Tomatoes!

First ripe tomato today! Like last year, it's a Stupice variety (the earliest "ultra-early" heirloom). This has been the best summer in Whatcom County for as long as I've lived here (7 years). We've had no significant precipitation in Ferndale for more than 2 months now, and many hot, sunny days.

The tomatoes are growing like crazy, easily my biggest and healthiest plants ever. They're almost as tall as me! This year I bought nice, tall, heavy-duty cages.

I had to add on to the top of two already.

I pruned each plant as well, with a pretty simple method (found here, from Fine Gardening)
1) Remove all growth below the first flower cluster.
2) Allow the main stem to grow un-pruned, trained up a central stake.
3) Prune out all suckers except for those in the "crotches" of the two branches above the first flower cluster. These two suckers are grown as additional leaders.
4) Pinch out all other suckers. (I haven't kept up on this very well).

The purpose of pruning in this fashion is to enhance the size and quality of the fruit. This is done by controlling the amount and growth of non-contributive foliage and encouraging only the most fruitful and productive stems (the main stem and the first two suckers above the first flower cluster). It's easier to simply stake up a plant and let it go wild, and you'll get tons of tomatoes this way, but the pruning method I'm using should result in larger, earlier ripening, more nutritious and more flavorful tomatoes (though less in quantity).

I have tons of green tomatoes coming on. The biggest are just starting to color up, but in the next few weeks we'll be swimming in tomatoes.

Roma-type "Super Marzano".


Constoluto Genovese.

Chocolate Cherry.