Bronchitis has really set me back this year. My garden is progressing but at a snail’s pace. I spent a few minutes this morning, which is all I had energy for, cleaning up a small area of the raised beds. I went to pull up what I thought was a dead tomato and found life! The beds are on the South side of the house against a stucco wall. And while we had a really wet winter, I didn’t think of it as being particularly mild. Apparently it was!
I think this may be an Early Girl from the nursery, which I planted late in the season after my heirloom roma tomatoes developed a blight and had to be pulled out. And while Early Girls are not the tastiest, biggest, or sauciest tomatoes available, they are blight resistant, which is the only reason to reach for a hybrid, in my opinion. I would love to do my part in the world of the home gardener and help develop a blight resistant heirloom but when your planting areas are measured in inches instead of acres, you can only do what you can do. In any event, this plant is my experiment! I planted it fairly deep – about 8″ – covering up the the bottom sets of leaves and only leaving a few sets higher up above ground. We’ll see what happens!
Update:
My “perennial” tomato produced for another full season. It turned out to be a cherry tomato and, like most cherry tomatoes, was quite prolific! Unfortunately, it didn’t make it through this past winter. I carefully examined it for signs of life before pulling it out in late April 2020.