16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
GoogleImages has hundreds of pics of various types of shade frames for hardening off plants or for the gardens. They can be as big or as small as you need them to be.
The Garden Structures forum here also has lots of ideas and suggestions. Just requires a bit of imagination.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Gardening shade frames
I have wire hoops and row cover (not shade cloth but could buy some), I was just interested in seeing the "nicer looking" ones sleevendog made.
I have to measure but I was thinking of using some of the old windows left over after we build the end walls in the tunnel to cover the beds to start seed there next spring, if they're the right size. Beds are only 2ft wide so I'm sure most of them are at least that wide.
My patience was being tested and everything went in last Sat.
Even the toms i put in a bit early...three weeks ago look great...(took a chance)
All seeds in, salads, pole beans, etc.
Turned it all over to mom nature...
It has been so soggy and damp all week and now more rain...the two rejected trays of starts meant for the compost are doing great...so i still have some babies to tend. (eye roll)
I would go ahead and get some in to break up the task since time is limited...especially the peppers. And give them some shade.
Starting tomorrow we have a few nice days and soil is nice and wet now.
The peppers are all going in the tunnel since I know time is running out, hope to extend the season. But boy, pouring again now, I hope the tomatoes I already planted are doing OK, if we don't get a whole lot more rain this week/month they might but I'm having flashbacks to last June...
Thanks Carolyn, I did read your comments on that subject but also there have been many times that Dave has commented on someone having too small a transplant (maybe they were more like seedlings, just 1 pair of leaves) in too large a container so I thought I'd ask.
Planting in containers is just so much different than growing in ground that I thought I'd ask. But these are a size that I would put directly in the ground right now. Haven't checked if Sophie's Choice was rootbound, but Gem State had a pretty solid mass of fibrous roots ;-)
Just wondering - I know bigger is better, but Sand Hill says Kootenai can do well in 1-3 gal pot. What about Sophie's Choice? I don't think I'd go smaller than 2 gal, I have a lot of that size, I also have 2 "12 inch patio planters" that look to be about 3 gal, some large diameter but shallow tree pots, and a few 5 gal buckets with cracks that I was going to drill out. Bu I also have Sandpoint and Gem State I wanted to try, so wondering which plants to put in which containers.
I'm tempted to try Sophie in ground but read she doesn't like heat so maybe all 4 have to go in pots - I have plenty of the Dr. Boe tomatoes to experiment with so some of those will likely go in south end of center row in high tunnel, or even in the side beds - Sophie would be perfect there since she doesn't get too tall, maybe Kootenai is the same. Gem State seems taller, Sandpoint not quite as tall but taller than K and SC.
I have a 4' wide raised bed with 16' metal cattle panels held up on T-posts (one T-post every 8'). The bottoms of the panels are about 14-16" off the ground, IIRC. That puts the top of the panels close to 6', and as I am a short person, that's about as high as I can reach. [Some people cut the panels in half and use them vertically, which would be 8' tall but only about 9' wide.] I have access to both sides, and can plant occasional herbs on either side of the row. The holes in the panels are roughly 6 x 7", IIRC.
I weave the young stems in and out of the openings, and as needed use the round vine clips, both as training and to hold vines that need support. [I prefer the red vine clips, but some of the white ones are okay; the green ones I've used don't stay closed, so I don't recommend those. I never remember where I've bought the good ones, so do a Google Images search.]
I trim very few suckers. Plants are 4' apart. You could trim half the suckers and plant at 2 1/2 or 3' apart. But remember that too dense and you're more likely to have fungal problems (possibly contributing to why I had Late Blight in 2009, but not related to last summer's LB).
Stock panels are something you find in an agricultural or semi-rural area. There are various types (cattle, hog, etc.) and sizes, usually 16' long and various heights (usually some inches more than 4'). What matters most is the size of the holes: you don't want tomatoes to be trapped, and you want to be able to reach through the holes and pull large tomatoes through, particularly if you can't walk on both sides of the trellis.
The panels will last forever.
An alternative is concrete reinforcement wire (CRW). It is less expensive (per foot, but you have to buy a lot of it) and it rusts. However, from what I've read here, it will probably last you a couple of decades if you don't leave it lying on the ground. I believe it is 5 or 6' wide. [This is what is generally used for homemade tomato cages.]
