16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
Is this a gmo variety?
Here is a link that might be useful: Lionel Standish Records
I just stumbled upon this thread and had to pitch in: one of my sweet 100 cherry tomato plants grew to over 20 feet tall, produced over 1000 tomatoes for a total weight of over 40 pounds. Yes, 40 pounds out of a single vine! Im saving the seeds from that plant for next season!
Full disclosure: this plant grew in full sun, southern exposure, was fed lots of organic chicken compost pellets and was trained vertically up a wire. Zip ties are also your best friend.
It occupied about 2.5 square feet of spaceI love growing things vertically :)
Khaled
The problem with any covering is that when it rains the humidity (dampness) is still causing fruits to split. I am growing all of my cherry varieties under plastic and I even use an inner dripless plastic layer but under high humidity conditions the fruits still get wet.
One thing I didn't mention earlier has to do with your picking manner. If you pick in such a way as to keep the fruit stem attached you will notice less splitting as a result and followup to picking. Picking may take a little longer since the tendency with cherry types is to grab a cluster at a time to speedup the picking process.
Yesterday was probably my last picking for the season and I was surprised at the late season yield as well as flavor of my cherry/grape varieties but all fruits were still wet at noon when I picked. Pouring each gallon picked over a cloth helped to dry the tomatoes and I didn't put more than 3 gallons in any carrier so the fruits would be allowed to dry more quickly. I pick out all visibly cracked fruits immediately and most often eat quite a few as I pick. Cracked fruits are just not marketable but I will continue to grow crack prone varieties, including SunGold, SunSugar, Black Cherry and even newer AAS winner Jasper (highly prone to cracking) b/c individual tastes varry and I have a great market for those varieties.
bmoser (above) has some good ideas. We also grow for market, and it helps to keep the stem on as well to pick a day or two earlier, especially if the forecast calls for rain. They're picked into baskets lined with dry paper towels.
Any 'splitters' that don't get eaten immediately are run through the dehydrator, and those dried ones are quite a treat.
Lee
When you compare prices of the suggested methods you may as well go the extra mile for a few dollars more and setup a greenhouse. The greenhouse arches provide the overhead support at less cost than the cattle panels and they give you many more options. I'm not going to include pictures of a gothic greenhouse frame although I've posted many. Once you have overhead support simple stringlines will work for tomatoes, one per plant, even if your plants grow over 20 ft. tall as many of my cherry varieties do in a season. You just need to wrap enough extra twine on a tomahook so that you can lower the plant stems as they tomatoes grow. Keep in mind that greenhouse arches are galvanized steel and will outlast rusting panels by 50 years. If you decide to cover the arches with plastic you can also extend your growing season by at least a few months and pay for the greenhouse in just a few years.
Just drive through the countryside and see what systems neighboring farmers are using. I know that in the farming regions of PA you'll see greenhouses standing on many roadsides. Surprisingly many who have them are not using the framework as support for the plants within.
I would like to know how to build a green house for the cost of cattle panels. The cattle panels last a long time, before they start rusting. And plastic does not last forever here in ks winds.
I use hoop houses, but very little of it is for tomatoes. Nothing is like a traditionally grown tomato, if you have the growing season. Some folks use hoop houses for tomatoes here. They are the ones with tomatoes left at the end of the market day.
I do agree that you should look at what your neighbors , and what experienced farmers are doing. Just don't be afraid to think for yourself. Most folks use cages here, cuz that what has always been used.
Soil temperature is also a factor. But in early spring (past LF date) soil temp should be much higher than night lows. Average ground temp (few feet below) range 55F to 65F. But when the air temps are in 40s or lower, the soil will cool off. This is especially the case with narrow raised beds, that cool down deeper than flat ground bed. To help this situation plastic covers can be useful for a while.
We have also tried circulating warm water through tubing in the soil. A 4x8 solar panel will easily heat a 10x20 foot bed. Some of our earliest tomatoes go out in those areas. Landscape cloth really raises the soil temperature as well.
Here is one of our fields the winter before last. The tomato plants are underneath the cones.
