16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

Indoor winter air is usually low in Relative Humidity, whereas a commercial greenhouse is highly humid. So the plants (in commercial greenhouse) do not need those hairs , trying to get moisture to compensate for moisture loss. To me those hairs are similar to thorns grown on some desert vegetation like cacti.
Just my theory.

I like seysonn theory !

And if they don't produce fruit, it doesn't really matter :)

Seriously, she's right. The one does smell different.

The stake fell out of the row of SS100 early on and when we found it, I didn't replace it. I wasn't feeling well yesterday when I finished transplanting and when I yanked them out of the little flat, I realized the stake was loose and didn't know which row it had come from. At first I thought it went with one, but then I thought I could see the indent at the head of the other row. Anyway, that's what happened and the row with the indent seems to be Sungold.

I've been using Peters 20-20-20 on everything. I grew Brandywine, Black Krim, Maskotka and these 2. All new but the SS100 so we'll see.

Diana

Now that this topic is being discussed , I have a related side question:

IF YOU HAD TO GROW JUST ONE OF THE TWO, WHICH ONE WOULD IT BE ?

Poison bait, and traps are the answer I have.

Yeah I was going to suggest that because it shoots out runners like lemon balm. Some times plants can do amazing things. Had a dirty pond, threw some straw on top...clear pond. Had mosquitoes...tossed a shovel full of lemon balm on top and the vampires went away.

I'm on one site right now and it says peppermint oil. They also mention ammonia soaked cloth.

Of course I left out the obvious choice a cat.

That is totally normal.

I agree with edweather, totally normal. Wouldn't worry about it.

I use Miracle Grow Tomato food. 18-18-21 It aslo has copper, manganese, iron and zinc.

You would want to dilute it to no more than 1/4 strength for peppers as they are less tolerant of excess N than tomato plants unless you happened to want giant bushy plants but only a few peppers. :)

But then that strength is also considered very strong for tomatoes too if used full strength. If used in one of their hose end sprayers it is automatically diluted by the sprayer but if mixing it in sprinkling cans or buckets for watering you will need to do the dilutions yourself by cutting the amount per gallon in half or less.

If you explore the many tomato fertilizers available you'll find that most of them are much lower dosage. It is easy to overdose with such strong fertilizers so generally speaking it is better to feed more frequently with well diluted lower doses than only once or twice with very high doses.

Dave

It is quite possible, I think. Find a cherry type that grows long vines. Most cherries do. You can even grow mix color fruiting.

Another thing. Plant them in containers at about chest height level (~4ft from ground). This way you can easily water/maintain them an they will reach the roof much sooner and then continue to run on it.
But one thing to realize that tomatoes are annuals in your zone. You have to start from scratch every year.

I am planting for quality and taste first then growth. I will have 3 boxes with a combination of two in a box. It will be Parks Nectar, Sungold and Sweet Baby Girl. I am considering elevating the boxes. I also have a box with two Sweet Millions and a pot with one Napa Grape. It's too cold to mess around outside right now so will wait a couple of days till it warms up to do some measuring and planning. I've grown tomatoes at various times but never knew much about it except to stick them in the ground.
Several years ago I planted tomatoes in a neighbor ladies garden and kept them well watered and I think she kept them fed. I buried a large fish in between two rows and the tomato plant next to it got over 10 ft tall. All my tomatoes were good but that one was quite a bit taller that the rest. I have no idea what variety they were but not knowing any better I thought that was the norm. I have a picture standing on a step ladder measuring the plant and a picture of her and I holding very large tomatoes. Doing a lot of research on the web. It's a learning process as you have to learn a certain amount so that you can begin to weed out the nonsense. That applies to all subjects. I have also gotten interested in flowers this year and I had some left over Geraniums so I decided I would harvest as many starts from them as possible. 40 so far. I thought it was very easy to start Geraniums but I would check on the web for advice anyway. It was actually comical the advice people were giving. I used a root starter on all clippings and put some in water, some in pots and some stuck in potatoes that I stuck in pots. I ran across a video done by a large production green house where one person might do 4000 plants a day. They simply cut a start, stripped all the leaves but one on top, dipped it in root starter and stuck them in seed starting trays. Nothing serious in my life-just enjoying my last childhood. LOL

This post was edited by growmor on Wed, Apr 30, 14 at 11:44

Yep, that's it. Thanks, and what a relief that my tomatoes aren't in danger.

If you look close at the end of the trail, you can see the criter. If there is a hole in the leaf at the end of the trail, the critter has already pupated and "left the nest".

