Hey Fellow Floridians - Year 2

[efisakov]

I can not wait for you guys to start posting the first taste tests. So exciting. All this new varieties.
Ginny, nice boat.

Beautiful pictures, everybody. Thank you for posting them. I am living vicariously right now.

[Fiishergurl]

Thanks Ella! We just bought it from a neighbor. Our other boat is a very small flats boat so its going to be fun to have more room.

Barb BGM was very productive but it was a little later.

Ginny

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[Fiishergurl]

Barb, your plants look very healthy and pretty. Love it!

Ginny

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[ginger2778]

Trying out the new tab. Let's see how the photos are.
First three, EBS spanning back yard.
Next is a Jalapeño from saved seeds.
Next: Klyukva V Sahare
Next: Malinovoe Chudo
KARMAS will be posted in the KARMA thread.

[efisakov]

This is a lot of hard work, Marsha. And I just sent you a PM if you would like some more seeds? Maybe you do. Excellent looking tomato garden. You may need more cucumber varieties.

[Fiishergurl]

Marsha,

They look awesome! I do not know how you do it. Like Ella said, thats a lot of work. Whew!

The conditions this year are better than last year or the year before at least so far.

Ginny

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[ginger2778]

This season is very encouraging, Ginny. So far so good, I am almost daring to be optimistic.
Ella- thank you for your kind words.

[Barb_FL]

Marsha - Way to go; I don't know how you did all that planting over a couple of days.

Ginny - RE: Salts - I have that concern too especially if I'm going to supplement with the Masterblend formula. Mainly b/c I want to reuse my mix again. I bought this to flush out the mix at the end of the season. (I asked a question and had several responses; I was asking about using it to flush coir prior to anything growing. FYI - If you buy Coir in the blocks, it's cheap and isn't flushed so I rinse until water runs fairly clear. I left it out for months and let the rain wash it too). I bought a lot of Coir from Earthboxes but they don't even sell it anymore. If you buy Flushed Coir in a loose bag, it is $$$$.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001IA1P0A/ref=cfb_at_prodpg

There is also another similar product I checked out called Clearex.

[Fiishergurl]

Thanks Barb for the info. I dont think I ever look on here without learning something new.

Regarding ICD... I love it! I cant wait to use it with fresh mozzarella, basil and basalmic glaze which my neighbors all love. I wish I hadnt given the second plant to my neighbor.. lol.



Not a great picture but my plants are putting out lots of blossoms now, finally. I just pruned the inner and lower leaves because they were getting too bunched up. I cant believe I almost didnt grow any. Thanks ladies again for steering me back in the right direction. I was just so overwhelmed at that moment and almost made a decision I would have regretted.

Ginny

[Fiishergurl]

Larry - how is Esterina Cherry doing now? Has it lived up to expectations?

Ginny

[Barb_FL]

Have you all seen the cool turquoise bees? I saw them the first time last year; very good pollinators and now I've seen them in a pair. I haven't seen other bees around the plants. My cucumber plant finally has some female buds starting. Cukes really bring the bees around.

OK - I don't want to jinx it, but this is the best fall season I have ever had.
The nighttime lows still are hovering between 74-76 but that one stretch of 4-5 days of <70 for a low got the plants going. I've been buzzing daily and humidity is low for FL standards.

Ginny - Good to hear about ICD - Kay recommended it and we have very similar tastes. Mine are full of tomatoes and blooms. I think I have 3 plants of it.

I had started plants for 2 other people and waited b/c of the hurricane. One person still hasn't come for their plants. Some of 'their' plants I went ahead and planted them.

Let's see: The Raspberry plant from Marsha has 2-3 tomatoes already.

Also, My Kelloggs Breakfast has tomatoes too!!!!! That is one of the plants where the person didn't come for so I planted it.

[kayrobbins]

Ginny, I am so glad you like the taste of ICD. It is on my permanent grow list. Mine aren't ripe yet so I am waiting impatiently.

My neighbor's tree roots grow into my raised beds. I have been working on digging them out and adding some more soil. That is exhausting work. I have my first two beds of greens planted and have seeds started for the next two.

[Zone9b]

Originally Posted by Fiishergurl

Larry - how is Esterina Cherry doing now? Has it lived up to expectations?
Ginny

The one in the picture below is producing and still setting tomatoes, which is pretty good for a plant that gets at the most 3 hours of direct sun per day. Even at that the tomatoes are larger than what I got from Sun Gold and I like the taste better. However, I am a poor judge of flavor on Cherry Tomatoes, given many are a bit sweeter than I like, but I still eat them. I have a couple of others plants but with the sun is so far south they don't get any direct sun at all.
The link is to a post where several are discussing yellow tomatoes and Esterina is one of them. There are some heavy hitter tomato people in the discussion.
http://www.tomatoville.com/showthrea...t=42877&page=2

[Zone9b]

Originally Posted by Fiishergurl

Hi Barb,

I am dosing them with one or two tablespoons of TTF every other day. When I was in Philly, I used only TTF on the 3 tomato plants that were in 7 gallon swc pots. I had to water the tiny reservoirs 3 times a day and I put in 1 tablespoon of TTF during one watering every day for about 4 or 5 days and then no TTF for 2 to 3 days, and repeat. The Wes plant ended up with just under 50 tomatoes on it with at least 5 weighing over a pound and quite a few at 3/4 pound or higher. I didnt get total weight because we had to cut a lot off that were green towards the end because we left that house on Sept 30th and the second round of fruit set (after we topped the plants) didnt have time to mature. So yes I have actually been thinking about just using TTF and no fert strip. I'm just a little concerned about salt buildup from so much TTF being sucked up. But I really love the results and I dont mind the monster plants because I feel like when I do a fairly heavy trim every few weeks it makes the plants go into survival mode and make more blossoms and set more fruit.

If you notice AkMark and that guy that Larry posted a link to... their plants have way more tomatoes and less leaves than most people's plants. Some people say they need the bushy leaves but I think trim the leaves every couple of weeks and you get more and more tomatoes. At least it seems like it to me. Not all the leaves but maybe 1/5 to a 1/4 of them.

Heres the plants I'm referring to that got only TTF and hubby had to attach the electric toothbrush to a bamboo pole so we could reach the blossoms... lol. He's 6'1" tall.
Ginny

I think you are onto something here. Recently I’ve had a ton of things to do, partially related to the hurricane, and I fell behind trimming my tomatoes. I normally try to keep the large indeterminates down to 3 stems, but many got away from me. For example 3 Jetsetter large indeterminate plants grew into a massive jungle at the top. The interesting thing is that in the Center of the jungle and on the North side there are all but no tomatoes but on the South side where there is plenty of sun there are quite a few nice sized tomatoes. To me appears a simple message. Keep the mass of vegetation under control and let the sun shine through and one might just get a few more tomatoes.
Larry

[elight]

My fall plants are humming along. Due to all of the squirrel problems I had in the spring, I made the decision to move my EarthTainer plants to my screened pool deck. As you can see they are doing much better than my raised bed plants.

The Sun Gold in the first photo (left) is already loaded with fruit. There's a few other fruit on the other plants but as expected they won't be as early.













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