Tomatoes this week

To summarize, they are all still green.
Black cherry tomatoes, still green.

Sungold cherry tomatoes, still green.

Japanese Black Trifele clump, still green.

Japanese Black Trifele, still green. These two tomatoes were the first to form in my garden. Online, I have seen maturity pegged at 74 days. We are now at about 76 days. Our cool summer weather probably increases the days needed to mature these tomatoes.

Momotaro tomato, still green.

Black Krim, still green. This one has ballooned out quite nicely.

Tomato update

New this week: Black cherry tomatoes.


Japanese Black Trifele tomatoes look the same from last week. Green.


Similarly, Sungold tomatoes plateaued in their growth but are still rather green.

Momotaro tomato continues to power through their initial growth.

The Black Krim tomato decides to blimp out.


Cluster of Japanese Black Trifele.

Dealing with gardening procrastination

Funny, it almost felt like a clock was ticking, this dire need to get the tomato seeds going. But I was procrastinating big time this season for some reason. So I ended up doing what usually helps me in the past: I broke the task into microactions.
Details
Step one: find those darn tomato seeds. Since they are buried somewhere in the back of my fridge, stored in a plastic box inside a plastic freezer bag, this might have turned into a project of its own. But I forged ahead and it was actually pretty simple and easy.
Step two: figure out which ones to use. The hardest step because I have so many to choose from and very little space to plant. I narrowed it down to six varieties.
Step three: find the pieces to the task. The sterile potting soil, the cups to plant them in, the wooden labels, and the containers to put the cups in. I finally found them hidden in the balcony storage.
Step four: fill the cups with soil and then water. I let them sit overnight to make sure the soil is not too soggy and not too dry.
Step five: plant the seeds, make the labels, and rewater.

A week after planting, I have 5 out of 12 germinating (I planted two seeds each, I am a gambler). This year will be a minimalist tomato garden. I'm hoping I'll have one of each in the end: Sungold, Japanese Black Trifele, Momotaro, Ace, Black Cherry, Black Krim. These are ones I know can handle being in a coastal garden where the summers are cold and foggy and the sun doesn't shine much.

I'll keep you posted on how many germinates in the end. The Sungold and Black Trifele have germinated first, one Momotaro next.

What do you do to deal with gardening procrastination?

Anticipation...

Green Black Cherry tomatoes

Green Japanese Black Trifele

Green Momotaro tomatoes

Green Stupice tomatoes

Green bean

Planting another cooler climate tomato: Japanese Black Trifele

Growing tomatoes one block from the beach in Southern California means making silly little adjustments, such as planting cooler climate tomatoes.

Today, I planted a Japanese Black Trifele, another beauty I bought from Jimmy and Logan Williams Hayground Organics, who sell high quality plants at the 3rd Street Santa Monica Farmers' Market on Saturday and Wednesday.

So far, I have in addition to the Japanese Black Trifele, a Stupice, a Black Cherry, a Valencia, and a Siberian planted, along with three volunteers of unknown heritage. The Black Cherry and Siberian tomatoes were grown from seeds planted in early December. I've written about how I plant my tomatoes in this earlier post.

First tomatoes

Today we are in what we call a cold and rainy spell for us folks in Southern California. That means night temps are down to 51 F while day temps are up to 61 F. Yes, absolutely freezing. And then we had amazing winds preceding the storm front. They felt as though they were directly from the frozen lands up north. We are not in the middle of tropical weather.



Nevertheless, being brave, intrepid and perhaps a bit foolish, I now have planted three tomato plants, all cold-tolerant (Valencia, Black Cherry, and Stupice) . Note that I have three volunteers growing quietly in the darkest corner of my plot while I have been railing about the need to plant cold-tolerant tomatoes here one block from the beach.



My Valencia has at least three wee tomatoes, of which one you can see in the photo below.

Here's the Black Cherry, grown from seed, December 2009.

Here's the Stupice, bought from the Santa Monica Farmers Market, Jimmy and Logan Williams, Organic Hayground.