Anticipation...

Green Black Cherry tomatoes

Green Japanese Black Trifele

Green Momotaro tomatoes

Green Stupice tomatoes

Green bean

First Stupice harvested today

Proudly presenting the first Stupice tomato to ripen. These tomatoes are about the size of a golf ball, not very large.

Posting older photos so you can see the progression. Somehwere along the way, the middle tomato has disappeared....

Here is what it looked like in April when I first planted it.

Growing Stupice tomatoes by the beach

My Stupice tomatoes continue to grow even though we are back to foggy mornings and afternoons here one block from the beach, certainly far from ideal tomato weather. The sun manages to peep out in the middle of the day. Still the overnight temperature has yet to fall below 50 F, a good thing. I'm grateful somewhere along the line I figured out I need to plant cooler climate tomato plants, especially since what we call June gloom seems to be starting earlier this year.

Amending the soil is another absolute, given our subpar growing conditions for tomatoes. I follow the counsel of this goddess of tomatoes. Her way requires a bit more work and money but well worth the investment. I don't get the 7 foot tall tomatoes that she and her students get though I suspect my tomatoes, being cooler climate varieties, just don't get that tall. Regardless of how tall my plants got last year, they were happy plants with lovely tomatoes. We'll see how it goes this year.

I mulch well, really helpful for conserving water as well as keeping the soil from splattering up on the leaves. I deep water in the morning all my tomato plants every few days, depends on the weather, and assiduously avoid wetting the foliage.

An earlier look

Here is what it looked like in April when I first planted it.

New tomatoes on my Stupice

I just spied these new tomatoes on my Stupice, a cooler climate tomato from Czechoslovakia. I'm surprised to see fruit, as it was just recently planted in April.

So how do I plant tomatoes anyway? As written previously, I follow the wisdom of this tomato goddess. I think it is well worth rereading her post on how she grows her tomatoes. The take-home lesson for me is soil, soil, and soil.

One other thing: since we are one block from the ocean, I think my tomatoes experience subpar growing conditions so I think it is critical to plant cooler climate tomato plants, this in addition to amping up the soil.

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.