Cherokee Purple
Update

Dateline: 18 June 2013

A Cherokee Purple seedling

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will recall the above picture, posted back on May 10th, in my blog post titled: Cherokee Tomato Will Survive. I wrote about how we start tomatoes from seed, without grow lights or a greenhouse. 

I planted four of those Cherokee seedlings under Whizbang solar pyramids, in between a Whizbang T-post trellis span, in my garden, as shown below.

Whizbang solar pyramids.... remarkable solar cloches.

The plants have grown nicely (as they always do in a solar pyramid) and I have just removed the covers. Here's one of the tomatoes now...


So far, so good. I'll mulch these and finish assembling the trellis span. The tomatoes are off to a great start. The "growing weather" is upon us. Now the plants should take off and fill the trellis. I'm looking forward to fresh Cherokee Purple tomatoes!

You can learn all about Whizbang solar pyramids and Whizbang T-post trellis spans (and a whole lot more) from The Planet Whizbang Idea Book For Gardeners.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those tomatoes look very healthy. About how tall are they? I see the pyramids are self ventilating, is there an ambient temperature that you open up the pyramid at to prevent overheating? It has been a cool summer so far here in mid-Wisconsin. I can see where my plants would benefit from the little greenhouses.

Mick

Herrick Kimball said...

Mick,

That tomato plant is 21" tall.

Yes, the solar pyramids are self ventilating. They never overheat. I only remove the covers when the plants have grown large within the enclosure and it is time for them to grow on their own.