My 4 tomato plants are loving life. As per the instructions of Mark Levisay, a Tomato-meister of the first degree, I put a tall stake beside each plant and have been strapping the main vines to the stakes as the plants grew. So far, with plenty of both sun and rain, the plants are amazingly healthy, and I got my first serious tomato a week or so back. The tomato is now approaching the size of a fat golf ball, perfectly shaped and with no (knock on wood) blight on the bottom.
I hope to be slicing him up in a week or two and positioning that first tomato on two pieces of Wonder Bread slathered with Duke’s Mayonnaise.
Even with the stake, I am also using tomato cages to keep the vines from sagging too much. I have fertilized and the plants are doing well. I am anticipating a bumper crop.
If we continue to get a bit of rain as the summer’s heat approaches, we might be canning tomatoes by July.
