My tomatoes this year

This one is called Better Bush.  It's a determinate tomato, meaning it doesn't vine out too much and stays in a bush like form.  I've never grown this tomato before so I'm interested in how it does.

This is my Champion.  I only have one.  I haven't grown it before either.  It's indeterminate, meaning it will grow big with vines.  Thus the cage.

Parks Whopper.  Another new one for me.  The fruit is supposed to be pretty big.  Indeterminate.

This one is Super Fantastic.  I hope it's super fantastic.  It's another variety I haven't tried before.  Also indeterminate.

Mountain Pride.  Another new one for me.  Seems like the seedlings available this year are a lot different from last year.  There are the regulars like Early Girl and Better Boy, but I didn't get any of them.  This one is determinate I think but not sure because it doesn't say.

This is my Solar Fire.  It's supposed to tolerate heat well, which is good here in the desert.

This is Yellow Pear.  I guess the fruit is yellow and looks like a pear.  Its one of the grape tomato varieties.  New for me.  This one is in a "global bucket."  It's a type of SIP (sub-irrigated planter).

Ah, last but not least (so far).  This is Lemon Boy.  I grew it last year in one of my grow boxes and liked it quite a bit.  It produced fairly well and has a good taste, plus it's kinda a novelty because of the yellow color.  This one's in a global bucket too.  All the rest are in my rain gutter garden.

There you have it.  Eight tomato plants and eight different varieties.  Somehow eight doesn't seem like enough, but may have to do.  I wanted to grow Juliet again this year, because it did well for me last year, but I haven't been able to find any seedlings.  Juliet is a grape tomato and it was one of my best producers last year.  It's great in salads and for snacking.  I'll keep my eyes open and if I see one I'll grab it.  I'll make another global bucket to put it in, I think.

Garden update

Today I got my rain gutter containers planted.  Hopefully we won't have any more freezes until late in the fall.

I have two snacking peppers, and six tomato plants.  The tomatoes are:  Better Bush, Champion, Parks Whopper, Super Fantastic, Mountain Pride, and Solar Fire.  There's one each of the tomatoes and two planters of peppers, for a total of 8 on the gutter.  There's room for nine, but I wanted to leave a little more room for the indeterminate tomatoes on the east end so I left one bucket off and spread three buckets out a little.  You can see the empty 9th bucket sitting forlornly on the ground at the end of the row.

Remember this picture?

It's my strawberry square (4x4 ft) after the winter ended a few weeks ago.  Below is how it looks now.

The strawberries are taking off!  In fact, a lot of my garden is doing pretty well.  I have had a horrible time with seeds, but most of the seedlings I bought in the store are thriving.  The exceptions are a couple of pepper plants that I planted in a bubble SIP.  I added some fertilizer to the mix and then planted them, then read the instructions on the fertilizer.  It called for 1/2 cup per 5 gallons of mix, and I added 1 1/2 cup.  They aren't looking too good right now.  I don't expect them to make it but maybe they'll pull through.

I have two more tomatoes planted, one each in last year's global buckets.  One bucket has a Yellow Pear and the other has a Lemon Boy.

I planted a dwarf Japanese Maple in a small container this week also.  If it does well it will grow to 6 ft tall and 8 ft wide.  When it starts getting big I will get a bigger container, but it says on the tag that it is slow growing.   I found a slideshow of someone's yard that had several Japanese Maple varieties growing and it looked beautiful.  I've wanted one ever since, so now I have one.  It says it likes direct sun and partial shade, so I might move it to a spot that gets some afternoon shade.

I've got more pictures but didn't want to make this post too long.  Besides, now I have fodder for more posts for a few days.