Starting to harvest

[ireilly]

This is my first year so everything is new. When to plant, when to harvest, etc.

The first to be planted is what is dying down so I decided to pull those and they seem OK.

Some bulbs are bigger and some smaller, just like the plants. Lots of worms coming up too!

We just had all that hail and weather Tuesday and the tornado right by us so I really wanted to wait to dig them until it was drier. Any preferences on that from experienced hands?

Two tomato plants were taken out by golf ball / baseball-sized hailstones. But I still have like 200 plants waiting in the wings.....

I have 4 other varieties besides these. I think these are the standard California White. What a great aroma just digging them up.

Thanks for perusing.

[Dewayne mater]

Since you've been around since May of last year, you may already have picked up on this. For tomatoes in Texas, timing is everything! If the 200 plants you have in the wings are tomatoes, I hate being the bearer of bad news, but it is essentially too late to plant them. You should still try and see what happens, but, for the most part, when it is 90 plus in the days and 80 or more at night, tomatoes will not set...especially here in Dallas where you can usually throw in a relatively high humidity. Heat and humidity make the pollen clump and pollination basically stops.

That said, you could plant out and try to get them to survive the summer heat and enjoy a good fall harvest. Depending on the summer, surviving the heat can be a tall order too.

You can find lots of discussions about timing, but, the thumbnail timing is, put out your transplants (Or bought plants) as early as possible and cover them at night to avoid frost. I planted out around March 9 or 10 this year and others started even earlier, and this year, I didn't need to cover the plants ever as it never got even into the 30s in March (by memory). If you can make your timing like this near year, but this time of year you will be starting to enjoy the bounty of your harvest. With an early March plant out, I typically get cherry types in late April, and beefsteaks started ripening around mid May and should run up through about July 4.

[ireilly]

Thanks for the help Dewayne. I know that the middle of summer is too hot for tomatoes to set fruit. I inherited a proto-garden from my DW last year that started in May! So the tomatoes did not set fruit until the fall and many were green when the freeze swept through in November.

This year, I've done as B54red said he does, and I have tomatoes in all stages of maturities to go in as replacements, extra plants, new plants, etc. In fact, the plants I will replace are only slightly bigger than their replacements in 5 gallon buckets. Although, since I posted this, one of the plants has repaired a break in the apical meristem and is thriving. Amazingly tough plants.

I think the few garlic bulbs I harvested yesterday were a little too late, so I will started getting them with more green on them. As I said, it's a learning curve. I did not plant all of them at the same time so I guess it's natural they don't all mature simultaneously. I read some varieties mature ealier than others too.

I hope we have a good season here. The one thing I did not plant is watermelon. Last year it was like a jungle with all the vines and when the hurricane passed I got so much water that it created a lot of disease. I want to avoid that this year.

Garden and learn!

Walter