I Should Probably Put Something Here

Life was so much simpler!!!🥹 I miss those days and I want to go back!!!🥺🥺🥺

If it is hot, you will need to drink more than normally because you are sweating. You can drink too much, though usually your body knows how to regulate it.

Yes, if it is liquid and not alcoholic it counts to your drinking intake. Yes, drinking lemonades, coke and whatever counts. All of it is still mostly water with some sugar and flavors added. It is fine. Be careful about taking in too much caffeine though, as it is a mild diuretic (means it makes you pee more and hence lose more water).

Yes, you also need electrolytes as you sweat them out. But you do not need to drink sports drinks. Eat some yoghurt with fruits, or some watermelon with salt, or maybe cold soup. It will refill your electrolytes.

No, it is not dangerous for you to sleep in front of a ventilator. This is a complete myth that has absolutely no basis in science whatsoever and literally originates with an Urban Legend. Especially with the recent heat wave in Europe for a lot of people the alternative is the possibility of heat stroke. It is fine. Sleep in front of that ventilator. Just make sure you are not getting too cold.

No, using sunscreen does not stop you from taking in Vitamin D, unless you are permanently using super high standard sun screen and are reapplying it every 6 hours as intended. And let's face it: you are not. Your skin gets enough UVB to make Vitamin D, don't worry about it. Skin cancer is worse.

Yes, switching between a very hot outside and a very cold context (be it super high AC or just jumping into cold water) can be a danger for your cardiovascular system, though unless the weather is very hot or the water very cold making the contrast very extreme, it is normally not a danger to people who do not have otherwise issues with their cardiovascular system. Though being a bit careful and allowing yourself to acclimatize is not a bad idea in general.

Yes, you should definitely not leave any living thing in a car while it is hot. Just don't. Cars heat up while standing very quickly and will become a death trap. If you leave an animal or a child alone in the car for even just 5 to 10 minutes, they might die. Don't do that shit.

Yes, you need to be extra careful about your medications. For once, most medications are not meant to be stored at above 25°C (don't ask me what this is in American units). But also a bunch of medications - especially psychoactive medications - will make your body worth at temperature regulation. So be careful.

Yes, you need shadow. Ideally the shadow of trees, because there is indeed a difference between that and the shadow of a building. But any shadow is good, especially during extreme heat.

In the same vein: be also careful about drugs during heat waves - like, the recreational type. Some of them work differently when your body is warmed up like that. Just... ideally read up online on possible side effects that might occur/be worse if taken during the heat.

I'm not going to comment on the flavor both because individual preferences vary and because I don't like raw tomatoes (I know) which is what a lot of people want to know wrt flavor.

My ripening and holding setup. I've got lots of wildlife that like tomatoes, so I pick early and let them finish ripening inside. Also, all the paste tomatoes this year (sans one) are destined to become dehydrated tomatoes so I wait until I have enough to make it worth running the dehydrator.

First up is a pleated paste tomato, Rosso Sicilian. Supposed to be a semi-determinate/determinate, but while the fruit set fairly close in time, they are ripening more spread out than I'd like. I may throw them in the freezer until they're all done because this is the one destined for sauce. I have a food mill so the pleats are nbd. This one was grown in the in-ground bed using a Florida weave trellis (I had to add bamboo stakes to my T-posts because they grew 7' tall) and had good production. Two fruits got a little sunscalded during the heat wave.

Umberto's Pear tomato. The one in the upper left is fully ripe, but I love how the near-ripe fruits are a peachy pink color. Size-wise they're like a really large cherry tomato. Grown in an 18"x18" container with a central olla on my front porch, two plants per container. Support provided by a PVC trellis (four posts with connection at the top to make a tower plus holes drilled at 12" intervals for horizontal wires). Good production so far. No blemishes on fruit.

Tommy Toe cherry tomato. Larger cherry tomato. Grown in a large pot in the back with a support combination of tomato cage and extra ties attached to my clothesline post. Decorative sweet potato vine planted at the edges of the pot. Area is shaded in the morning. Good production. No blemishes on fruit.

Blush tomato. A paste-type but small—probably similar in volume to a large cherry tomato. Super pretty. Grown in the raised bed running along the sidewalk and tied to the wire fence trellis. Great productivity. Did suffer a little in the heat. The leaves are pretty fine, so not much help in shading the fruit. Luckily the plants had just finished their first flush of fruiting before the heat wave.

Hartmann's Yellow Gooseberry cherry tomato. A larger cherry. This tomato is incredibly yellow—it glows from across the room. Grown in the in-ground bed with Florida weave trellising, but in the part-shade back row. Somewhat poor production, so probably not tolerating the part-shade very well—the plants themselves are fine, just not setting a lot of fruit.

Chocolate Cherry cherry tomato. A medium to small cherry (variable). Grown in a large pot in an identical setup as the Tommy Toe variety, just on the other side of the stairs (gets a little more sun). Very productive. I like the Black Cherry variety (not grown this year) a little better than this one, but not by much.

Martino's Roma paste tomato. Central tomato is fully ripe. Grown in two of the raised beds in the back—in the enclosed bed using overhead strung support and also at the end of a free-standing raised bed tied to a metal grid panel. Plants remain disease-free and weathered the heat wave without issue. Very productive. I think I may have found the Roma variety that works for me, hooray!

