16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
OK:
I have my tomatoes in the beds at about one foot tall. This year I've raised the beds much less than before (4" above grade with dimensions of 40" wide and 30 feet long). The beds have been double tilled down to a depth of 24". At this time soil sulfur and all purpose triple 15 fertilizer were incorporated to the same depth. This area was fallow for approximately 2 months.
The entire surface was, spread with 3-6" of well rotted manure and roto-tilled to a depth of 8". When marking out the beds,(immediately after roto-tilling) several pounds of Bone Meal were added along with an additional dressing of triple 15. Beds were well watered and allowed to partially dry out for a month before planting.
The beds are completely mulched with a layer of alfalfa as has been done for the previous 3 seasons of plantings. I have 3 drip lines the length of the 30' bed. The irrigation lines are : embedded emitters at 6” spacing 1/4” brown drip line from DIG Corp with a flow rate of .52 GPH @ 15 PSI and .65 @ 25 PSI (product copy from the Drip Store's web page).
http://www.dripirrigation.com/drip_irrigation_categories/90/drip_irrigation_parts/830
I staggered the 10 plants so there is a minimum of 40" between each plant. I will cage them when they need support. The varieties are: Sioux, Delicious, Violaceum Krypni-Rozo, Matina, Super San Marzano, Super Italian Paste
These plants are buried with 3-5" of main stem in the earth. The placement involved digging out a 12" diameter X 8" deep hole. At the very bottom was a triple 9 mixed in with the soil. Then a layer of soil free of fertilizer. The remaining area was filled in around the plant with a mixture of existing soil mixed with a small amount of rotted chicken manure and compost. The top 2" of soil out to a distance of about 12" was dressed with a timed release balanced NPK fertilizer.
The bed is in full sun. NO tomatoes in this area for 3 years. Last year's plantings consisted of radishes and carrots. Previous to that; garlic. I have two more beds ready to receive 2 more rows of tomatoes. The first of these next plantings will be at the end of March.
I hope all of you are moving forward in your gardening lives.
I have my tomatoes in the beds at about one foot tall. ..
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That is great. Well, you are in zone 9, SoCal , of course.
The way you've described your soil prep., sounds exceptionally good. ..24" deep, with all the amendments and nutrients.
About 900 miles up north in Seattle, WA, I am 2 to 3 weeks away from plant out. Maybe longer.
Good luck to you all !
Inside the seed there is very little substance. A little bit of a plant (embryo), and mostly endosperm. The endosperm serves no function beyond germination, so, if the seed germinates, then the endosperm will have no effect on plant vigor beyond that whether it be a 10 week or 10 year old seed.
Other then environment, the only determining factor in plant vigor would be genetics. During dormancy, genetic material is somewhat damaged, however, within cells there are enzymes which actually repair damaged DNA! In a seed cell, all functions, including enzymatic activity are held in a (nearly) suspended animation until seed dormancy is broken. One of the first things that happens is the enzymes go to work repairing the genetic material. If the DNA is so damaged that the cell can not repair it, it goes into cell suicide (apoptosis, programmed cell death). If enough of the genetic material is irreparable, we would not see any germination. If the damage is reparable, then normal cell life continues, assuming favorable growing conditions. I think, overall, aside from germination rate, seed age will not have any significant effect on overall plant health and/or vigor.
I just germinated 2006 seeds which were partially eaten by some mice I assume as friend who gave them to me at my request, told me. They went as gangbusters and plenty of life in those seeds that did not get destroyed.
Seed that takes forever to germinate has something lacking in it to function properly so out of entire batch you might get one or two plants that will be robust but rest will need lots of TLC. Since lots depends on care seedling receive I think you still can have nice harvest, just might need more work or will have to cull more seedlings to leave your with most lively one.
Well, Sereginy means that someone grown them in their garden for while and orignal name is lost, so they have been shared under the name of person. I planted some as well although it is one of the packets that did not get good germination for me. Since it tested by Tatiana I am expecting it to be exactly what they are, older OP with excellent taste.
I have also planted Mikhalych and Petrovich which seems to have same way of neighbor sharing with neighbor origin.
