Apparently it was way too early to say things were going smoothly. And I probably made the dumbest mistake I could have made during planting season. I didn’t have a plan for the slugs.
Slugs are our biggest pest here. Usually I just put some Sluggo around the new plants and they are fine. This year we were out of Sluggo and I didn’t think of getting more. After all, we were mainly just putting in tomatoes and I’ve never had a problem with slugs in our tomatoes.
I was wrong. In one night they took down two of our tomato plants. One of which I only had one of that variety so now I’m trying to grow more tomatoes as backups and keep my fingers crossed that it’s not too late.
Four days later we got a super late frost. I was totally freaked out but fortunately I think the black plastic we had down helped keep them just a few degrees warmer so they survived the frost.
What variety did they get Rachel? I have seeds for 5 different varieties of heirlooms and if I have what you lost, I could give you some seeds.
Hey Jolene, I have enough seed, I just had to start more of them. Thanks for the offer though!
I think you’ll be fine, even starting now. I haven’t even grafted mine yet as we had such a late start. Usually we plant warm season crops around April 15, and this year it may be later as we’re still consistently dropping below freezing overnight. Fortunately, our warm season runs until quite late in the season in the Bay Area. Until things warm up though, the plants will just sit there like little bumps on logs 😉
for fellow tomato lovers… this weekend, cornerstone gardens in Sonoma, is having their annual Tomatomania festival. workshops, buy from 200+ different types of tomato seedlings. we went last year and it was a lot of fun. easy to get to; just down the road from infineon track. http://www.cornerstonesonoma.com
I have some extra starts. If one of them is your lost variety, I’d be happy to donate it. We still have ours in the greenhouse, although they are totally ready to get planted out. Just not sure about this weather yet. It’s been a weird winter. Thanks for the reminder to watch out for the slugs!
Sorry to laugh, but it’s in sympathy. I’m just remembering the entire bed of 8 (or was it 11?) tomato plants lovingly raised, hardened off and transplanted that were completely skeletonized overnight by slugs. The whole gambit was lost. F’ing slugs.