Thursday, May 6, 2010

Mega Blooms, Regular Blooms and Tomatoes!

I think one of the things I like best about gardening is that it's never the same year after year. There's always new vegetables to grow, new pests or diseases to fight and just plain garden oddities that throw you for a loop.

I was astonished a few days ago to see several tomato plants laden with monster flowers that you've helped me to understand are called "mega blooms." I couldn't believe it when you said that both types of flowers could happen on one plant and lo and behold look what I found today:
The monster bloom is closing, but look at the other regular blooms surrounding it. Very cool. Then, on the Cherokee Purple plant next to it, I've got the makings of three very small tomatoes. I can't wait. These are my first tomato plants from seeds and I'm very proud of them.
Then, as she does so well, Mother Nature throws a bomb. Here's one of my Big Momma tomato plants. The camera wouldn't focus on the black part, but that's where a stem used to be. The stem was limp and there was this black spot in the juncture of it and the main stem.
There wasn't any worm or insect that I could find that could have caused it.
Any ideas?
The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.



7 comments:

  1. Awww Ribbit... I'm so jealous! You have a baby tomato... and what do I have??? SNOW and bone chilling temps in the 20s... So NOT FAIR! : )

    But I'm very happy for your baby tomato!!!

    May have to live my garden adventure vicariously through your garden reports!

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  2. I don't know about the black part, but HOLY MOLY I have those monster blooms too! And they are on all my heirlooms, not just one variety - what's the deal I wonder? Mother Nature trying to make us forget about the bad tomato year last year, lol?

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  3. Mega bloom, that's it! Lucky to have fruit already :-) Not sure what the black spot is but I would definitely cut it out above the lower node and put the cutting in the trash.

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  4. Holy cow, I've never seen those weird blooms before. I hope I get a few just because they look so cool.

    I'm envious at the size of your plants at the moment.

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  5. From the looks of some of my heirloom tomatoes, I'll be having a few of those monster blooms too! I've never seen them before, and I'm glad to have seen them somewhere else before I saw them on mine!

    It's awesome that you already have some tiny tomatoes! How awesome!

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  6. mega blooms on CP are a given, as I had them last year, as well. You should be very proud of your accomplishment in growing plants from seed - you're even better than me. Heh. Can't comment on the black spot, but would recommend getting your county extension agent to look at it.

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  7. I'm excited by it all. I didn't come home yesterday so I didn't get to check it all out, I'll get out there this morning and see what I can find.

    EG, your setup is so far superior it ridiculous.

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