Yippee! The tomatoes are blooming already!
My challenge this year is to get a ripe tomato 2 weeks earlier than last year year. Last year's first was July 31, so this year I'm shooting for July 17. Marc at the Garden Desk is working on a red one by his birthday on June 24. Wow! And it looks like he's going to achieve this.
Unlike Marc, who raised his plants from seed, I bought my plants from a local nursery this year. Nevertheless, I am surprised to see them blooming so early. Last year my first bloom was June 20. It took 40 days to go from flower to first ripe fruit on July 31. If the fruits set from the flowers I have now, (calling all bees!) I should be eating fresh tomatoes on July 10! I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
I have four varieties that are blooming now: New Girl, Rutgers, Big Boy and Chadwick Cherry. The photo is a New Girl flower.
I think there are two reasons for the early flowers. I think my new tomato bed is in a good location. It is very warm and sunny against the south wall of my house. In addition, the weather has been good this spring. My whole garden seems to be almost a month ahead of last year's. Last year, we had a terrible bout of rain lasting 3 or 4 weeks in late April and most of May.
Think red - tomato red!
Solanum lycopersicum
If the tomato is half as glorious as that flower, it will be a great success!
ReplyDeleteYum! With garlic and mozzarella - I can image it!
ReplyDeleteYou are ahead of me, I just saw the very first bloom this morning on my tomato plants. I usually pick my first tomato around July 21 or so, and every year I tell myself I'm going to work at getting an earlier tomato.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this will be the year for me, but perhaps for you, it will be!
Maybe I'll have "Year of the Tomato"!
ReplyDeleteI was just catching up on all of the good garden posts that I missed this weekend and of course I'm always attracted to tomato entries. I was quite surprised to see my GardenDesk blog mentioned. Thank you for your confidence that I'll achieve my goal.
ReplyDeleteI am confident that you will too! Especially since you have a good location for them. I still haven't planted all of my tomatoes, so except for a few extra early plants, you are way ahead of me!
Here's to home-grown, garden-fresh vine-ripened tomatoes! Yes!