Anyone Garden?
 

I am about to harvest some Heirloom Chocolate Cherry Tomatoes for seeds for growing next year. If anybody wants some let me know and I will save some extra to send out to anybody that wants some.

Chocolate Cherry tomatoes have a little less acid and a little more sugar than a red cherry tomato making them super sweet. They are by far the best tasting cherry tomato I have ever had. They are an indeterminate variety.

If you want some PM me your address and I will send you out some for free in a couple weeks when they are ready.

I'll second his recommendation, these are the only tomatoes I eat!

I'm an aspiring gardener, but I'm limited to 4-5 hours of sun each day in my southern CA condo. I'm going to try a hanging herb garden, see how it goes :o

Anybody else interested in some free tomato seeds? They are drying now and will be ready to ship Nov 3.

To answer a couple frequent questions.
Yes these seeds will still be good in the spring. If stored properly they will last several years.
Plant the seeds indoors 6-8 weeks before you plan on putting plants in your garden in the spring.

I wish I had the space.

Those that asked for seeds yours will go out in the mail tomorrow morning. I still have some extras if anybody else would like some.

Sent PM - love to try them and THANKS for the offer

Never got your PM. Send it again and I will get you some seeds in the mail.

Everybody else your seeds are in the mail.

Got mine today. Thank you, I'm looking forward to spring and giving these guys a try..

Package arrived, Ben.
Much appreciation for your time and the gesture!!

Thought some baseball card shop owners would get a kick out of this. I got creative with an old display cabinet with a broken top glass, a child sat on it:mad:. It was not worth the replacement costs, so I turned this 6 foot cabinet into a greenhouse. It works surprisingly well with southern exposure, pretty easy to regulate temperature with 5 gallon buckets of cool/warm water. Still growing jalapenos in November, it was 20 degrees yesterday.

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tomato seeds
 

Ben,
count me in. anybody from South Dakota has my vote anyway. My dad's from Viborg, in Turner County. He's long gone now but I was back this summer with daughters to see the old place and visit the descendants.

5289 Winifred Drive
Castro Valley, CA 94546

Eric Nelson

thx

Eric I will put them in the mail Monday.

Ty that is a cool way to keep the peppers going a little longer.

Here is a pic, of my greenhouse from last march..

I like to plant, but my girlfriend is a hoer.

Fred.........LOL
Only you would come with that.

I love to garden especially giant pumpkins. This one is 1,216 pounds. This year I grew 1,204 lbs. Also grow giant tomatoes. :)

I planted and still have some extra seed. If anyone else would like some let me know.

Ben...id love some!

cool
 

Beckett has some pretty unique holders and I think you should get this baby graded! I'd say its a 5 due to slightly off centered and the edges are a bit rough but overall it has GREAT eye appeal!! :)

Peace, Mike

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I just finished planting tomatoes and have some extra chocolate cherry tomato seeds again this year. If anybody would like a dozen seeds PM me your address.

Happy Gardening, spring will be soon.:)

I live in New Jersey the garden state. so I always had a garden . When I moved out my first apartment had a nice garden . I currently for the first time ever do not have a garden . I do mise it fresh peppers and tomatoes.

Hi Ben. How timely - I have your package of these seeds sitting next to my keyboard, to remind me that it's time to get started!!!

I am starting seed to grow in my greenhouse now. It will be another 2 months before I start the seeds for my outside garden.

Had a few seed starting questions, this is what I do for an outside grow in the soil garden. I like to start them about 8-10 weeks before I want to transplant them outside.

The plants should be around 12-16 inches tall. When planting dig the hole deep enough to burry half the plant. Cut the leaves off near the stem for the ones that would get buried.

If starting plants without enough natural light I use 4' fluorescent cool white bulbs. I like to add 15-20 watts per SQ FT so the plants don't get spindly from too little light.

Ben was kind enough to send me some seeds last year and the plants grew great. The problem for me was that since I never had the chocolate cherry variety before, I kept waiting for them to get bright red for picking, like most cherry tomatoes. Unfortunately they didn't. So I'm sure I missed their peak ripeness while they were still on the vine. Live and learn.

I have giant pumpkin seeds available if anyone wants :)

Here is a picture of them. The top 3 are ripe and ready to eat. They have a green shoulder(top) when ripe and are a very sweet tomato.

Everyone that has asked for seeds they all went out this morning. If anybody else would like some just ask I have plenty left.:)

Garden
 

Been gardening off and on for a little bit. Don't have a green thumb but do well growing squash, zucchini, jalapeños, eggplant. The squirrels and bugs got my last tomato's.. We're thinking of trying above ground this year maybe.

Thanks Ben. By the way - the chocolate cherry tomatoes grow like wildfire up here, and taste delicious. Other than a few oddballs I bought for seeds, the chocolate cherries were the only ones I actually paid for last season.

