16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

THREE plus years later, BUMP !

I am growing something that I believe is Pineapple.
I got the seeds out of a HEIRLOOM that I bought from store.

Here is a picture. The one that is sliced.

So I am interested in the faith of my plant. But I suspect that it should be fine, otherwise WHY one would grow it commercially.

Seysonn,

I've grown pineapple tomatoes a few times, but that picture could be pineapple or it could be another one of 3 dozen possible varieties, no way to tell from the pic alone.

Slugs usually rasp or scrape... that looks like worm (caterpillar) damage.

These toms were started from seeds indoors as were the basil and marigolds in the same bed. Is the daconil organic? Is there something else I could use, compost tea perhaps, if it is fungal?That is all I'm using thus the neem oil that I sprayed. I haven't seen any slugs and I've been looking, I do have caterpillars and grasshoppers though. The tomato was still attached to the plant and I removed it. I appreciate the replies, thank you.

~Viv

2 plants in the same container is not usually recommended? Even for containers larger than that 1 plant is the norm. What variety are they? That can make a big difference.

Dave

Good luck, Ron.

As I said in my previous post, in Carolinas, GA, weather warms up much faster than here in PNW. I am in zone almost 8 and our LFD was about April 1st, but temperatures are lingering between 39-43 for lows and 53 to 64 for highs. Eg, tomorrow will be 60(day) to 39(night). By next Monday things should improve. My tomatoes have been either planted or are in temp pots outside with no protection. Surprisingly, they have been growing and some have buds/flowers. Not holding my breath but it shows that they are doing ok.

May I am in the central part of the state a bit north of Austin. If the plants are large you most likely get fruit off of them before the heat sets in. Think of the growing season here as two seasons.

Early season is from last frost till the heat kicks into high mercury mode of highs over 95 with lows over 80.

Once the heat gets to triple digit level keep the plants watered. They will survive. If you see them flower just note they may not set fruit. That is normal.

Once the heat breaks the plants will set fruit again. It is just a matter of if they get to fatten up enough before the first frost hits.

If they get to the point that they are full fattened up, but still green. You can harvest those as well. Wrap each one in a sheep of news paper, and put them in a box in a warm dry place. Check on them every few days after a month. You will have some nice ripe red tomatoes in the middle of winter.

If not then fried green tomatoes can be tasty as well.

Thank you guys very much, im very grateful for the feedback. I did stake them and am going to build a tomato cage for them starting this week. I am going to do my best and hopefully ill get some results. A shade cloth does sound like a good idea so i may try that as well. I never really planned on getting giant tomato plants but i think it will be a very interesting learning experience. The only thing i still really have a question on is pesticides and fungicides. Do you use them regularly or only if you see problems? Are there any really good brands to use? Thanks again guys!

Hi Dave, this is the only plant out of 6 with this ailment. All are the same variety and age..The patches look furry to me, then fade as the leaf dies.

Last pic sure looks like powdery mildew to me. Fungus spores are visible. Strip off all affected leaves to help slow the progress.

Treatment is fungicides. There are both organic (copper, sulfur, Neem oil) and synthetic (Daconil) fungicides available.

As to homemade concoctions, some claim a diluted peroxide spray 1 part to 10 parts water will help. Others claim sprays made from baking soda or aspirin also work. Personally I have never found them to be very effective.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Natural fungicides controls

Is Best Boy from Burpee anything like Better Boy, or are they just trying to capture some market share?

My mother grew Big Boy in her open ground garden in zone 4 for decades as her main variety. She never pruned them either or staked em, but she did fertilize the transplant water with MiracleGro and fertilized about half strength when she watered after that. I do not remember her ever having a crop failure with this variety. This was a farm garden and got a good spreader full of raw fertilizer plowed down in the fall. And then was retilled in the spring. It was also a clay based Iowa black dirt that had been garden for decades before I came along too; so it had to be handled carefully especially when wet, but we got very little BER. Try augmenting the soil with dolomite or epsom salts and if you use Peat Moss try switching to Coir for better pH which will help with the calcium and magnesium uptake problems that lead to BER.

