2012 Maters set out and got a few ripe'uns

Snappin Turtle ‘Maters                                                               May 21, 2012

"It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato."

~ Lewis Grizzard

This year has been kind to the Snappin Turtle Farm. We didn’t have much of a winter and were able to get a month head start on our mater crop. And unlike the previous two years, night temps have been less than 70 degrees which is ideal for maters to self pollinate. Life is good and living is easy where the cool winds sweep down from the Raleigh-Lagrange Hills across the great Wolf River and Nonconnah Creek floodplain.

Night temps are starting to be above 70 degrees. You may have to shake each plant gently twice a day and pray for a cool night and moderate day at least once a week to have pollination.

Here on Snappin Turtle Farm deep in the heart of Dragonville  we enjoy growing some of our own food in our backyard. To accommodate the granddarlings’ soccer games, we plant in containers so we can move them around.

Time to plant flowers too. I picked the last arugula and pulled up the last garlic and Texas sweet onions and planted in those containers marigolds, Mexican sunflowers, and two colors of gomphrenas. Mimi seeded zinnias and planted lantanas, dwarf nandinas, and knockout roses.

My containers have a mixture of cheap garden soil and rich live soil mix from Happy Daze Worm Castings on US178 in Mineral Wells. Bill Abresch makes and sells a rich organic soil mix from chicken litter, rotted horse manure, worm castings, and other organic material. A chain link fence post would sprout if you planted it in his soil. Drive by and see his operation. The water tower is in his backyard.

I use a poor man’s irrigation system: a plastic milk jug with pin holes in the side near the bottom. I pour in water and let it slowly drip into the container. One of the biggest failures of container gardening is folks washing away they expensive fertilizer.

Today I picked my seventh ripe tomato – a Bush variety. May 4th me and Mimi ate our first red ripe mater sammich with bacon on bread slathered in Hellman’s mayonnaise. Aint life good!

Hoping it don’t get too hot for tomatoes to pollinate in May like it did the last two years, I have thirty-seven plants these varieties: Tigerella, Pink Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Better Boy, Marglobe, Rutgers, Bush, Homestead, Costoluto Genovese, Tolstoi, Giant Italian, Sicilian Saucer, Pantano Romanesco, Borgo Cellano, Giant White, Black Prince, Mortgage Lifter, Golden Jubilee, Beefsteak, and Big Beef.

The Tolstoi grows clusters of medium size fruit, and the Costoluto Genovese is a Italian heirloom of wrinkly red juicy maters.

Mimi says I oughta make something. If I don’t, it wont be for not trying. I even decided not to grow peppers this year and put all my effort into making maters. I’ll keep you posted on what happens.

Ain’t God good!