Lee
Ohio, I define what many call DTM's, as follows:
Early, 55 to 65 days
Midseason 65 to 80 days
Late season , more than 80 days,
There are those seasons when my late seasonones have ripened before the midseason ones and the mid season ones before the early ones, that's all about the variables I mentioned above.
So no one should pay attention to a DTM of say 75 days, for instance, b/c that's kind of ridiculous IMO.
I list ML in my book and call it late midseason, and that's the Radiator Charlie one.
I just looked in one of my SSE YEarbooks and for both Estler and Radiator Charlie, the DTM's given are from 80 to 85 days and that depends on where a person gardens, in a geograpic sense and what specific year it was grown, which is not given since many SSE listers keep listing the same as long as they have viable seeds to fill requests with.
Carolyn
Sorry if you thought I was discriminating against market growers. What I meant was that nothing is lost by someone trying a new method on a few plants.
I know market growers make more money by extending the season, but they need to know what they are doing. As you described there are many details to be considered.
In my experience, if shortly after plant out you get temperatures in 70(day) 50(night) range or higher, seedling size is not going to make much difference. Say, one seeding is 10 weeks old the other is 5 week old((exact same variety)) the difference in having ripe fruit is NOT going to be 5 weeks, but probably about 2 weeks. A lot of us get satisfaction from that 2 weeks difference too.
Can you give them partial shade? What color are the pots? Do you have any mulch on the top of the soil? You want to do everything you can to keep them as cool as possible. When it gets hot here tomatoes don't set fruit. Some varieties will produce better in heat than others.
Perhaps your plants have more leaves and are bigger now and the leaves are losing moisture faster than the roots can take it in. I am not a botanist so that may not be what happens. I know many plants wilt in the hot parts of the day even though they don't need water and will recover when it cools off in the evening.
I am not familiar with your climate. Tomato growers in hot climates here try to grow tomatoes early in spring and get their production before the worst heat of the summer. People in different climates have to adjust in many ways to get a crop at the best possible time. Perhaps your university has information about the best varieties and best times there.
I know this is an OLD thread, but:
I'm having the same problem, late ripening. I got my FIRST tomatoes in LATE August, and I STILL have more than 1/2 the fruit on the vine, with about 4 just about ripe right now, NOVEMBER 10th, with most of the ripe fruit I got in October. Any clues?
DTM (Days to Maturity) is a pretty good yard stick. Though not an exact number. Then comes the plant out date, seedling size.
So if you plant a tomato with a DTM of 90 and get a lot of bad weather , you might end up having a ripe tomato after 100 or more days. So if you plant in May 25, you will have to wait til the end of August and maybe in September. No surprise there.
About BER and egg shell:
It amazes me when I read that some people add egg shell to remedy BER. Egg shell will take months if not years to break down and release calcium. To me thinking that adding egg shells can cure BER is mythical. Calcium deficiency and BER is just a theory not substantiated.
OK. FORGET THE LAST SEASON. What are you plans for 2014? Think about DTM, extending you season , do early varieties. ( I am just reminding myself LOL).
I have already decided to scratch out two: Brandywine and Black Krim. Add Mortgage Lifter and Cherokee Purple plus few determinats and early varieties.
Thank you! those are good questions and it is a bit of experiment for me. Weather is still quite nice, we have occasional light frost in the mornings but days and most nights are good. I think we will still have 4 weeks of growing easily before growth stops and cold sets in. I will have to figure out exactly how village does its tilling as they are doing it with big machine, I would assume they do not remove èweedsè and just plow them under but have to check
Very good kOticc... good selection there.
I have not done much container gardening. But I intend to do some, mostly smaller pepper plants. That is why I have been a regular over "Container Gardening" forum, trying to educate myself.
Most difficult part of container gardening is managing WATER and FERTILIZER. This is especially true with some of the potting mixes discussed in that forum. (Like 5. 1. 1). Those mixes are unknown territories to me. They all seem to be TOO WELL drained and thus not having storage capability for water and the nutrients. But I will experiment with them the next season.
Container size is yet another issue. But I think for annual plants like matoes, pepps, it is not crucial if they get root bound by the end of season. Container size becomes a player for perennial plants.
lindalana, you make it sound so easy lol.