Last year I bought starters and planted in mid-May. This year I will use a combination of seeds and starters.

Seeds got to us just fine and THANK YOU, will be fun this summer growing some new/different things. We will post some things later.

First off, thanks Ben, if I didn't last year, for your generous offer.
Would have been nice if you would have told me that I would need 6 foot tall by 3 foot diameter tomato cages :D.

And buyer beware ... when you bite into one of these ... best keep your mouth completely and tightly closed or you'll be wearing some of it!!

Never snacked on cherry tomatoes like I did last summer!!

Again, thanks Ben, for spreading the word as well as the seed :)

One last bump for anybody that would like some seeds this year.

I grow them hydroponically and have had them 30 foot long/tall before. Yes they do like to explode when you bite into them.:D

A couple tips with tomatoes is water in the morning and not at night and also pick in the mornings before watering.

I took Rayl up on the offer of some giant pumpkin seeds and this is were I am at. I am going to give the one pictured hydroponic fertilized and grow it in the pictured 35 gallon plastic barrel full of perlite.

Hoping the weather will let me move it outside in about 2-3 weeks.

Not sure how it will turn out but am hoping for a pumpkin the size if a Volkswagen Beetle.:D

Harvested these giant purple asparagus this morning. Don't usually get many this large. The shiny coin is a quarter.

Anybody else got anything growing?

This past Sunday my kids unveiled a path to my wife for Mother's Day. It goes through the woods on our property to her garden below. They each made a stepping stone highlighting their personality and relationship with their mom. My wife was surprised and overjoyed. What a great mother day gift.

As far as the garden below we have a total of six 8 X 12 grade boxes that we gave been working on since last fall. Four of them are planted with blueberry bushes. One we are using for a compost pile (at least until next year) and the other for veggies. Mainly tomatoes but also zucchini, cucumbers and watermelon. We are not a gardening family but so far things are looking great.

Unfortunately I couldn't get any of the chocolate cherry tomatoes to sprout. I hope to try again next year if Ben is willing no to help out again. Thought researched and did things right but apparently I have a lot to learn about planting from a seed.

I'll keep you posted on our progress and maybe post a few pictures here and there.
Drew

Moved the Giant Pumpkin outside and into the 35 gallon barrel today.

Awesome progress, Ben! Love to see this as it grows. Never attempted anything like it but interested, how's the maintenance?

I don't know either, it is my first time trying anything like this. I need to contact member Rayl who I got the seeds from to ask about pruning.

The pumpkin plant is growing great.:D Here is a pic from this morning. I am growing it on a gravel driveway to make it a little more challenging.:D

My dad is the gardener in the family. He planted some fruit trees several yrs ago.
His plum trees have gone 'wild' this year. So many, that its literally breaking the limbs. We been giving them away in buckets at work and been 'jamming' them up in jars.
We got one of those weekend markets, and he was able to 'trade' for other produce and stuff. No telling what the figs will do, as they been few to none.
As for tomatoes, he decided to go with 'raised beds' His have grown over 8ft tall and keeps them tied to the cages and a trelace so they don't fall and break.
I have not heard of these 'c,hocolate cherry', maybe my dad has, but we live in Georgia, so I don't know about the soil/sun factors on them. We did pick a few cherry of our own. The family likes the big boys. My dad also tried doing a berry garden, think the birds got most of it, he has since put a mesh over the area.
*Please put us down for some chocolate tomatoes**

Chris I will get some in the mail for you in the next couple days.

Suspicious LOL, your mail carrier will wear rubber gloves after you get my letter.:D

Ha! I just came upon this helpful hint:

Has anyone done this??? Now we typically don't do seeds (except for flowers)

Pretty much everything you quoted is bad information. Overwatering tomatoes will not give you bigger tomatoes it will give you split tomatoes. Giving plants just Epson salts is not good and that is way too much anyway.

If you have any specific questions PM me and I would be happy to help.

I use to have a big garden, but it just became to much work. I even sold my troy built tiller this past Spring:mad: I have a small area that I plant lettuce throughout the winter, but that's about it.
In this small lettuce area, I planted some Mammoth sunflowers and here how they look this AM as the heads are just starting to form. I plan on just leaving these for the Cardinals that are around my place:

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Eight or ten years ago I started my orchard with four Tangerine trees and they are doing well with lots of golfball size fruit that will be ready in December. These trees are on the left in this picture, apple trees down the right:

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Then four or five years ago I planted two peach trees, two pear trees, and eight apple trees. I got good peaches this year, but the pear trees didn't even bloom. Growing apples in Florida is quite the trick, the only varieties that do any good are Anna and Dorsett as they require very few hours of freezing temperatures. For the first time I am harvesting a good crop of apples and I've picked at least 40 pounds. The apples are ready now, and there are more on the tree waiting to be picked, some apples on the ground too. One of the pear trees on the front right, the apples are in line on the left:


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Since I don't have to go out and weed the garden, I think I might just hang out by the "cement pond" today:

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Thanks guys for the replies. You ALL got some very nice trees!!!! My dad cant wait for our figs to produce. As for our plum trees..He went and picked the green ones that were left, some old lady at the market mentioned she can make wine from those. My dad swapped some jelly he made for her blackberries.
Today my dad, took down some of his tomatoes, and cant wait to plant those choclate ones to arrive. He mentioned them at the market, I don't think they have heard of them.
He does got some nice cucumbers growing. They make a good salad.

