Wow! Great weather this weekend with no wind, warm temperatures and wonderful rain today. I hear tomorrow brings more rain. Today we had some great rain and boy is it welcomed. The native plants and trees and all of our plants are sucking it up. I can’t remember getting this much rain at this time of year in May. A great big plus is the night temperatures are starting to warm up too with the next 10 nights suppose to be from 35°F- mid 40’s. Pretty cold but above freezing.
So can we plant tomatoes? Is it time? Well that depends on whether the nighttime temperatures remain above freezing. Of course the first frost-free date is officially May 15th historically speaking, but back in 2011, we had a very warm May and many of us planted early as it never got below freezing that May. Is this one of those Mays? Who knows, unless you have a magic ball. By the way, I waited to plant my giant pumpkins till later in 2011 (as they are so frost tender) and my 2010 State Record got broken that year by someone who went for it early. I guess I should have put them in but I just didn’t want to chance it. You have to be a bit of a gambler to put your plants in now.
But if you are a gambler and want to plant your tomatoes early, be sure you plant using wall of waters (WOW) as shown above. If you use them, and the temperatures dip below freezing, they will protect your new tender plants. I always use them even when the nighttime temps are in the 40’s as I feel they provide more heat at night and keep them from setbacks. The cells of water warm up all day and give back the warmth at night to the plants like little greenhouses or cloches. Once they outgrow the WOW’s (like in the photo above), take them off the tomatoes, which will probably be late May. Do not leave them on all summer.
giantveggiegardener 
Janine.. hello my dear.. I keep forgetting about your fabulous blog.. wow… it’s amazing.. you’re amazing.. My younger son Paolo 23 is planting a garden with my 95 year old dad at my dad’s house in Sonoma County.. So Paolo is trying potatoes for the first time.. He really needs to ready your stuff all the time. love to you and El. I’ll see you in NYC.. The timing is bad for me, but I’ve gotta be there.. I”m still helping out my dad a lot, but he’s still hanging in there, managing a ranch, driving, just passed his DMV and got a license until 100 Yr.s !!! challenging but he’s in good health, getting ornery and impatient, driving Paolo nuts sometimes.. but onward… big hugs and kisses. Sharon Pastori
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You are too kind-such sweet words. Wow! Hope your dad will have good health as he ages. Looking forward to seeing you at Flynn’s wedding..
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hi Jannine, These are the tomato varieties I’d like. You had asked me to leave them here as a reminder. 2 Paul Robeson, 1 Arranas Noir(sp, I lost the tag) . And any other green or yellow variety you think I need. Michael of Laurie & Michael. Thanks Please let me know when you’ll have the plants. No rush.
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Hi Michael-
Unfortunately I do not have any more tomatoes to sell this year. I had a mice problem in the greenhouse. They ate over $400 worth of tomatoes this year so I barely have enough for my garden but you can get all the tomatoes you mentioned above at Agua Fria Nursery. Good Luck.
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Hi, My friend picked me up some of those Canoncito Landrace Pepper seeds and I am going to plant them in my community garden here in Central New Jersey. From google I found out you grew them last year so curious as to how hot? and how big a plant? Maybe you wrote about them but I did not see a post. Any info is welcome. I love you blog! It’s fantastic!
Dan
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Hi Dan-
I picked some up last year but haven’t grown them out yet and will have to wait till next year as I am out of space in the garden. I believe they are hot by NM standards but not really, really hot ones like Ccorpion pepper, Ghost pepper or Carolina Reaper. Landrace Canoncito peppers will have a much lower Scoville heat unit probably around 1000-2000 vs 1-2 million Scoville heat units for the ones listed above. There is one called ‘Espanola’ pepper around 2000 units which is geographically very close to where the Landrace Canoncito peppers come from (just north of the town Espanola). Check out this site for different pepper heat units if interested: http://pepperheadsforlife.com/the-scoville-scale/
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