first black pear tomato

Got my first 4 tomatoes! They are off a black pear tomato plant. They don’t look pear shape I but I don’t care. I’ve lost 3 pepper plants and one tomato plant in the main garden but other then that, everything else is doing great. The tomato plants are really taking off- some of the early varieties have little tomatoes on them but most are just starting to blossom except for those first two maters!.

tomato in cage with well

In the pictures you can see they now all have wells, drip system in the wells, and the wells are covered with straw (not hay-produces too many seeds) to help with evaporation and keep the roots cool.

The tomato plants have been trimmed up so no branches touch the ground or straw. This is so no soil borne diseases can be transmitted. When you trim plants, put some alcohol on your trimmers between each plant so if one is diseased it won’t be transmitted to the next one.

I have a bamboo post (sometimes more than one) where the main vine is tied to help it as it grows so as not to be unruly (mine usually become unruly anyways as the season goes on).

The big tomato cages that I made from concrete reinforcement wire (it has 6 inches by 6 inch holes-easy to get your hand through to pick tomatoes) are now on. The cages offer terrific support for the growing tomatoes. Just keep pulling the branches up to the next higher hole as it grows. I also have small t-posts (3 foot tall) in the ground and the cages tied to it so the wind can’t blow it over as the plants gets bigger.