15th and FINAL! Harvest 11-06-07

It's finally over! The last one picked, the plants pulled. I must say this was way more than I expected. Believe it or not this last batch had 174 tomatoes! 174! One day I'll count them all from each harvest, but I'm not sure I even want to know the number. I was here and I still may not believe it!

14th Harvest 10-29-07

Ok. The peppers are done, both the Jalapeños and the Banana. Although, I couldn't find one of the Banana plants because it was intertwined with the tomato plants, but there's no fruit on it I'm sure.
It's getting colder now so I expect the ones left to stay green longer, but man there sure are a lot left!

13th Harvest 10-07-07

If this keeps up i'm callin' Ripleys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Saw my first Hormworm, he now "sleeps with the fishes".

12th Harvest 9-27-07

These have got to be the most prolific plants ever. I have no idea when it will end. The weather may be the only thing that can stop them!

11th Harvest 9-20-07

Coming to the end I think. Although there are still a lot of green tomatoes out there. I guess as long as the weather holds up.........who knows........

10th Harvest 9-5-07

OK. So "slowing down" is maybe not the right statement.
At least a more manageable crop, some have what I suspect is, Tomato fruitworm damage, (although I've never seen them) , which are small holes , but that can be cut out.

9th Harvest 8-25-07

Finally the yield is slowing down.
It's been real hard to keep up with the growth. The plants are still growing and flowering so this could go on for some time to come. The peppers might be at the end of their cycle soon, but they still have peppers for now.

8th Harvest 8-14-07

Believe it or not, the orange and red peppers, are banana peppers, I have no idea where the color comes from.

7th Harvest 8-8-07

As big as 6 I think. Could be bigger. Man, if u didn't lose the littlest one's to attrition, this would be overwhelming to say the least! The smallest usually have some damage, might be why they stopped growing, they get wrinkled fast. Got and order for tomatoes and banana peppers, happy to oblige.

6th Harvest 7-31-07

I don't think these things are ever going to stop producing, they just keep sending out branches and flowering.

These are supposed to be "low lying" plants, and I figured if they aren't going to get more than 3-4 feet of the ground I wouldn't need a tomato cage, but now I think I should have at least staked some of them out just to keep the fruit off the ground. Some have damage to the bottom of the tomato where it sat in the dirt. As you can see the branches have filled in the middle again, where I cut them back, and since we are still getting 90 degree weather, I'm not going to cut any at this time,

Next year I plan to use a stake and fence technique that I think will work really well with this type of plant and allow for more branches, as they develop.

The peppers are still growing and flowering also although the jalapenos are mild they are quite flavorful.

Unbelievable! 6 days ago they were all green, and this is the biggest bunch so far!

5th Harvest 7-25-07

Wow I never expected 4 plants would produce this much! Everyday I see more starting to change color, and overnight they change in bunches!
On top of that, each plant is still producing branches with flowers, which means they're not done yet!

3rd Harvest 7-21 thru 7-23-07

I picked these,

then before I downloaded the pictures, two days later, I decided to give some of the jalapenos, and banana peppers away with the tomatoes so, I had more harvesting to do!

So this is a combined harvest 3 and 4. They're growing faster than I can give them away.

2nd Harvest 7-21-07

Not bad over 20 tomatoes. Even though I am using bug spray, some are still showing signs of hornworm damage, so I decided to take the tomatoes as soon as they start showing color. This also is necessary if the weather turns hot and we keep getting mid 90's.

A Peck of Pickled Peppers 7-15-07

Since the jalapenos were mild in the heat factor, and the banana peppers don't have much flavor, I decided to try my hand at pickling. I found a simple pickling recipe and decided to go for it.

The recipe calls for jalapeno and serrano peppers so I had to buy and add the serrano for more bulk. I ended up with 3 pounds total weight. I have a large pot that could hold about 5 pint mason jars and decided to use that, as a pickling pot, because canning pots are on average about $80.

The process was long and hot but in the end not too hard, although this might be my first and last time.

As you can see all that reduced to about 4 1/2 jars of pickled peppers. Now we wait and see if I did it right, and they don't go bad, I'm told it takes about 5 to 6 weeks for full pickling.

1st Harvest 7-14-07

It's time for the first harvest!. I can't believe this stuff is growing this fast. It's mostly peppers, but some tomatoes are in! Most people say it takes about 75-80 days to start picking Tomatoes! The peppers are doing great also. The ripe Tomatoes are hiding but I'll find them! I'm also going to try and cut back some of the branches, just the limbs that don't have flowers or evidence of tomato buds.

Hint: Don't do the cutting when the Temp is going to be 90 degrees!

I got several "Sun scalded" tomatoes but later you'll see why that's not a problem. Anyway I don't think I'll be cutting back to many more branches.

And here's the first harvest!

Looks like they all made it! 5-28-07

After about 2 weeks I started to notice growth, and some flowering. At about 4 weeks I had Fruit!

Day One 5-7-07

So it's May 7th and it's time to start my Garden! I decided for the first year I would try Tomatoes, Peppers, and Rosemary (herb). I got the Tomato and Rosemary seedlings from Lowes and the Peppers from Home Depot.

To give the plants a good start i replaced most of the dirt from the planting holes with "Miracle Grow Garden Soil" which I lined the holes with as well as packing the plants to the soil line.I figured this would be a good start. I also decided to use "Miracle-Gro LiquaFeed" to water and feed at the same time.
For the Tomatoes, I chose Bonnie "Better Bush" brand of hybrid tomato, because of the reported resistance to fungus, and wilt.
I also chose Bonnie Roma hybrid again for the reported resistance to fungus, and wilt, and I love Roma's!

Next were Sweet Banana Peppers, Jalapeno' Peppers and Rosemary.

And there you have it that's my garden!