I will be using a mix based on Al's 5-1-1 mix. I haven't figured out what will work best but I'd rather start will a very well draining mix and go from there.
I am trying to do all this organically, and the consensus seems to be using larger containers will help keep temp and moisture more consistent (and therefore more likely to keep those soil critters more consistent). I already have that thread going so I won't go more into that.
I have done germinating/ starting from seed indoor a couple of times.
heat mat is not an absolute MUST HAVE. And it is needed just for germinating. From there on tomato seedlings will need light, in the right amount.
Also, tomato seedlings are fairly fast growing(as compared to peppers). So, depending on your indoor resource , you have to start it NOT too early. 6 to 8 weeks before plant out time is mostly recommended.
As far as your main question, I don't think there is much difference. All mato seedlings, IMO, need fair amount of light.
Hi. I found this impressively broad website looking for an answer to, essentially, your question, though several months have passed since your May post..it's early November 2013.
I live on the central coast, CA. I also live near Safeway, go daily. I love tomatoes, eat them every day. I sure wish they tasted like they used to, I'm always filled with hope.
Recently some very large gorgeous tomatoes appeared in Safeway produce department among the regulars. Large, round, great genuine color, well-defined round ridges on top like a painting done of them 100 years ago. I bought two.
They were tasty. A real taste, a good tomato. I repeated that three days running now. And without fail they ALL HAVE WOODEN CORES!
It's not just a pluck-offable top green stem. It's wood pulp and extends inside the tomato a bit, enough so you find it by surprise and have to spit it out as if you'd found a pit.
The tomatoes have stickers which read KALIROY (Mexico) with a bar code. I looked up the brand.
KALIROY (Mexican company headed by Eduardo De La Vega) has offices in Nogales, Arizona. They just signed a partnership with PACIFIC TOMATO GROWERS LTD in Palmetto, Florida. They launched in October. They grow open field vine-ripe, greenhouse, vine-ripe Romas, and vine-ripe grape. Their fields and greenhouses are in Guadalajara and Culican, Mexico.
I don't know about the other varieties but these big round beauties ALL HAVE WOODEN CORES!!
Both the Florida and Mexican companies are big enterprises around a long time. I have no idea about either of them or why the wooden cores are popping up in their tomatoes and nobody on the internet seems to have addressed this but you.
So there it is. If you find out more, I hope you'll post it. And maybe writing to the company would provide info.
I wondered if it was because of some structure they were grown on, or stretched up something, or a hybrid, or forced for production that alters the stem. No idea.
Here is a link that might be useful: The Hawks Perch - Expressionist Art
I live in Malaysia. Penang to be precise. I have had exuberant and heavy fruiting with tomatoes in my hydroponic system. The plants weren't hybrids, just grown from seeds obtained form supermarket tomatoes. So, I believe the weather in Malaysia is not the limiting factor at all. I have since moved over to organic gardening after developing a phobia for the possibly high nitrite/nitrate content of hydroponic produce.
I have just prepared my tomato bed, digging/loosening the soil about a foot deep and adding topsoil, home-made compost,dolomite,MgSO4,Rock Phosphate,fish meal,soya meal,legume green manure crop. (can anyone suggest anything more?). pH 6.8. It has been sitting there for about 6 weeks now while the tomato plants are growing in their grow-bags. I have been fertilizing them with fish emulsion (Oh! the pong). Incidentally I have sent a sample of the fish emulsion for culture to exclude E.coli and other pathogens, as it smells exactly like sewerage. Hope to transplant this weekend. Planning to plant them deep and at an angle of about 30 degrees as I understand that it will help the entire submerged stem to send out roots giving the plant more vigour. I have seen my hydroponic tomatoes grow tons of roots and the fruit production appeared to be proportional to the root system. Just an experiment. I will only post a picture if I get heavy fruiting not otherwise!
Any pictures of your seedlings?
pH of 6.8 is almost perfect for all garden vegetables, including tomatoes.
Back in USA we, add compost, composted manures(horse, cow..) to condition the garden soil, as well as fertilizes it.
Take it easy with fertilizing. Read more about it. You want to get tomatoes not a lot of lush green top.
good luck !