Saturday, May 2, 2009

Diana's Tomatoes

Good Saturday Morning Daylily Friends,

Well my beautiful wife of forty years has turned out to be a magnificent gardnerer, particularly in growing tomatoes. Last summer Diana claimed that her "Burpee Porterhouse" tomatoes would be three pounds. I said to her, with assurance, "Well if they are in fact three pounds, then I will put you on my daylily show." Well, several months went by, then, around the first week of July, she had tomatoes that weighed three pounds. To document this fact I took a picture of her tomatoes on a weight scale. As you can see from the picture, her tomatoes indeed weighed three pounds! Tremendous accomplishment. Part of the credit also should go to Burpee for developing such a wonderful tomato.

Since Diana did so well with her tomatoes last year, I decided that it would be helpful to suggest that she plant more tomatoes. So, I suggested more wire cages, and she soon agreed. At first I made space for two more plants. Then, this past week, I made spaces for four more plants. Now she can plant up to fourteen tomatoes. Diana has just now planted all of her plants and they look good! I am showing a picture of Diana with all of the wire cages. I am also showing Diana with some of her tomatoes that have grown while she had them growing in pots. Indeed, it should be a delicious tomato summer. I might add that Diana started all of her tomatoes in the house from seeds. After about 10 days she moved the plants to the Greenhouse. She had to keep moving the plants to bigger and bigger pots.

In the Greenhouse this morning I had a new bloom from last year's Seedling 8-99. I have only one pot and the cross is as follows: [(Leslie Renee x Angels Gather Around) x ((Mandalay Bay Music x J. T. Davis) x Winter Springs)]. Seedling 8-99 is 32" tall, it has 4-5 way branching, 18 buds, and a 5 1/2" flower. I like the bi-tone color with a darker pink on the petals, and a lighter shade of pink on the sepals. I also like the eye, and of course, the green edge. I am hoping to make seeds using 8-99. Last year I made no progress because I had only a few blooms.

Well, back out to the greenhouse to make seeds.

Bill


2 comments:

  1. Mr. Bill,
    Looks like your wife grows tomatoes like you grow daylilies..."BEAUTIFUL".
    Both of you keep up the good work.
    Greg

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