Started my second tomato and pepper crop yesterday

[BOSSHOG]

Planted seeds in seed cups for Creole and Arkansas Traveler Tomatoes and Pepperoncini Peppers. We hope to be eating home grown Maters till Thanksgiving (maybe that long!) Our first crop of Creoles, which we are still harvesting were outstanding. Very zippy taste. I used the seeds from those tomatoes for our second crop, had to order the Arkansas Traveler seeds on the internet as well as the Pepperoncini Pepper Seeds (the kind PapaJohn's puts in their Pizza Boxes.)

[Raven]

1. Damn! I'm jealous! Just got my first batch in and they are only

about a foot tall. I was very late planting this year so I've got my fingers crossed. I can see beans sprouting and corn and a few potato plants beginning to show but it is such a short growing season up here, I'm hoping we'll have a warm fall.

[BOSSHOG]

2. Had some really strange goings on this year

I don't have too green a thumb but I've had a successful garden for years. This year some tomato plants had zero tomatoes on them. I had Marigolds that grew three feet high with no blooms. I have huge canteloupe plants with not one canteloupe on them. On the other hand I have some incredibly mass producing grape tomatoes (my wife likes those.) And we have a splendid crop of Zinnias. There's just no explaining it.

We usually don't get our first frost until November.

[bvar22]

3. YUM!!!

We just started harvesting out Arkansas Travelers last week. They are very tasty, not as sharp as the Creoles, more mellow. They are also a funny color, pinkish hue.

We also started a second planting last week, and hope to be eating homegrowns into November.
:hi:

[BOSSHOG]

4. Slicing a homegrown tomato

right off the vine is one of life's little pleasures. Wow, harvesting tomatoes in Minnesota in November. That's awesome. We usually have a frost by Thanksgiving.

[bvar22]

5. OOPS! Forgot to update the profile.

We (myself & Starkraven) moved to rural Arkansas last October. One of the major reasons we moved here was to grow orgnic vegetables and move toward sustainable Green living.




This is our prototype garden, and we are experimenting with different varities of veggies.
We planted 6 different types of tomatos (Early Girl, Yellow Plum, Amelia, Rutgers, Celebrity, Arkansas Travelers). All are doing well. We have no Creoles this year (none available), but that is the favorite tomato from my youth on the Gulf Coast (South Louisiana).

Oddly, the only problems we have are with are the peppers. We have harvested some some Jalepenos, but the plants have been weak and sickly with some kind of rust or mildew.

We are using raised boxes and Square Foot Gardening. We have plans for tenting a couple of boxes with plastic for pushing into the frost season.

We agree with you....eating tomatos right off the vine at the moment of perfect ripeness IS one of life's pleasures.
We love to just graze our way through the garden.

So far, our grand experiment is going well. We love it here, and our little homestead in the Ouchita Mountains has been very good to us.

I grew up on the Gulf Coast and am very familiar with Mississippi south of Jackson.
What part of Mississippi do you line in?

[BOSSHOG]

6. I'm from Fayetteville

Just about my favorite town in the world. Great place to have a garden as well. My Dad had green hands. He could just look at plants and they'd produce incredible quantities. We had a great crop of Jalapenos this year and still have some chili peppers growing. We live in Pearl River County about 55 miles to the French Quarter.