Tomato Mission

I am on a tomato mission of sorts. Our family absolutely LOVES good, flavorful tomatoes. You know, a tomato that really tastes like a tomato! Well, everybody but C love them. He says he only likes the ones we grew in our garden 3 yrs. ago. They were called Brandywine. Anyway, really good tomatoes are hard to find. And if you do find them, they will cost you your right arm to purchase some. Our local grocery store has heirloom tomatoes, but we have never purchased them before because they're so expensive. Well, today, we bought 3 different varieties of heirloom tomatoes, one of each. They were on sale, but they still cost me $8.00!! I almost choked. So, I got to thinking. I need to save some seed from those golden nuggets and grow some myself! So I did some researching tonight online and it doesn't look too hard to do. I see a homeschool project in the works.....

In this picture, B thinks I'm getting a picture of her beautiful flower she found on the weed plant.

Back to tomatoes. We have 3 varieties planted in little pots. I ordered some heirloom tomato seeds online this year. I was upset though, when the variety I really wanted was on back order and still hasn't come in yet! We've had some near-frosts lately, or at least pretty low temperatures, so we keep bringing them in to the garage to keep them warm, just to be safe. Then we cart them back outside. Every time we cart them back and forth, we seem to drop one or two, or three! This last trip I nearly had a heart attack because we had a flat break on us. It was cracked and we didn't realize it until it was too late. I think we may have been able to rescue the seedlings without too much damage. I hope that's the end of the low evening temperatures. Florida isn't supposed to have weather like this!

So, these tomatoes we've planted. I am clueless as to what comes next. You see, we have a friend who is a professional horticulture specialist. He is going to tell us his secret on how to grow prize-winning tomatoes. He's swearing us to secrecy over this. Oh, the suspense is killing me! And he's too funny. He shows up to my hubby's shop every few days to get the "tomato report" and the "blueberry report". He keeps giving us incremental, step-by-step instructions on just what to do. I can't wait for juicy, tasty tomatoes. And I'm hopeful that C will like the ones we grow this year as well. Maybe that's why he liked the Brandywine so much a couple years ago, because they actually tasted so good, and not like the cardboard tasting tomatoes I can find for a decent price in the stores. I tried to buy Brandywine seeds again, but could not find the seeds in the local garden stores. I think produce gardening is a dying art. I haven't done much in my recent past either, so I'm not casting stones here! We had about 3 gardens right after we moved here, but we finally gave up because of poor soil and major pests: both insects and rabbits. Hopefully, we'll have learned a little more this time to make this project worth our while!

The kids can't wait for their favorite part of tomato gardening. One of the websites I looked up tonight about tomatoes stated it this way: "To kill the most destructive, ravenous tomato-eater, the Tomato Horn-worm Caterpillar, put a 10 cent bounty on their heads and turn your kids loose in the garden to hunt them down." My kids LOVE this activity, and search for them with vigor. They argue over who gets to stomp and squish them, when I find the caterpillars. Large smears of green goo in the dirt. Isn't that gross?!?

And here is a picture of the tomatoes as they look today, with their buddy the avocado tree. Before the Tomato Horn-worm infestation begins.