I have been very impressed with Burpee's Fourth of July for an early snack tomato and Parks Better Bush ISI (I never saw one plant set so many slicer sized tomatoes - the squirrels around here got em all, too; so I didn't even get a taste test). For heirlooms try Delicious. IMO the Brandywines are over-rated and under productive on top of it. Recipes for cooking squirrel would also be appreciated ... (only about half kidding)

IIRC Burpee started the whole "Boy" line of hybrid beefsteak tomatoes in the first place, I see nothing wrong with them continuing to develop it. Or anybody else either for that matter.

I have several problems with cages. OR to me they have several disadvantages:

----- Good and Functional ones, if you buy them ready made, are expensive.

---- Good and Functional ones if you want to make yourself,require a lot of work (transporting, cutting, forming). If you make them out of PVC, they are made up of so many pieces and fittings, gluing ....

--- Winter storage is yet the biggest disadvantage of cages, unless you have a big barn or something.

They do offer, however, convenience, (once made, or paid for) during the season as compared to staking.

For the reasons above , I prefer staking/weaving combination. It require some extra maintenance work (tying , weaving), but they are easy, to make, cost less and are easy to store( be it wood, Rebar, EMT ..)

YMMV

Whether to stake, cage, trellis or even just let the vines sprawl is a matter of personal preferences and circumstances. Some people enjoy building a cage, others are willing to pay for a ready-made model or spend their time pruning and tying a staked plant. We all also have different space availability, soil, rainfall, wind, temperature, etc. All these things factor into a home gardner's choice of tomato support.

For me, I do find it fun to hunt for material to build different types of cages (and other garden structures like raised beds and trellises). So, this is what I did.

The one important thing is just to have the chosen method work more or less as intended, along with all of the associated costs and benefits, instead of suffering a nasty surprise-- like the support being too small or flimsy for the plant or get blown over by wind due.

Thanks, Linda! To clarify, I'm mostly wondering if that "black mold" (or whatever it is) poses any kind of health risk to the plants or anyone enjoying their future bounty, or if it is simply something benign.

It is basically benign but it still shouldn't be ignored as it is a definitive sign that the soil in the cups is being kept too wet. It is easy to eliminate - and to prevent in the first place - but it poses not long-term threat to the plants. There is more of a threat to them from the overly moist media.

And they definitely need to be transplanted into individual containers before the roots become even more entangles and the transplanting kills them.

Dave

I am able to purchase Neem oil at a local nursery. It's quite expensive. I will probably start with Serenade. Safers also has something for pests, so I'm not sure if I should just get the neem oil to cover both pests and disease.

I will be using Excel LG with Actinovate and molasses as foliar spray. Have some Serenade and Neem oil from last year for couple of applications if needed.

BFT frequently has mild concentric cracking. I just got lucky with the on in the pic.

Interested in the Serbian Heart tomato. The 2011 pics didn't post. Have any new ones? Any seeds for 2014?

If it is a foot tall, there is a decent chance it will grow suckers from the stem and produce new leaves. I have had it happen to tomatoes that got almost killed off by a freeze and I left them in the ground to see if they might come back.

Thanks so much! Actually, I propped up one of the 2 bigger stems left with some leaves still on it, and he's doing fine so far. He's about a foot tall and pretty sturdy, so I do think he'll be okay. :D Thanks again! :)

This post was edited by TomatoMamma on Tue, Apr 22, 14 at 18:33

I grew BR last year and was surprised. The tomato was hardy, prolific and tasted great. The nursery where I obtained the plants grew them out of curiosity and they sold well. My only suggestion is to grow them where no other tomato plant has grown. This is standard advice on any tomato plant! I did not canned but froze instead and they freeze well. They did not seemed to be bothered by insects. I hope the nursery grows them again!

I grew Black Russian last year and had tomatoes about 75 days from planting. I personally did not like it at all. It was very prolific but did not hold up well and it just had no taste or texture compared to black from Tula. I'm not growing it again. Too many better varieties out there.

It is TOO LATE starting from seeds in your zone now. I would suggest that you buy plants. It will take a minimum of 6 weeks for what you may want to start now, to become an 8" plant, that you can buy from any nursery now.
I am in a similar zone (as plant out time is concerned) and I started my seeds back ob 27th of February (9 weeks ago) and have already planted some of them.

seysonn is right. Especially for a plant like Mortgage Lifter, last time I planted ML in the garden it was 110 days and still had no ripe tomatoes. I shoot for early May to plant.