16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
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.
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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.
>> To be precise, mature tomato plants probably can't get too much sun, but they can get too much heat and humidity that causes them to languish, stop producing, and sometimes die.
I'm in an extreme area with no humidity and high heat, and the tomatoes here in full all-day-long sun have smaller fruit, more splits, don't get as red, and don't get as sweet. Mine tend to have huge root systems so that might be the reason for no drooping.
And just an observation; I didn't learn from last year...
If they weren't properly hardened off first then yes they can get too much sun. Exposure to full sun for plants grown indoors (regardless of the window) has to be gradual over several days. Move them to the shade and over 5-6 days slowly increase their sun exposure.
Dave
My guess would be more likely groundhogs or rabbits. Hard for squirrel to reach 12" up and while I have lots of squirrels they don't bother the plants until there is fruit on them. Deer eat the tops off the plants not the lower ones,
Are the branches left there or are they gone or partially eaten?
Dave
Where are you located? I see a little browing on the edges of the leaves, but otherwise it looks ok. How big is the container? And I agree, the cage looks a little weak. Trimming/pruning is up to you. I don't, but some do. BTW it looks a bit leggy, is it getting enough sun?
This post was edited by edweather on Tue, Jun 10, 14 at 13:04
Hey everyone thanks for your input. I am in Massachusetts and the container is a 1foot by 1 foot container. I know we have had a few days of 80 degrees dropping to 50 at night but it does get sun most of the day. Should I maybe try a bigger container? Thank you again.
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.