Summer container gardening is a delicate balance between getting your veggies enough sun to thrive while protecting the more delicate varieties from blazing heat. I’d love to say I have found that balance with 100% success. Alas, not so much. But I have had some big successes, and we are already eating from the garden. I’ll take it!
Summer Container Gardening: The Tomatoes
As we mentioned in the early spring garden report, we started our Martino’s Roma Tomato plant, the Black Beauty Tomato plant, and the Cherokee Purple Tomato plant from seed. Our Spoon “Cherry” Tomato plants that we started from seed died, so we pivoted to a very young Sungold “Cherry” Tomato seedling. This means we were looking at a fairly long wait before the plants matured enough to set fruit.
Martino’s Roma Tomato
The Roma tomatoes are just now ripening, but they have been fruiting for a little over a month. We live in a relatively cool climate for SoCal, so we had heavy fogs and 60-degree days until mid-May. If I had to guess, I’d say it took the full 80 days to start setting fruit. Now, I’m just hoping to get them out of our container garden before the local critters realize that dinner is ready.
Black Beauty Tomato
Our Black Beauty Tomato is not going anywhere. Sadly, it became root-bound, and I think we will have to start over with it. On the upside, if we do start over, the new plant will mature when the other tomatoes are spent. Fingers crossed!
Sungold “Cherry” Tomato
The Sungold “cherry” tomatoes are our most consistent plant. Whether we have transplanted from young seedlings or grew from seeds, we have enjoyed these deep golden tomatoes from our summer container gardening efforts whenever we have tried them. It takes about 60-65 days to mature, and we have already added them to our pasta salads. Tomorrow, I think they are going on top of a dairy-free quiche we are going to try. Straight off the vine, they are sweet and perfect, and we are going to love having them all summer.
We have had one problem with the Sungold plant: fungus. Blah. We had to whip out the Neem oil to try to control it, but we also had to do some clipping to stop the spread. Consequence of heavy fogs in the morning in the spring, I think.
Cherokee Purple Tomato
I thought the Cherokee Purple Tomato plant was going to let us down, but it has multiple blossoms set, and the fruit is growing. Last year, these striped beauties grew to be huge!! I’m not sure they are getting enough sun where they are this year, but I’m hopeful that they will start ripening soon.
That’s us for tomatoes so far this year. How is your summer container gardening going?
