You seem to have a lot of seedlings. I want to start afew myself this year but only need a few.

There are 16 of the trial seedlings. In my 3x10' raised bed, I think I'll have space for approximately 12-14 tomato plants. I'll grow 7 of the trial variety, and 7 of the NOIDs.

These plants get HUGE....

Gymgirl, I would think that heat would be the least of your problems. My daughter lives outside of Houston 20 miles from Katy and would like to grow things but she has a lot to learn. I am no help as my growing conditions are absolutely wrong for her area. My plant out day is usually Memorial Day or (June 1) also. But you can sow seeds especially under row covers much earlier for hardier stuff. I just put begonias into pots as you have to start them now to have flowers in the summer. buying begonia plants at the nursery would break the bank.

Gymgirl said:There are 16 of the trial seedlings. In my 3x10' raised bed, I think I'll have space for approximately 12-14 tomato plants. I'll grow 7 of the trial variety, and 7 of the NOIDs.

These plants get HUGE....

Sounds good to me.

Tomatoes are my favorite garden veggie both to grow and to eat. If I had the room I would probably have 200 plants. As it is I already have so many tomatoes in season that I give them away to the entire neighborhood. But I just love to grow them.

The plants are gorgeous Linda! They are going to be special indeed!

NOID?

The prophet speaks: (with good humour and wonder. )

"There is going to come a time in our culture, that we are going to have so many abbreviations for everything; ie. every business and communications company that thinks its special enough to stand out with an abbreviation is going to be confused with the new abbreviation for a disease which is going to be confused with the hot new pill to cure the disease with the plant which was used to create the pill which may be confused with someones HD (Happy Daughter) and before we know it HD will be what? High Definition? Home Depot? Happy Daddy?;....... The old sit com 'Happy Days' or maybe a new disease, 'Halitosis Dispellus'?

If this keeps up in our culture, we are going to become a great big ole' TOB. 'Tub O' Butter' or 'Tower of Babel'? See the point. I mean this to be funny, kind, inquisitive, and somewhat serious. Please, for some of us oldsters and for the sake of remembering how to spell;...lets start spelling some things out!

I had to look up noid and found out first it was coined by Pizza Hut?

On the possitive and fun side! I love Tomatoes on Pizza!

Linda, Your tomatoes are truly beautiful and know I'm not picking on you because of your abbreviation, as I have fallen guilty of the same and am going to try and not do it so much anymore.

No I.D. I figured it out. Those old grammatical dots called 'periods' did have a clarifiying point. Thats all. It helps!

NYPD or N.Y.P.D. is clarifying; although Nanna Yetta's Party Dishes are to die for!

I think that the date usually listed for "last frost date" is misleading. It's usually the AVERAGE last frost date. That is, 50% of the last 30, 50 or 100 years did have a frost after that date.

And of course the average is formed by looking at historical temperature records, so it's less reliable as erratic climate changes increase.

Who wants to plan a garden so that their first sowing is killed by frost five years out of ten?

The "10% frost date" is a safer date to plan with. That's the date after which the temp went below 32 F in 10% of the last many years.

Of course it's different for every microclimate, but right where I live, my "10% safe date" is around three weeks after my "50% average date".

If I was ambitious and had twice as much garden space, I'd plan for two sowings - half on the 50% date and half on the 90% date.

I appreciate and Thank you Linda!

Thank God we just had a laugh together like fun gardening neighbors and friends across the fence!

Thank you, David, LOL!

Mary,
Have your daughter contact me. I'd be glad to help out with the planting schedule. Not that I'm a pro or anything, -- far from it. But, I've been working alongside other local gardeners to get the timing correct.

Tell her now is the time to start patio tomato seeds (plant out for long- & medium-season tomatoes is mid-February -- too late to start these seeds now -- go for the short-season varieties for plant out by March 1st); bell peppers (hurry, cause they need to go in early April, and they take awhile to get going -- they need heat) eggplants (same as for the bell pepper seeds - they need heat);

With adequate protection, tomatoes planted out mid-February (long- to medium-season varieties) will be ready for harvesting around mid-May. Most folks here don't put tomatoes out until April. By then, only the shortest varieties (cherries and patios, etc.) will have any hope of maturing before our "Hell Fires of Texas" heat moves in on them in July. I'm usually ripping out my tomato vines by mid-July, when others are just getting started...

The fall/winter veggie gardens here are TO DIE FOR!!!! Best season ever to grow veggies!!! That's MY season!!!
No mosquitoes, no stinkbugs, no aphids, no heat!

Houston has 285 potential growing days (as the crow flies).

She can grow the following (and then some): beets, broccoli, brussels sprouts, carrots, cabbages, collard greens, garlic, kale, lettuce, mustard greens, onions, radishes, spinach, turnips, etc. (this is my list -- there's much more to be grown!)

Linda

Holy cow Linda. Maybe I am in the wrong climate. Staying in because it is too cold can't be too much worse than staying in cuz it's too hot. Except I can dress for cold; there are laws to prevent "dressing" for hot hot!! http://garden.org/i/s/rofl.gif

I will cut and past your comments and send to Laura. Thanks so much.

So many egg fruit at the moment. Sigh.

Show off!!

Oh, yummy. So many things you can cook with them. Yummy dishes. Eggplant parmigiana is my favorite. Then I also just love to slice them and grill them and top with a slice of ripe tomato.

I read recently that eggplant is a staple food in India, Bangladesh and the Philippines.

Cornell is working with researchers in those countries to make a more insect-resistant eggplant (I assume it would be a GE / GMO eggplant).

When I was in israel, we ate eggplant at almost every meal. Lots of olive oil in these dishes.

Same here. We ate lots of eggplant dishes in Israel and they were sooo yummy. Kebobs, eggplant, hummus, good olive oil. Oh so scrumptious food!

I put a nice miso egg plant recipe over at OT-The Porch Swing - Post #547799 - Daylily Forum. Hmmm, there must be a trick to doing a short-cut with this?

I have a packet of seeds for "Vegetable spaghetti"- that marrow or squash that looks like pasta when you boil it. It says to plant the seeds edge-wise in small pots at a temperature of 18degrees Celsius. Normally all my squash seeds die (accept for pumpkins) - any helpful hints anybody?

Gleni said:I put a nice miso egg plant recipe over at OT-The Porch Swing - Post #547799 - Daylily Forum. Hmmm, there must be a trick to doing a short-cut with this?

Thanks. Found it. Looks scrumptious.

I've eaten spaghetti squash but never have grow it.