Hungarian Hearts

The Hungarian Hearts were the tomato variety that suvived poor water the best. The problem I have seen with them over the past several weeks is an increasing loss of vatality in the leaf color. They are turning quite yellow. In the past, I've found the best remedy is to just get them into the ground and let them grow under normal garden conditions. It is a bit early in the season; the official last frost date isn't for a week or so. I checked the weather channel and they projected no frost for the next 10 days. Besides, I have a cover that I can stick over the top if things look really bad.

I tagged the ones I thought were most ready to go in the ground and put my McDonalds' straws on them for cut worm collars.


The last several years, I have put 18 plants in a bed. This year I am putting 16 plants in a bed. For one thing, I have expanded to three beds dedicated to tomatoes this year, so I will have space for 48 tomato plants instead of 36. This way, I can also use the cold frame conduit to help support the cages and each bed has 5 tubes -- 1 at each end to support 2 plants each and 3 in the middle that will support 4 plants each.

I turned the cages upside down to get my spacing.


I expect rain this afternoon, so I didn't water. We had a good storm last night and the soil was really good and moist.

The one good thing about the spindly seedlings was that I could bury them pretty deep. I understand that the little hairs will turn into roots, so I hope that part works out. I did have an accident with one plant. It's leaves broke off before I could get it into the ground. But, I started with 24 plants and had an extra. (I plan to give all the rest away to friends.)


One thing I do want to comment on, just for the record, is that a whole lot of weeds had grown up in the bed over the winter. This is a problem with several of the beds. The onions have already been weeded. There are 3 beds that I need to get to.