If the plants are nice and big, they may have survived. Last year our first freeze hit in mid September, and was probably around the same temps as you had, maybe a couple degrees either way. Nevertheless, I did not cover my tomatoes at all. The leaves on the very top and on the outside edges were burned, but the rest were untouched. I didn't get any more production (it was the end of the season) but the plants themselves lived for a good while longer.
I live in the hot and humid Ms. Delta and grow my tomatoes from seed. I only pot up once to 4 inch pots. Plant seed on Valentines Day and pot up first or second week of March. They go in greenhouse and I try to keep the night temp above 40 degrees. I try to plant to garden first or second week of April. That depends on the weather. If I have to hold the plants longer because of weather conditions the plants sometimes get to be 12" or larger in the 4" pots. I don't think I have ever had root bound plants. I have planted both horizontally and vertically. I find that planting vertically works best for me. I try to get the roots down as far as possible removing all but the top leaves. I think that deep planting keeps the roots cooler in our hot early summers.
"Just think about the advanced growth potted tomato plants that you see available in certain stores for a premium price. Those plants often have green fruit already hanging on them."
Tomato plants have a juvenile phase and a reproductive phase. Once the plant transitions from juvenile, it never goes back. This is critically important because a tomato plant grows fastest while it is still juvenile. Once the first flowers form, the transition to reproductive phase limits further growth. Why is this important? The biggest plants produce the most tomatoes! You don't get the biggest plants when you buy those "premium price" plants that already have tomatoes on them. So feel free to pay that premium price and harvest 1/4 as many tomatoes as I get setting out my 6 to 8 inch seedlings.
There is a caveat to the above. If you are gardening in a seasonally limited area, growing plants in large containers and then setting them out in the garden will advance your season. It is important when doing this to keep the plant growing vigorously and don't let it set flowers. If this is done properly, even very long season varieties can be grown in short season areas and production will rival anything growers in other climes can do.
As I have written on my website, the mantra of the tomato grower should be "Small but Healthy!"
Another question is, "How many hours of light and how many hours of darkness do tomato plants need?" And I'm not sure of the answer for that.
Though tomatoes are C3 plants, they apparently do need SOME period of darkness to be healthy. I have seen pictures of tomato plants that were grown under 24 hours of light with no darkness and they weren't healthy. BUT, I don't know the complete answer to that one.
If you plan to grow tomatoes under artificial lights, it would be good to research the optimal period of light and darkness.
It doesn't have to be labor intensive. I grow hot peppers and determinate tomatoes from fall until I begin getting fruit from my summer garden. A table, gallon jugs with the tops cut off and a south facing window. I pollinate with a finger tip. They do get light when the overhead light is on in the room but that is inconsequential. If there was much cost or effort involved I wouldn't bother. For support I've used the same wooden rods that were left over from a woodworking project for years. Some die before the end of the indoor growing season but never without providing some fruit first.
That's interesting Seysonn. While most people I talked to said there is no such thing as too much light, some others suggested that light was the culprit. Good to know that moving the lights up a bit helped you.
My pepper seedlings also had purple leaf undersides last year, but not as severe as the tomatoes, and they did not have any curling. I also suspected that heat from the lights may have played a role, but the air temperature under the lights was only 73ðF. This year I'll set the new bright lights about 4" above the seedling tops and start them out at 12 hours until they develop true leaves, and then gradually increase the light time to 16 hrs.
TomNJ/VA
I think, from what I have learned, plants need a limited amount of TOTAL light for their photosynthesis. Beyond that amount the light has no benefit and in the case of seedling and in the case long sunny summer days, excess light can be stressful.
Most would think that tomatoes would need lots of light, the more light the better. I DON"T THINKS SO. Tomatoes are partial sun, partial shade plants, I read a comment here not too long ago, somebody quoting a German gardener as saying that We consider tomatoes shade plants. There is some truth to that statement.
I have grown tomatoes withe 5 to 7 hours direct sun for years fairly successfully. My point was/is that PROBABLY (?!) 16 hours of light is excessive. !0 hours should be enough. People have grown seedlings on window sills with about 8 hours (+/-) for centuries. JMO
I have a long growing season, almost year round. I started my tomatoes back in December and have started more every few weeks to the present. I hope to avoid the crush of tomatoes all at one time. Typically my nights stay cool until August so this should be a good plan.