Sunflowers now 5.5 feet tall and just starting to flower. The bees are everywhere!
Larry

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Larry, Very nice looking sun flowers and trees.

Pumpkin plant is growing great. It is getting small pumpkins, got 3 about the size of baseballs.

Update on my seed project (thanks to Ben)--its been 2 weeks and my very 1st poppage.
Hoping for more.

Took this picture yesterday. I am down to just this 1 pumpkin on the plant and you can almost watch it grow.:) It is weird shaped and much larger than a basketball.

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We get some strong winds here in central Washington. Anything in the ground is gold; potatoes, onions, radishes, and carrots (but have failed a couple times trying to grow garlic) Sturdy vines, crawling plants are preferred; cucumbers, zucchini, spaghetti squash, and cantaloupe grow very well. BTW nice looking Great Pumpkin progress, Ben.

Fruit trees are everywhere in the Kittitas, Yakima, and Wenatchee Valleys. Yield is always impressive; we have an apple, nectarine, plum, pear, and cherry tree in the yard. Jams, lots of jams every September. I make a decent Amaretto Nectarine Jam.

The wind really batters tomatoes, jalapenos, and loose leaf lettuce, so I improvised an old display cabinet for a greenhouse (pic above a few posts). It extends the growing season from late March to October.

Moisture is always a problem. Yes, there are parts of Washington where it does not rain very often. Water at night, or early in the morning. Enjoy the garden :)

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Thanks Ben for the cherry tomato seeds that you sent out to me months ago. The tomatoes are delicious. Is there anything I have to do besides dry out a few of the tomatoes to get seeds to plant next year?

Harvesting seeds is not as easy as drying out a tomato. Here is how I do it and have had great luck.

Cut a few in half and squeeze the slime/seed combo out into a small steel screened strainer. Then rinse as much of the slime off the seeds as possible with just the water flow from your sink faucet. Then take the remaining seeds/goo and put it in a glass or plastic glass. Add around 1/2 cup of purified or spring water. Do not use tap water because of the chemicals in it. Now cover the top of the glass with a paper towel and hold it on with a rubber band. Sit it someplace out of direct sun light for around 5-7 days. It will mold over and stink a little. It needs to do this to get the seeds to separate from the goo. Then get the strainer out again and rinse all the nasty stuff off the seeds. Now spread the seeds out on a double layer of paper towels. Let them sit for a few days to completely dry. Now you have seeds to plant next year.:) This only works with heirloom seeds, the seeds I sent to everyone are an heirloom variety. If done with hybrids there is no way of knowing what type of tomato grow from the seeds.

I got a late start, but the first flower showed up today

Ben,

Thanks for the seed advice. I had dried out a couple of tomatoes last week. I guess I'll save a few more and try out your method to get seeds for next year.

Happy to help. Never tried to dry out a tomato to save seeds. I get 95%+ germination with the way I described and usually use them for 2-3 years and then collect new ones.

Last week, I transplated mine into a big pot. It is doing very well, since I planted July 2.
I am just happy I got 1 plant out of the few seeds I did plant, got the rest for next year.
Ben, thanks for the added fertilizer. I just mixed up my last gallon.
Also, thanks for the tip on drying seeds..Kudos.
I have not any buds/flowers yet, but will inform you once I do and post a pic of it.
I guess, my question is about when I can expect some product?? Its still HOT down here in Georgia..in the 90's but I keep it under the porch and rotate to get the direct sunlight.

doublepost

Because of the great differences in temperature, soil, fertilizer, hours of daylight, and many many other factors it can vary a lot. Best general time frame is you will be able to pick tomatoes 45-60 days after the first flower opens on the plant.

News report: A few days ago...I put a cage in, since it was growing so tall.
And now reporting I got a few flowers/buds popping out.
Won't be too long, you'll see tomatoes!!!!!
I will try to get some phone pics uploaded asap.
I planted it July 2nd and want to share my progress reports down in Ga.
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Yum....

News Flash....we got tomatoes forming.
Just re-confirms my suspicions that Ben did not send me pot plants, as they are illegal to grow down here.

