Tomato Blooms and Potatoes Sprouting From The Soil

Pink Berkley Tie-Dye blossom. A few of the large fruited tomato plants are forming blooms already including Granny Cantrell's German Red, Peach Blow Sutton, and Jaune Flamme.

Black Vernissage cherry are very large plants, they're easily the largest in the greenhouse and they're all forming blooms.

Sun Gold cherry tomatoes are starting to form their trusses of blossoms. I also saw blossoms on Be My Baby cherry.

A few of the tomato plants have been showing signs of nutrient deficiency with pale spots that eventually darken. Tomorrow I'll feed them, but a bunch of them will need to be potted up soon.

This Jaune Flamme plant is the worst off for nutrient deficiency. Some of the pepper plants are actually very pale, which tells me they probably need to be fed.

The seed potatoes I just sowed last weekend have emerged.

I love the way potatoes push up the soil and finally break through. I think this must be Adirondak Blue but I can't be sure until the potatoes in the other planter pop up.

The purple sweet potato was a bust, it started showing signs of disease. Aw well, next time. I've begun rooting the Beauregard sweet potato slips.

My husband tilled the garden on Wednesday evening and we were planning to plant everything out the next day. But it dumped rain unexpectedly on Thursday, it was at least an inch and they're now predicting rain for the rest of the weekend. So it's looking like we will probably be planting mid-month just like last year.

Since planting is definitely delayed for a week or two that means the tomato plants will need to be potted up into quart containers the next couple of days.

Around the Garden and Tomatoes in Bloom

I wanted to show some pictures of this and that in the garden, yesterday was another 95 degree sultry day (35 Celsius) and it's not even summer yet. Here's a Pink Berkley Tie-Dye in bloom. They produce large delicious tomatoes that are purply-pink with beautiful bright green striations. For such a large tomato it is usually one of the first to produce ripe fruit, usually right behind Paul Robeson, a tasty but much smaller tomato.

Black Krim is also blooming. One aspect of growing primarily heirloom tomato varieties is that the pistil, the female portion of the flower, can stick out past the stamens where the pollen resides. So the flowers won't necessarily get pollinated unless by a insect pollinator or by mechanical means such as wind, or in my case in the mornings I go along lightly tapping the plants with a bamboo pole to encourage the pollen to drop onto the pistil. Once I started doing this there seemed to be a lot less flower drop from the tomatoes.

The newly planted Sun Gold cherry tomato is also forming flowers. Just about every tomato plant has blooms except for the ones especially stunted by flea beetles feeding on them.

Even the notoriously late fruiting Pink Brandywine is forming flowers. Actually Brandywine ripens fairly early for me, but our summers are hot hot and humid which Brandywine seems to enjoy.

About half the tomato plants ended up being killed by birds and replaced with my extra 'emergency' plants, and 23 plants were given to friends and coworkers this year. Once soaker hoses were set up in the garden, all bird activity ceased. Maybe they think they're snakes or it's later in the season and more food is readily available.

A little pole bean is getting close to the top of its trellis on its way to the sky.

A beautiful carrot bloom. The bees are too besotted by the sweet clover to pay any attention to the carrots.

A buddy of mine gave me a couple of Crimson Sweet watermelon plants which were planted beneath the tomatoes. I gave her a bunch of broccoli plants, who got the better deal? :)  They've already formed their first tendril and it looks like they're starting to vine.

I'm also growing a yellow-skinned white-fleshed Korean 'Ginkaku' melon that's supposed to be sweet sweet with crispy flesh, they are just starting to get their first true leaves and will get planted under the eggplants and peppers.

Big dog footprints. They are everywhere in the garden, he/she actually smashed one of my eggplants. It'll be fantastic when the fence gets put in.

Pretty pretty zucchinis, I can't wait for the bounty of summer.

Both types of zucchini I'm growing this year are Italian varieties: Striato D'Italia and Fiorentino.

Eggplants are much loved by flea beetles. Awhile after watering I dusted the eggplants and broccoli with diatomaceous earth.

The heat and humidity is already setting in and it's not even summer yet! Early morning and the temperature is already 85 degrees. Ugh. I'm about 2 weeks behind in planting and the tomatoes are 2 weeks behind in blooming, looks like we'll be getting the first ripe tomatoes at the very end of July. Mayhap the hot weather will help them along.

Once nighttime temperatures get above 75 degrees, most peppers won't set fruit. So I need to get them in the ground now. The first flush of flowers need to set before it gets too hot, otherwise it'll be the end of summer before we get any peppers. No peppers will definitely interfere with our salsa making plans.