I am planning to serve homemade tomato soup for a large dinner party on Sept 24, 2011 (42 days from this posting).
This dinner is really important to me; so important, that I decided to plant my own tomato garden (those gas treated supermarket tomatoes just don't compare to the real thing, ya know?). This will be my very first gardening experience, so I'm looking for any useful information at this point.
So, to continue the story, this weekend I found a source for 4 large Big Boy tomato plants. The season is almost over and the people at the nursery looked at me like I was crazy as I walked off the lot with $130 worth of tomato plants, soil, pots, and feed.
Here are some picks of one of the plants:
The plants stand about 3 feet tall and look reasonably healthy. They're planted in 14in ceramic pots (around 4 gal).
Now here's the real question: Based on these images, will my tomatoes be ready in time for my all-important dinner party? Is there anything besides a healthy dose of sunlight, regular watering/feeding that I can do to speed things along.
Update:
Here's a pic of the tomatoes a day before the dinner party. The plants are still going strong (thanks to you all, no doubt) and I foresee many more tomatoes in the next few weeks.