16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
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
I've had a lot of the same issues as Tuscon. Lots of growth and few tomatoes. I'm trying yet again this year. I put the Epsom salt, aspirin, and humic acid in a raised bed with good soil. I have the shade cloth ready when it gets time. We will see.
Any other heat Advice is welcome or any other innovations to share. How about hand pollinating somehow during the summer months. I was thinking of keeping one plant in the house so it's cooler and using its pollen for outside tomatoes. Would that work and how to do it?
What other parthenocarpic and tasty varieties are out there?
"I don't care what the plant is labeled"
If you get a healthy strong producing plant that year, you've won the lottery. Then it comes time for the planting the year after that. If your mystery plant is a hybrid your saved seed might not give you the plant you want.
I have a limited amount of room so care very much that each plant produces what I want.
Also, you are against weird DNA. If you have an unlabeled or mislabeled plant, you don't know whose DNA you are getting.
I think it is logical to assume that heat loving plants (such a tomatoes and peppers) to slow down in growth in cooler temperatures. It happens so often when cool spring weather lingers on and the plants(matoe & pepps) do not grow substantially. They seem to be just sitting out there. It is also true for cool crops . Even those grow MUCH slowly when cool fall weather moves in. Right now, my sweet peas have been in emerging state for the past 5 days or so. Had we had warmer weather they could have been an inch tall.
So I think cool air and soil temperatures slow down growth. I could be wrong.
If this is King Umberto/Roi Umberto, yes, I have grown it and if you Google it you'll find it variously described as pink or red, some say a tip at the blossom end, some say not.
There's a huge long thread about it elsewhere but I can't transfer it to here or be possibly banned.
If you Google it you'll also find comments like tough skin, assertive flavor , etc., all to say that it was not a variety I liked very much and no, it wasn't sweet.
Yet others say they like it for sauce.
Until you grow it you won't know if you like it or not.
Carolyn
Many Thanx...already planned on Sweet Million, Suingold, Italian Ice, Choc Cherry and Orange Paruche so one more is no big deal. I give these away along with most of the 60 beefsteak tomatoes that I grow after eating some every single day. I labsolutely gobble tomatoes and love growing them so I take them to my folks who are 90 yrs young, my sisters and the ladies at two local libraries, former work friends, neighbors etc etc. I usually put 8-10 big ones and a sandwich bag full of cherries in a plastic grocery bag and do the gift thing. Maybe 20 times a yr. My wife always canned two canners of tomatoes but after doing three canners of half runner beans on the gas grill side burner I usually don't have the pasazz left to fool with the maters. Like Doby Gray I have drifted far from the subject but I like to talk gardening. Ha Ha
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.
The 1/3 that did not make it have lived for a couple weeks but are deteriorating and dying, I've pulled up a couple that finally keeled over.