16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

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

Of course! They are clones of the original plant.

Linda

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.

Thanks for all the input. The transpiration thing came from a research paper I reviewed awhile back. Thanks again.

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.

Or do I just need more patience?<?i>

9 times out of 10 - yes. :)

Dave

>> 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

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.

Yeah I agree that raised rows (aka wide-row gardening) dries out faster but not that much faster. As drmbear said if you are using the soil surface as the indicator for watering then you are over-watering.

I use a soaker hose under heavy mulch on my 3' wide raised rows and once every 7-10 days is plenty for them even in my much warmer and drier climate here.

Please give some thought to modifying your watering regimen.

Dave

Nitrogen level at any given time depends on organic mater one used for the soil, i.e. compost, manure etc and its processing. What I am looking in the plant is a color of green, i.e. green and green is different. Ability to branch out and grow well, push those sideshoots plenty and multiple- that is all telling me I have plenty of nitrogen supply. Generally if I apply good compost- manure either in the fall or early spring, there will be plenty of nitrogen in the soil for plants. Ability of plant to use it generally is not a problem, it is other components and minerals that often are not presented in the form plant can use, even if they are present in the soil. Famous Ca comes to mind.
As for liquid ferts, I recently switched to Urban Texas tomato fertilizer and All purpose TF. When you go on tomato- veggie forum and it has a lot of rave reviews from unedited posters, you know you got a winner.

I would use some fabric ( like cheese cloth ) instead things like masking tape.

i recently broke 2 plants
a jackfruit seedling, and a passionflower vine.

both were near the base.
i used duck tape, and both grew back strong as ever, with a bulge where the break was.

i dont see why a tomato would be different
if anything, tomatoes would be more forgiving than a tropical fruit.

it did seem to take th passionfruit a couple of weeks with no growth, but that could have been due to weather as well...

Thank you for that awesome information.

The instructions on the seeds packets and web sites that sell this variety say that this doesn't need staking. I'm not staking mine. Do you think that information is true?

Yes I find they benefit from at least minimal staking as the weight of the fruit as it develops can break branches.

Dave

I think that you have just been lucky. In my experience, cutworms spend daylight hours under the soil surface, and they do their surface cutting at night. Birds don't get a chance to see and eat them.

I use plastic rings cut out of soda or water bottles. The rings are about 1.5" high, and there is a vertical cut through the ring so it can be placed around the stem. I try to push the ring into the soil about 1/4".

Prior to planting out tomatoes, peppers, etc , I plant radishes throughout the area. They are a quick, early crop but many get hit by the cutworms. Where I find a cut radish, I scratch around in to soil until I find the cutworm and squish it. I still get plenty of radishes, and most of the cutworms have been eliminated by the time that I plant the other crops.

Dave, thanks for mentioning the fact that the cutworms have to encircle the stem to be able to start gnawing, b/c I didn't get a chance to do that last night.

Martha,again, good to see you and IMO any kind of collars, yogurt cups and similar are not effective b'c the cutworms can still crawl up under them.

I always used sturdy twigs, most of the time from last years Queen Annes Lace plants that were around and it did help/

For those who say that this or that worked, remember that there are those years when there are NO cutworms around so you can 't say that this or that method worked.

The best prevention of all is to raise plants that have sturdy stems,plants that have been grown slow and cool.The cutworms prefer to go after wimpy stemmed plants first b/c those are the ones they can encircle the easiest. .

Carolyn

The growing medium is a mixture of 2 soils from my local nursery. Here are the descriptions:

Garden Mix Soil
This soil blend is ideal for a new garden. Lots of organic materials and nutrients makes it great for vegetable and flower gardens. This soil has a compost base and is blended with some sand. No green waste is used - less weeds & less problems!

Organic Garden Mix
Premium organic top soil containing fish meal, ultra-kelp, worm castings, alfalfa, composted fine bark, mushroom manure, and sourced low silt sand. Great for edible gardens and rejuvenating poor soils.

I bought half cubic yard of each and mixed the two for my garden this year. The wood is part of the medium as I did not add any mulch myself.

And yes, the tomatoes are in a container - 1 plant in each. I attached a picture of the planter. It is partially full of plastic bottles at the bottom (lined with landscape fabric) as I did not want to fill the entire planter with soil. I read Tiny Tims were good candidates for containers.

I transplanted them outside around the 2nd-3rd week of May.

They are situated on a south facing deck and gets sun for majority of the day.

Here is a link that might be useful:

They look fine to me. I would not worry too much.
Depending on the lighting and the camera, they look a bit on the pale side to me.
Have you been fertilizing them ?
I think they can use a round of a liquid fertilizer.
Some times no matter how good and rich a garden soil might be, it can be lacking certain nutrients.