There are illegal to grow here also so we hide them between the tomatoes.:eek::D

The last few tomatoes of the season
 

[IMG]http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q...pswhz5xwwl.jpg[/IMG]

Mike

Update:
This sucker is growing so wild, like a vine. Damn thing is like over 6ft tall, about to touch the ceiling in the porch. I bet I got like 30+ growing. Since the last pics, I had to place 2 long wooden poles to stake them up with.
Yesterday-- 2 of them are just starting to change color to a purplish tint. I was kinda expecting near the end of October.
I about pour a whole gallon jug on it everyday. Once early in the morning, and the other half after dinner.

The fruit on one of my four tangerine trees is ripening faster than the other three trees. The tangerines are still green on three trees, but on this tree many are ready to eat. Very sweet, easy to peel, and few seeds! I've been trying to up my cardio and daily steps by walking around my property some. This morning, every time I walked past the orchard, I grabbed a tangerine!
Larry
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Anyone have chickens along with a garden. We have two barred rock and two Rhode island red chickens with 1 barred rock rooster

Nope, a while back used to have guineas. One gorgous white one too!!.
At the time, my dad had no clue to take care of them, and they didn't last long. Some animal with beety red eyes snatched them up.
We live in the back-woods, so we got all sorts of creatures: deer (daily), bob-cat, wild dogs/wolfs, raccoons.
Don't care for chicken tho, know some stories about them heads cut off and thrown into mailboxes. Some folks also don't like chickens basting on the clothes lines too.
Love going to Collinsville, Alabama ---Huge flea market and all sorts of stuff and farm aninamls.

We have Coyotes, Possums, Raccoons, and etc, My wife and I got up plenty of times in the AM ,taking care of the hens safety.

Picked 55 pounds of tangerines this morning!
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That is cool, how many pounds do you get a year off the 4 trees?

Ben this is only the third year of heavy production so my trees are pretty young. But I would guess 75-100 lbs per tree.
Larry

Seeds started too late to get more than one or two ripe ones. Tasty!!


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I have had a handful or so down here. Probably was too late for me as well.
I have tons of green ones producing and still.... but not getting enough sunshine I guess to turn color.
I attempted fried-green tomatoes with these and not too shabby.
I did have a issue with the thin skin cracking early on a few.
Last night we dipped into the low 30's. But I keep it under the front porch.

Nice picture, the ripe one in front is making my mouth water.:)

The splitting can be reduced by picking in the morning before watering. For some reason they also rarely split when grown hydroponically. In dirt I would lose approx. 25% to splitting soon after picking.

I had an unbelievably horrible year with my greenhouse. It started out really wet and cloudy so I had a lot of mold and bacterial problems. Then the temperature was either hot or cold with no consistency. I had catastrophic crop failure near the end of July and lost everything.:(

That's too bad. I was wondering how it went for you. We started a blueberry garden and it went well. Not much production this year but we weren't expecting much either. Just letting the bushes take good root and hopefully next summer and Koch more the next we will have huge amounts to pick.

We did have one small veggie garden box. Cucumbers were a flop as was the zucchini. Lots and lots of nice but small Roma tomatoes. My wife loves to use them in canning salsa and sauce. In fact she used some in homemade chili yesterday.

Anyway, one of the more unusual but funny things that happened after our growing season was over. I went down to the garden to clean it up some and get ready for winter and noticed a huge tomato plant growing in our compost box. It was filled with ripe cherry tomatoes. Must have planted and taken root from a tomato I threw in while pruning down during the summer.

Anyway, glad to hear of some of the successes and sorry about the tough year for you Ben. Pretty dry and hot here in Georgia so watering was tough considering how we had to do it. Nothing but an old fashioned hand pump. It took 125 pumps to get approximately 5 gallons of water.:eek:

Seriously. Labor of love I guess.

Drew

That's too bad. I was wondering how it went for you. We started a blueberry garden and it went well. Not much production this year but we weren't expecting much either. Just letting the bushes take good root and hopefully next summer and Koch more the next we will have huge amounts to pick.

We did have one small veggie garden box. Cucumbers were a flop as was the zucchini. Lots and lots of nice but small Roma tomatoes. My wife loves to use them in canning salsa and sauce. In fact she used some in homemade chili yesterday.

Anyway, one of the more unusual but funny things that happened after our growing season was over. I went down to the garden to clean it up some and get ready for winter and noticed a huge tomato plant growing in our compost box. It was filled with ripe cherry tomatoes. Must have planted and taken root from a tomato I threw in while pruning down during the summer.

Anyway, glad to hear of some of the successes and sorry about the tough year for you Ben. Pretty dry and hot here in Georgia so watering was tough considering how we had to do it. Nothing but an old fashioned hand pump. It took 125 pumps to get approximately 5 gallons of water.:eek:

Seriously. Labor of love I guess.

Drew