I have done late season planting from cuttings when I was gardening back in GA, where we had fairly long season(7 + months) and a lot of those planted in the spring would get worn out and tired.
it takes Tomatoes anywhere from 9o days to 120 days from sowing seeds to first ripe fruit.(or about 60 to 90 days from transplanting). Then they continue another 2 -2.5 months, So that is fine if you have about 5 to 6 months growing season.
Ok, I can get some clues from the leaves of some. For example, How many Potato Leave you had in that mix tray and how many RL. If one tray is all the same there will either all RL or PL.
Silvery Fir Tree, You can tell it from a mile. I happened to to have just one seedling (18 days old) myself. I can easily tel which one it is without looking into the tag. It has sharp teethed small lobes.
Not sure on the leaves of the other kinds, like I said, I'm not too worked up about those, Ill find out which is which by the time the season ends haha. Good to know it will be easy to tell the SFT though, since that's the only one not going in the ground.
One of my 2013 tomato plants survived the winter (so far) in the house. It kept giving me fruit until mid-January but now the plant looks like crap, so I plan to take cuttings and root them as "new" plants in a few weeks. But, Jeff, if your last year's plants still look good, it might be fun to see how well they do in their second year. If you try it, please keep us updated about how it goes.
Regarding 2 plants to a pot, I've grown different varieties of semi-determinates, with mid-sized fruit, in 3.5 gallon pots a few times. They aren't as productive per plant as if they each got their own pot, but I'm a seed saver and I like getting the greater genetic diversity from double planting in my limited space. I actually prefer to use larger pots if I'm double planting, however, because all of the moisture in the smaller pots can get used up with extreme speed on hot summer days, so it's harder to keep the plants from dehydrating to death, since I haven't gotten around to using self-watering containers yet.
No, wherever I posted about it and I checked two places, one is not operating right now, I didn't say it was the not the right Humberto/King Humberto/Rey Humberto. Since the person asking was thee same as you, free seeds from TT.
All places selling it say about two ounces and high yielding and refer to Italy
and I threw up a bunch of links showing that some places say pink, others red, some say a point at the blossom end, others not, some say tough skins, others don't say that b'c they are selling seeds.
I've grown it as I also commented and found the skins to be tough, the taste not all that great, and Tania and others also say best for sauce, canning, but not fresh eating.
I can't transfer here any threads from another message site to here, not just me, anyone, as most of you know, but I can put a link below to a Google search for it.
Carolyn, who doesn't know the other variety you mentioned and didn't search for it.
Here is a link that might be useful: King Humberto
Sorry, Caroline. Didn't mean to put words in your fingers. The other thread just led me to believe the oldest known description and image of the "real" Umberto did not agree all that well with the current offerings.
I think Joe Lauerer came from the same source as Terhune. At least that's what I recall. It is also called German Egg sometimes. It, too, is no great shakes for taste, but two years ago when I had a really, really bad tomato year it was the only plant that kept going, so it endeared itself to me. Also, one of the grankids and his mother liked it a lot. They didn't have a lot to compare it with as that was the only plant I gave them, but as Grandpa I am required to listen to the kiddies. This year they will get at least those two plants and probably a Sungold.
Chuck
Lucille,
thank you. some of those plants reached 10 feet tall !!!!!
the trellis you see in the pic is just over 7 feet.
tjinpgh,
I love the idea of adding an additional row. for the past 3 years I've reserved the back row just for vertical gardening (tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelons, beans & peas). i'll be constructing an additional box 12" wide x 48" long x 12" deep and placing it behind the trellis just for my verticals.
so now with my 3 existing raised beds I've opened up 12 squares!!!!!!! sweet!!!!!! and doing so I can now plant some bush type tomatoes as you mentioned.
I actually just saw a video of someone who did this. I couldn't figure it out until I saw what he did. For what is worth, his plants look pretty healthy and productive to me. Here's a link. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jc6_ATF4lp4
Here is a link that might be useful: Tomatoes in square foot garden
Hybrid tomatoes!!!!!
They might be tasty, who knows?
(Yes, I've had tomato seeds sprout inside a tomato too.)
Linda