wall-o-water tomatoes

Today I checked on my four tomato plants in Wall-o-Water protectors. The Ulra early Beaverlodge seedling is nearly emerging from the top of the unit and has two clusters of many blossoms. Half are budded and half in full bloom. I shook them - pretending to be bee-like - hopefully getting them to self pollinate.

The Cherokee Purple and Box Car Willy seedlings look good, though no blossoms, not as big, and a bit of mold in some spots. The protectors seem to trap too much moisture around the plant. It will be good if I can remove them soon, but this weekend is supposed to be chilly.

And the fourth plant, another Beaverlodge that I planted in the shade at the end of the row under my rose bush, has died. Without sun, it makes sense that the Wall-O-Water is effective. :(

I have about 3 or so little tomato seedlings in my cold frame that are getting bigger and will be ready to transplant or give away soon, probably next week. I actually haven;t even looked at these recently. I will have to check on hem soon.

tomato buds on May 1

I checked inside my Wall-O-Water today and my ultra early Beaver Lodge tomato has buds. On May 1! Amazing. The standard timing is 30 days from flower of fruit so I still have a while to wait, but so far so good. I'd really like to beat my previous record of July 31.

planting Mom and Dad's garden

After double digging the new compost into Mom and Dads' garden, we planted:

One row of marigolds, Lemon Boy, Petit mix and Fireball
3 Early seedlings tomatoes with Wall-O-Water on green mulch film
One row cabbages: Radicchio, Savoy, Wong Bok and Super Red
One row salad greens: Elegance mix, Black seeded Simpson and Red Romaine
One double row of onions: Ruby Ring, Frontier, Sweet Yellow Spanish and Ailsa Craig
Two long rows of potatoes: Butte, All Blue and Cobbler

tomatoes set out with wall-o-water

Today in the 80* heat, I set out four of my super early tomato seedlings. They have grown into such nice little plants. I planted one Cherokee Purple, one Box Car Willie and two Ultra Early Beaver Lodge plants.

I set-up Wall-O-Water plant protectors for the first time. Not so bad to set up. But I had a few problems.

First, I don't normally space tomato plants out as much as is needed to fit the wall-o-water's. I realized this after planting the whole row of plants and I had to dig them and space more.

Second, I don't know why I can,t remember that you have to turn the hose valve the to the left to turn it off. I repeatedly turn it to the right and soak myself, which was nice in the heat- but muddy. Suppose I can't blame the wall-o-waters for this!

Third, it took me at least 15 minutes to fill up each, so setting up four took a while. And leaning over them was hard on the back. Time for some Advil.

wall-o-water

My new Wall-O-Water tomatoes shelters arrived yesterday. I'm hoping to get them set up very soon. The direction say to set them up, then wait 1 week, then put the tomatoes in. Don't know if I have that much patience. And since I have too many early tomatoes (7 seedlings), I think I'll try planting one a day starting right away.

My regular tomato planting time is next week - 6 weeks before my last frost.