Tomatopalooza!

[digitS']

For a few years now, I've admired this guy's efforts kinda from the other side of the continent :

NorthCarolinaTomatoMan (click)

Tomatopalooza (this coming Saturday) !

Steve

 

[NwMtGardener]

You know what i thought when i read the title of this thread... That you had tons of ripe tomatoes already!!! Pretty interesting guy, that Tomato man!!

I have some good size green tomatoes, what about you Steve, any getting ripe yet? I think even if I dont beat you on the tomato harvest, i'll at least beat Thistle...with her mini-tractor size tomato plants!!

 

[strantor]

For some reason I can see whoever is doing the voiceover, sitting in a dimly lit small room with his shoes off, and making wisecracks between recordings about "how awesome the tomato man is" and complaining about the fact that the only reason he isn't a radio personality is because the local radio station owner has a grudge against him.

is it just me?

(That was meant to be humorous, not depressing)

But holy cow, that's a lot of tomatoes! I'd like to hear more from the tomato man himself.

 

[Smiles Jr.]

There used to be a group of heirloom seed exchange folks here that got together about four times a year to cuss and discuss their seeds and to share them with others. The group has kind of disintegrated as one of the organizers moved to St. Louis and one died. Anyway, there were two members just like the Tomato Man in that news clip. They would show up at the gatherings with 60 or 70 different heirloom tomato seed boxes. I guess their whole life was one big tomato.

 

[lesa]

My heart sunk, too. I thought you were celebrating all your ripe tomatoes!! What an interesting hobby! I must say, I would never dream of having that many plants that close together- but it certainly seems to working for him! It reminds me of a post of thistleblooms... do you remember when she had all those plants in containers waiting to be planted? I have tons of green tomatoes and not even one that has a pink cast to it!!!

 

[digitS']

Well, I wasn't trying to cast down any hopes & wishes for tomatoes out of my garden . I'll get to the 1 that has ripened in a moment.

Nor, do I have much of an idea on what was spoken on the news clip . . . I did strap on the headphones to "listen"

. I'll probably get in real trouble one of these days with regards to the audio on something or other . . .

About MY tomato -- that ripening fruit on the mystery plant made it to almost "too ripe" before I pulled it off and brought it home. It was the size of a golf ball . The thing still tastes like an Early Girl to me but there are no ripe EG's in the garden . . . no ripe, anything-else, either! The golden cherries will be along soon but there won't be many. The plants are still very much in the growing stage and may have had a little trouble with flowers setting fruit because of those temperatures in the high 90's a little while ago (back above 90F today, I guess).

The plant with the ripe fruit has some foliage disease problem. It is the only one out of 60+ with this and, altho' it doesn't really look too bad, I'm disappointed in it :/. I should say that there are 3 other mystery tomato plants that look better but I'm not all that convinced about the disease resistance of whatever came accidentally in an Early Girl seed packet in 2011.

As I say, the other plants, potato-leafed & small, look pretty good and they will have fruit early. The 1 plant that I kept for my garden in 2011 had about the same health problem - I think it is Septoria. I thought that having plants in a different location might make a difference, perhaps it has for the other 3. We will see.

No Tomatopalooza! here - but my plants are really, really growing! They like the hot July weather and survived another Junuary . The peppers weren't far above road-kill status until a few days ago. The eggplants are barely okay. You know, if I could count on no frost until late October, I could afford to keep these heat-lovers under wraps until late June and avoid all the torment I put them thru so often!!!

Steve

 

[desertlady]

wow ! thats a LOT of tomatoes !! I wonder how he keeps those pests away??

 

[digitS']

Hey, I know something about that, DL!

At least with the bigger pests . . . he lives right beside one of those suburban, green strips.

He has one of those motion-activated sprinklers. That keeps deer out of them.

Steve

ETA: I should note something about Craig LeHoullier, the guy in the news clip. If you grow and like Purple Cherokee tomatoes, you have him to thank for that . There are others and he is busy these days with "dwarfs" - as best as I understand. There is a network of tomato aficionados who are working on that one.

 

[vfem]

You know I've visited the farmers market while he was there, he is a neighbor! Are you jealous Steve, are you jealous? HUH HUH HUH?! ROTFLMAO I'm just kidding.

(Other side of the continent! hahaha)

I did watch that air on our 5pm news last night. I was up at the farm with my friends and had a laugh over how they did that report. They've gotten some of their seeds from him in previous years and offer some of those tomatoes. Honestly, in the spring if any just HAVE to have some of his seeds, he does have seedlings up at the farmers market for sale, if I he seed again I guess I could pick some up from him to spread the love next year... if someone reminds me.

 

[catjac1975]

Thanks for that link-I love another crazy gardener!