Another alternative is the Hortonova netting from Johnny Seeds:
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/c-225-trellis-clips-twine.aspx
[Note the white vine clips on the same page -- and there are brown compostable clips on the second page: never saw those before.]
I set up some of the Hortonova last year, but my tomatoes got LB before they did any climbing. T-posts every however-often, with the yellow plastic clips (for electric fencing) snapped on at the top of each T-post, then the netting hanging from the clips, and finally a strong cord through the top of the netting and attached to each clip, to help support the weight. It would probably be a good idea to weave cord through the net up a few of the T-posts, so the wind wouldn't try to uproot the vines. Guy wires at the ends of the row, if needed.
You might also be able to find white knitted nylon netting in 50 or 60' lengths (maybe 6' wide) in some of the major veggie seed catalogs. It's good stuff and lasts multiple seasons. I don't know if this would support tomatoes, as I've only used it for a late planting of small gourds, very tall peas, and cukes.
Try searches on this forum (and maybe the veggie forum) for "trellis," or "support," or "Hortonova."
Another possibility is the standard Florida-weave, which you can find in searches also. You'll need many strong posts set deep, as well as a whole heck of a lot of cord that doesn't sag.
centexan,
Thanks for sharing HOW WHAT and WHEN you do it. I will have come back and read it again.
Here is a bit of my own:
Though my USDA zone is 7B/8 but we have a very cool (almost cold) and long spring. Even at this mid June we are experiencing lows in 46F to 52F.
So what you do short of having a greenhouse ?
I started with warming up my soil, by covering the beds with clear plastic from mid March. The plastic also prevent the excess rain water from getting into the soil
Hoops an Cold Frame:
Very dandy and handy: I use them to shelter my plants during hardening off. Since my hoops are portable, I can even use them after plant out by placing them over any needed bed. Works like charm.
Just before the plant out , I remove the clear plastic and use BLACK plastic in its place. Then I cut round holes in them to plant my tomatoes. In our cool and often rainy climate, black plastic does several things: Keeps soil warmer : Keeps most of rain water out : acts as weeds preventer. .
So here I am, on June 10th today I took this picture. It is a SILETZ (an early variety). The other thing (WHAT part) is choosing the varieties. I might come back to that later.
Looks great! It's fun to see everyone's unique experiences. Mine have been in containers about 10 days, and still have a few more to plant. So far so good. Seysonn, hope you enjoy bloody butcher, which I am not growing this year, although I had three transplants that I gave away.
I think this common practice of removing leaves is a bit misleading. You are removing source of obtaining nutrients from the plant and stressing plant in addition making it more susceptible to other problems. Even if plant has fungal problem on the leaf do you remove the problem when you remove the leaf...
Plant is doing ok, leaves are ok, environmental damage, leave it be, new suckers are coming. Put some straw under lower leaves.
Glad you got some fertilizer, but it just doesn't seem like a 5-1-1 dose is enough food to get that plant going. I think johns.coastal... above mentioned that he's using a 15-30-15 and his plants are thriving 6' high. Not sure if you want to stay organic or not, but either way, just suggesting a bit more food. In a side note, I had a bias toward underfertilizing my plants for years. It was a breakthrough when I finally allowed myself to give them enough food.
Ok. I just checked the actual seed pack that I have and it is marked "Riesentomate", even though I'd written Riesentraube in my gardening journal. Somehow I thought I'd requested the other. And I normally pay very close attention to spelling (French Lit/Language major). While I was researching all of my new seed varieties I must've confused the 2--maybe someone who packaged the seeds might've also (with the I before e)? Regardless, I'm still happy to know that I didn't have a mutant tomato, and I'm always happy to try a new variety--I have many many on my list to try.
Beth, who is very thankful for the seeds WinterSown sent her, and who is also thinking of starting to save seeds herself.
Yes, the spelling on the pack is wrong for Reisetomate, but the description is almost correct,But look at the link I gave you for this variety and you'll see that the fruits, not grape shaped, various shapes, actually, are fused to a much larger tomato beneath them.
Hope that helps,
Carolyn, and that's Trudi's packs, not packs sent to her, so she usually has to repack seeds sent to her to put in her packs. Wherever the spelling error occurred, I think you are on the right track now..
Hi Carolyn.
