buried in foliage, so all I could manage was a pinkish blur. Pictures to come once it's picked!

Nick

We have had crazy weather here in Portland! Very warm in early may and then a LOT of rain. Now it is downright HOT so we may be looking at a warmer than usual summer.

Several of my plants have tomatoes but none blushing yet. I am going to take my notebook to my community garden plots tomorrow to record the ones that have fruit already and then I will post the results.

For some reason my bush green beans are just sitting there hunkered down and not growing, although they do have little green beans on them.

Pepper plants are doing well and some have flowers.

Kale and beets are going gang busters and I am enjoying juicing them daily.

Lots of lettuce and that gets juiced sometimes, too.

Tania

we in Germany had a very, very bad spring - it was almost like a cold, stormy, rainy fall!:evil:

Besides of that I had a visit from my special friend - the russet mite. But I won! ;)
That made everthing later; but because of the weather I am still lucky because my tomatoes had pollinated very well. That was the main problem for other german tomato growers, because their tomatoes had flowered earlier and because of the very cold weather a lot of flowers had just fallen off.

I hope for the next days, because the weather guys give us some hope. Might be around 20 C, thats around 68 F. Thats much better than the last weeks but still no summer.

Simone

As Simone said, Tania, you are way ahead of us! I only have some tiny fruits, the biggest one, only one! being of golf ball size. Only half of the varieties have some flowers, but I'm hoping for a big improvement as the weather is said to become warmer this week - I keep all my fingers and toes crossed!

As others have already said: Your Larisa is looking gorgeous! clara

[QUOTE=clara;359955] but I'm hoping for a big improvement as the weather is said to become warmer this week - I keep all my fingers and toes crossed!

[/QUOTE]

Clara, I think we need every help we can get... so cross everything that you have! ;)

My best plant is my Cosmonout Volkov (if you just look for little baby tomatoes), but Tania you Hungarian Giant is producing huge blossom trusses (since I bought the seeds from you the Hungarian Giant is a gladly to be seen guest in my garden). :D

Simone

Simone, Clara, yes this year we are getting ahead of you. But usually it is the other way around! I am sure the weather will get better soon for you, same way as it did for us last year when the cold and rainy spell finally ended the 2nd week of July, and we got lots of tomatoes at the end of summer.

Our spring was warmer and drier than usual this year. And it was so hot yesterday, I could only get out to the garden to do some watering after 6 pm.

Clara, Detskiy Smak that you sent me ripened 5 tomatoes so far. This is the earliest this year. It is not a very small plant, mine are 3' tall.

[QUOTE=Tania;359489]D., looking great!!!

For some reason the new dwarfs that I grow this year refuse to set fruit, despite on being the most beautiful and large blooming plants.

Here is my Dwarf Kelly Green and Dwarf Emerald Giant (this one did not set a single fruit last year, so I am growing several plants again trying to talk them into setting fruit this time around :) )

For comparison, Demidov, Citron Compact, and Lime Salad Green are loaded with green fruits by now.[/QUOTE]

Tania, sometime a little stress helps. It makes tomatoes produce more blooms and set tomatoes like creasy. Try pruning.
btw My mother in law taught me that at the end of the season, if you have many green tomatoes but the plant keeps on setting more while you want it to stop and get the green once to ripen on time, to disturb soil around tomato. Tomatoes do not like their roots to be bothered, so they ripen tomatoes faster.:lol:

Tania, thanks a lot for that picture! I haven't grown Detskiy Smak yet (forgot about it, sigh...), but last year I had Detskiy Sladkiy and Detskiy Sladkiy Slivka, both were about 2' tall.

My earliest tomato this year (like every year, therefore it MUST be back every year) is Whippersnapper, but no ripe fruits yet AND WE ALREADY HAVE JULY!!! Incredible!

Good luck, Tania, I do hope you enjoy DS! clara

Nick, how is your Dwarf Arctic Rose coming along? Have you tasted it yet? So exciting to have the first tomato of the season! :)

Ella, no amount of stress helps to set fruit on tomatoes that refuse setting fruit because they do not get pollinated for one reason or the other. This is what is happening with these varieties in my garden. Still no fruit set while there is plenty on the other varieties. I think I will have to go and do some hand-pollination today!

I picked my ripe Arctic Rose tomato this morning. It was buried in a tight cluster of tomatoes, and I accidentally knocked off a small, unripe one in the process :( Hopefully I can get that one to ripen on the counter.

I gotta say, this tomato was fantastic. Fairly sweet, and great flavor. It might not be the best tomato I've ever eaten (although it was very good). With that said, I don't think I've every [I]enjoyed[/I] a tomato more than this one. The 9 month wait was too long!

I've got a couple more tomatoes on the Arctic Snow that are starting to change color slightly, so hopefully I'll get some more sandwiches in the next week or so!

I hope all you other Pacific Northwesterners are getting some serious tomato growth with this heat, and that you get some 'maters soon!

Nick

[QUOTE=NickD;360612]I picked my ripe Arctic Rose tomato this morning. It was buried in a tight cluster of tomatoes, and I accidentally knocked off a small, unripe one in the process :( Hopefully I can get that one to ripen on the counter.

I gotta say, this tomato was fantastic. Fairly sweet, and great flavor. It might not be the best tomato I've ever eaten (although it was very good). With that said, I don't think I've every [I]enjoyed[/I] a tomato more than this one. The 9 month wait was too long!

I've got a couple more tomatoes on the Arctic Snow that are starting to change color slightly, so hopefully I'll get some more sandwiches in the next week or so!

I hope all you other Pacific Northwesterners are getting some serious tomato growth with this heat, and that you get some 'maters soon!

Nick[/QUOTE]

Looks nice, hope the taste is great too.

So far we picked a very few ripe tomatoes from the following varieties:

- Buckbee's New Fifty Day
- Yellow Pygmy
- Knopka
- Detskiy Smak

Hot and sweet peppers are starting to turn! We already sampled Aji Rojo, Sigaretta di Bergamo (that appeared something else, as it should have been sweet but mine was medium hot), Sibirskiy Knyaz, and De Bresse.

Waiting for Larisa and Siniy to turn color, it should be soon now!

Nick, your pick looks absolutely delicious! And it is not small :)