Evan's Purple Pear tomato. Roughly the size of a large cherry tomato. Potato-leafed variety. Grown in an identical setup as the Umberto's Pear variety. Good production. No issues.

Black Plum tomato. Wide variety in size of fruits. Grown in the enclosed raised bed in back on overhead string support. All plants got early blight and were pulled. This plus the variable fruit mean that I will not be growing this one again.

Black Icicle paste tomato. Fully ripe fruit on the left. Grown in the sidewalk raised bed like the Blush variety. Excellent productivity. One of the four plants had some issues with blossom end rot, but I'm pretty sure it was due to it's placement within the bed and not anything with the plant itself—that spot just drained more quickly and retained less water than the other spots. OTOH this variety seems to be excessively prone to cracking, as you can see. Not a deal breaker for sauce, but it's going to be a pain to cut all that away to prep for dehydration.

Yellow Pear tomato. Grown on the backside of the wire fence trellis in the sidewalk raised bed. This handful of tomatoes represents the sum total of all fruit obtained from four plants before they all succumbed to early blight. I didn't used to have this issue, but it's been a problem the last few years. I think I need to find some different seed with better disease resistances to see if it's just the genetics or if it's the environment.

Chocolate Pear tomato. Also planted on the backside of the wire fence trellis in the sidewalk raised bed. These plants did much better—no signs of blight, good productivity. Did suffer a little in the heat wave and will need to recover, but I'll be saving seed from this one for next year.

Berries and Cream cherry tomato. Wow this one's pretty ugly, so it's a good thing it's so sweet and delicious roasted. Grown two locations— in a large pot in back with a tomato cage and decorative sweet potato vines and also in the in-ground bed with a Florida weave support in the part-shade back row. The one in the pot is much more productive, but the in-ground one is doing okay (much better than Hartmann's Yellow Gooseberry). A few fruits cracked, but not many.

Spoon currant tomato. Pea-sized fruit. All unripe since the birds have discovered them (but that's okay since I've got a gallon sack in the freezer already). Grown in two 18"x18" containers with central olla but sunk into 12" of woodchips in my front "lawn". Gets morning sun, but shaded most of the afternoon. The only support is some wire edging/fencing I've installed into the containers—the plants spill over them but they're kept off the ground. Does great with the reduced sunlight. Plants suffered greatly with the heat wave which also coincided with the end of the big first flush of fruit. So a lot of stress. Produced heavily before then—lots of individual fruits at least. Probably won't grow again since I like my slightly bigger fruited currant type tomato better.

Unnamed variety currant-type tomato. Marble-sized fruit. Seed-saved from a baggie of these tomatoes that had been donated to the food pantry by a home gardener. Grown in two spots—in a full-sun raised bed in front made out of a plastic deck box missing its bottom and top and in a part-shade raised bed in back. The deck box has the wire edging/fencing setup for support while the rear raised bed has overhead string trellising. The deck box plants are wildly productive, the rear raised bed plants have decent production. Minimal issues with the heat wave. These are the perfect size for grabbing a handful to throw into a quiche or casserole.

Orange Icicle paste tomato. Beautiful orange creamsicle coloring. Grown in the enclosed raised bed in back in a section containing two large olla. Minimal productivity—I think I'm only going to end up with three good sized fruits like this one. The plants were doing okay but not setting fruit and then the heat wave came. Now the plants appear diseased (too much stress likely). Waiting for the two remaining fruits to start coloring then will pull the plants. Debating whether to save seeds and try again in the sidewalk raised bed next year to see if it's the location. There's something going on with that section of the bed, I just don't know what (and can't afford a soil test).

Orange Banana paste tomato. Seems nearly identical to Orange Icicle, just slightly smaller. Grown in a container with olla in a setup identical to that with Umberto's Pear, but these plants are slightly shaded. So far minimally productive (probably needs more sun), but no problems. I think I might rearrange the containers this week to give this one more sun to see what happens.

And that's all the varieties I planted this spring. No slicers, just paste, cherry/pear, and currant types because of my needs (and my distaste of eating raw tomatoes). All of these except for the unnamed currant type were from seed around 12 years old so I needed to use it or lose it. I will be seed saving for fresh seed for most of these varieties, both for my own personal seed library as well as for giving away. I may reblog with an addition covering that process.

But for now, I'm currently starting four more varieties of 12yo seed to serve as mid-season replacements:

For old seed, I find it works better for me to pre-germinate it on damp paper towels in a ziplock baggie then plant germinated seed into pots/cells with sifted potting soil. The Jersey Giant is a Roma-type paste, the Pearly Pink is a cherry, the White Tomesol is a slicer, and the Gezahnte is a pleated paste.

Put a scoop of seeds into a six pack for each variety only two days after puttingthem in the germination bag. I'll separate seedlings into their own pint pots once they get their first set of true leaves. The Pearly Pink variety is an eager beaver and popped up immediately—the others are taking their time.

Other notes:

Fertilization is a custom mineral mix mixed into the beds 2 years ago (slow-release should last 10 years except for nitrogen which should be replaced yearly), chicken manure/litter based compost mixed into the soil in early spring, plus a sprinkle of mealworm frass into the transplant hole. Plus whatever they get from decaying mulch.