My two cents: Water them well, making sure to remove excess water after. Do NOT add any more fertilizer. Allow them some time to try to recover from the inconsistent care before you add any other stress.

Good Luck and Good Gardening

ZachS, actually I used the anti-grav machine for a while, but got tired of drying my clothes on the line; they usually end up frozen here in MN. So instead, I've created a mini-star (easily done by initiating a small nuclear reaction inside a gazing ball) and set it below the plants to balance out the light of the sun. Probably too much heat, though...

Dave, yeah, I'm using that's basically mixture I'm using for everything, except more recent batches it's been peat moss (3), perlite (2), miracle-gro organic garden soil (3) + a bit of garden lime & Espoma garden-tone. I cover seeds in soil block divot with vermiculite because I read some positive studies on improved germination rates when seeds were therewith covered (no matter the soil type). Anyway, this is near the basic recipe that came with my soil blocker from Johnny's, similar to the one used by Elliot Coleman I believe. (Oh, also in recent batches, I've been throwing a very small amount of EM1 in, too, just to make sure the beneficial microorganisms outnumber the wicked ones.)

Why do you say highly problematic? Because it's not soiless and thus damping off diseases are more likely? Thus far, all the seedlings apart from the tomatoes appear fairly healthy: cabbages, morning glories, artichokes, potatoes (TPS), asparagus, peppers (pic), hyssop... But perhaps I've just been lucky so far.

lindalana and edweather, I'd use soiless to avoid disease, but I don't want to have to worry about having to fertilize at random times and I don't know how well soil blocks would hold together with a soiless mix. It Would be easier to buy a pre-mixed substrate, but I have more time than money at present and it's cheaper for me to just mix it myself (especially with the 2000~4000 seedlings I have). Plus it really only takes a few minutes. I get about 8 cu ft. (dry mix) for $27. Btw, I cover the seeds with vermiculite, so they have very little resistance pushing up.

2 cu ft perlite: $17
3 cu ft peat moss: $10
3 cu ft compost: free
garden lime: negligible
organic fert: $2

gardener_mary, thanks for the change. Perhaps I'll just water as you suggest and test a bit of fertilizer on a few of the seedlings in another tray. We'll see who looks happier after a week.

Cheers for the advice everyone!

Seysonn....plants don't have intelligence ..
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"intelligence" by conventional definition as if it just belongs to humans. But it has a UNIVERSAL meaning.The thing is that humans are the most intelligent in the animals kingdom. There is different kind of intelligence in the plants kingdom. That is why/how they survive. This subject belong to Natural Philosophy.

I think plants are way smarter than people. At least they're still in The Garden :-)

Here in Georgia we have fortunately not been hit quite as hard as states West of us, though we had some pretty bad thunderstorms this morning. I hope those in areas hardest hit are okay and my prayers are with them. We're just keeping an eye on the weather here because it's not supposed to be over yet and those storms are supposed to head straight our way!

Grace

I saw that NC got hit hard. We're moving there this summer. To the far southeastern part of the state. I'm glad I'm already used to tornadoes, having lived in parts of OK for 13 years. That looked like a monster that hit NC,too.

Can't offer you any comparative measurements as my tomato plants can't even be planted out yet here. So they are all just 8-10" tall transplants living in the greenhouses.

You have several distinct advantages in your climate that most of us in the rest of the country envy on a regular basis. Let's compare notes long about end of July. :)

Dave

I'm actually trying the tomatoes in a place where they say "don't try" or "needs 12 hours direct sun." I have learned that heat matters too though, and the west wall behind the tomatoes has helped in a cool overcast April.

It was mostly 60's and 70's and then BOOM.

Santa Ana winds today and we blasted up to 97 in the sun.

(I found a reference that said tomatoes should "double" in 12 to 15 days. I am at the slow end of that, with about 15. I feel good about that though, given the coastal zone.)

It poisons the soil if you put too much on, that's what it does. Otherwise the idea is that it will improve production. But as stated you don't know if it will help your production or not without at least first having an idea how much phosphorus is in your soil already.

My simplified opinion that few areas do really need phosphate, the problem is in what is in the soil exist in such form that does not release easily into plants so by introducing compost and manure we help phosphate to be released as a plant food. And overabundance can be harmful.
Soil test to be done so areas can be identified that are naturally low in P. Another thing to remember it is not only P that might be a problem but other minerals as well as they have relationship where one wonôt work without another.