Yep. One of the hardest gardening chores is to pull those blooms off of not-big-enough tomato and pepper plants! Been there, done that many times.
I’m growing a good share of Determinate tomatoes this season...I go back and forth. I HAVE to have my ‘Chef’s Choice’ colorful tomatoes, though those plants turn into monsters by the end of the season - you need a machete to get in that row, LOL!
This upcoming week my tomatoes and peppers are getting a top dressing of bone meal, and their usual fertilization. Having that fresh compost tilled in is making a huge difference in QUALITY this season. I may do that every 2 years now, versus waiting 3 years. I find with the raised beds and all the straw mulch, my soil quality really keeps from year to year.
I bought a pickup truck load of compost to use as mulch and replaced my seed tick infested lawn/leaf clippings mulch with it. So much nicer in their. Kind of a wasteful way to use compost but it’s so nice. Comfy to plop right down on the ground and brushes right off your clothes, unlike dirt. Keeps the UV rays and sun’s heat off the drip lines. Once the maters are done this year, I’ll gather it up and bring it down to the high tunnel area and till it in. Might not be much for nutrients but will improve tilth and I can scrape out the shop/barn and add the goat manure to the compost.
I finally found a place closer to me to get compost by the yard. They probably get it from St Louis Compost and just resell it but that works for me. It’s only a few dollars more and it’s 25-30 miles away instead of 65 miles. It’s also on the way back from Lowes, ALDI, a big Walmart and other shopping.
I’ll have to pull back the compost mulch and throw some bone meal down. Also got some egg shells I should make into water soluble calcium. What NPK fertilizer is good for fruit production time?
I'm growing almost all paste tomatoes and lots of green ones coming on....I am proud to say that almost all my tomatoes I grew from seed....I do have one store bought cherry tomato and one yellow tomato plant and a tomato plant called "hillbilly" that a friend gave me....
greatly disappointed in my oriental beans...I also planted forex pole beans and they look good....
it is very hot and very dry where I lived and the soil in the beds, particularly the higher raised beds drys out so quickly, I've been hand watering as well as using the sprinkler system....
note to self....fewer zucchinis next year....