Breeding companies and postdoctoral...? (and I am sure there would be a few home gardeners as well...) I am not aware of all this heirloom tomatoes activity in Israel. Where I live, nobody (I have ran into) has heard of it. I sure hope I can locate these people.
I live in the North of Israel. North of The See of Galilee.
Can't say much about the soil without sounding unintelligent but it is dark, brown, fertile and airy. The weather is hot in summer and we never have frost.
Thanks. Ilan.
Ilan, I'm not suggesting that you try and contact the folks I referred to for they are academic folks doing research and not a source of seeds to the public.
If you don't know anyone in Isreal who has such seeds then I suggest that you order them from perhaps here in the US where there are many companies that do ship almost anywhere but usually have to charge a larger shipping cost..
Are there any special kinds from any special regions that you are looking for?
I can name a few places that have lots of varieties if you want me to.
And if you e-mail me at cmale@aol.com I can tell you even more and perhaps put you in touch with some others from Israel.
Carolyn
I took the challenge - it appears propagating directly in the soil works great (I did not try water as I have had success with other plants propagating in soil mix) - I tried 3 different sizes of suckers - it appears the larger suckers rooted as quickly as the smaller suckers.
I asked this question because I read somewhere that transpiration, the movement of water and nutrients through the vascular system of a tomato plant from the roots to the leaves, was negatively effected by gravity. So I was wondering if you get bigger tomatoes with a plant on the ground rather than up in the air and maybe more as well.
*******
Aha, and you just asked about transpiration again, and now I understand.
Yes, tomato leaves transpire , but that's not connected to gravity, and it's the transpiration of the leaves that's connected to issues having to do with BER ( blossom end rot).
But gravity is not part of that picture of leaf transpiration.
Carolyn
A huge bag of organic potting mix is the ONLY thing I plant tomatoes in. I poke a few holes in the bottom, place the plant in kinda sorta deep, and lean the bags against the sunny patio wall.. At season's end the whole shebang gets heaved into the dumpster-like trash cans we have here. There's no green waste program where I live.
Last year I purchased 9 (20 Gal) Smart pots/bags to grow tomatoes, 4 of them I used myself and the rest went to friends and family. I am no expert and only a 3 year old tomato grower but they did great. Especialy with last summer.
I used 5-1-1 potting mix that I made (you can find it on the container forum). But I highly recomend these bags if you want to grow in containers. I watered them about every 3 days unless it rained and I fertilized with MG water soluble mix about once every 10 days.
I think the bags cost about $10 per piece last year and they are said to last about 3-5 years. I only filled the mixture up to 3/4's due to lack of funds, btu they are huge and I love the advantage how you can move them around.
The photo below is from (July 27th 2013) and had plenty of tomatoes until November in the Philadelphia area Zone.
This year I am using MG Potting mix in 4-5 of them bags and the rest using last years 5-1-1 mix with added Pine bark/perlite and lime and maybe some more peat moss. I am new to this but think it would be a great experiment on which mix works best.
I will post more photos this evening or tommorrow to show progress. Also by the way last year plants in the photo were Rutger's Ramapo F-1 and a 4th of July. l.
Over-watering will dilute the flavor of your tomatoes, though that shouldn't be a problem if the over-watering happens while the fruit are still green.
You can pick the fruit as soon as the color "breaks" (the second stage shown on the charts). Charts of the color development stages of red/pink varieties:
Old version: 
Newer version:
http://www.lagorio.com/assets/pdf/lagorio-tomato-guide.pdf
It's advantageous to pick the fruit soon after color break. For one thing, heavy rains (or manual over-watering) can't affect them (a good thing, as too much water at that stage results in split fruit). Another advantage is that your ripening fruit are safe on your kitchen counter where the bugs, birds, and hungry mammals can't eat/steal/wreck them.
I have seen people cover their beds with newspapers, wouldn't it contaminate soil with leaching ink / lead into the ground? Also, I am assuming same will apply to shredded used papers, advertisement material, etc used as mulch products?
Newspaper ink is no longer a problem because it is derived from vegetables. Dioxins used in the production of paper are so miniscule as to not be a problem either. At least that was what I was told when I worked in the Pulp and Paper industry 20 years ago! I often use newspaper as mulch on my gardens, as well as for making paper pots for my seedlings and do not consider it an issue, although I tend to avoid the shiny stuff that advertisements are sometimes printed on.
Linda