mooncon

Just thought I would post a few pictures of my tomato plants.This is the same garden the mineralized top soil comes from.These pictures are about a week old so they have grown a lot since then.

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TanyaQ2000

OMG! nice!

redthumb

Nice

asukawashere

I envy your early start on growing things down south! My tomatoes are only maybe a third that size.

mooncon

These have been out for about eight weeks and its been cool enough that they are setting a lot of tomatos.They are closing in on 6' tall with lots of growing left.

asukawashere

What kind of tomatoes are they, anyway? Hybrid? Heirloom? Determinate/indeterminate?

Here, we think of tomatoes as things that only fruit when it gets hot out, not "cool."

mooncon

They are early girls and celebrity,here we think of it as cool if its below about 95 to yall that's probable hot

asukawashere

It's true! Though we do get occasional days in the 100s, mid-90's is more typical of July weather. I don't know how the weather is in Dallas, but for us the summer is often muggy as all get-out, so it ends up feeling like 100-something even if it's not. As they say, it's the humidity—not the heat—that gets you. On the other hand, you guys have a tornado season and we don't, so I'm not about to envy your climate LOL.

We've got some early girls in our garden, but our generic-determinate-red-tomato of the year is the Rutgers tomato, not celebrity. We also have beefsteak, golden jubilee, better boy, large red cherry, and one each of lemon boy and Cherokee purple (they were strays at a home depot sale we bought on a whim). Oh, and a few volunteers of unknown identity (judging from the bed they popped up in, probably either yellow pear or black krim).

...Aren't Celebrity tomatoes only supposed to get like 4-ish feet tall?

mooncon

I have planted early girls for the last 10 to 15 years,they have never failed me as far as celebrity when I think back I don't think I put them out this year.I couldn't find them and cant remember what else I put out.I usually have the celebrity's and they get as big as my early girls,i lean more toward a smaller fruit they seem to have a better taste to me.I have tried the big boys and other large varieties but it gets so hot so fast they never seem to reach there potential.

Michael

The reason tomatoes do not produce through the summer here in north Texas is the high night-time temperatures. The day-time highs of 100 F+ are bad enough, but when the night-time low never falls below 85 F, the plants remain in heat-stress 24 hours a day.

This prevents us from growing many species of plants that look like they would be fine here from the horticultural descriptions. The classic case is any plant that comes from a high altitude desert. Yes, the day-time high temperature in its natural habitat may exceed ours, but those habitats cool off at night, giving the plant a chance to recover from heat stress it experiences during the day.

Just another way of saying that anyone who can grow tomatoes here has my admiration!