What’s red that you think of on Valentines Day? - Hearts? Roses? Not Me! Valentine’s Day makes me think of Tomatoes!
Early Tomatoes to be exact.
Around here, folks use holidays as reminders of when to do things in the yard and garden. They say to set out peas and potatoes on St. Patrick’s Day, set out tomatoes and peppers on Mother’s Day, open your pool on Memorial Day and close that pool on Labor Day. Call me strange, but I add “start tomato seeds on Valentine’s Day” to that list.
Last year, I started extra-early tomatoes with the goal of getting ripe ones by my birthday on June 24th. I actually picked the first ripe red tomato on June 15th!
This year I’m putting more work into it and setting the goal at May 31st. If I’m really lucky, I could have a ripe tomato by Memorial Day!
How do I plan to achieve this here in Northern Zone 5 where most ripe tomatoes are harvested in Late July and early August? Much like I did last year by planting early under grow lights and potting up multiple times until I
I will let you know all the details in these pages as we go along.
Last year, my extra-early tomato plats were the Early Girl variety. They did well but this year I will be planting 4 other extra early varieties to give Early Girl a run for the money!
The GardenDesk newcomers are: Hybrids New Girl and Orange Blossom from Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Heirlooms Siletz and Sub-Artic “World’s Earliest” from Baker Creek. Both of these companies are amongst my favorites. More details to come!
Getting back to Valentine’s Day - before I get any angry email accusing me of not being a romantic, I want to state that I DID give my wife and daughters the real red of Valentine’s Day - Roses.
Now they will lovingly let me start tomatoes tonight! Yum!
Original post by Marc
