16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
I think Tania or someone from a cold area said that tomatoes are grown in greenhouses in cold areas. So a tomato from British Columbia, for example, may not be really adapted to a cool area. I look at the posts of people from Texas to get ideas for tomatoes that can take the heat, but I know they start their tomatoes early and try to get them producing before the heat gets too bad. To me it seems it would be faster to grow many different tomatoes and then come up with a list of those that like your conditions. There was another fellow on here I think he was from zone 4. He was trying to develop a tomato for his conditions. He got into a little trouble here for calling paste tomatoes flawed and rejects, but they were rejects for his particular climate. He sounded like he was trying to do what you are doing. The description for Barlow Japanese says the original tomato was weak and this man selected the strongest plants and developed that variety. Who knows it is was mutations or crosses that caused the improvement.
Thank you for sharing information!
my thoughts... life of tree or animal is far longer than annual tomato, and for warmer climate they can even get spring and fall gathering so selection over time by growing conditions etc happens much faster for tomatoes, while it is not done in a year or two, if it takes only 6 years to stabilize new variety why not think that within same genotype selection by phenotype for most vigorous, best productive, tastiest etc does not happen at same rate?
BTW regarding cold tolerance I.B. Michurin who was crossing cold tolerant varieties with distant ¨tender¨ varieties noted that providing such crosses with rich humucy soil was detrimental to crosses and decreased their cold tolerance. I think he even had to move his entire operation to different area with more harsh conditions to get his crosses to retain cold tolerant qualities...
It has been long time since I studied genetics and botany though...
I agree with qaguy, chicken wire would be too large, and unless you covered it completely(no opening in the top) I don't think you can prevent the moths from laying their eggs on your plants. The good news is they are one of the easiest garden pests to get rid of (often done for you by parasitic wasps) and as long as you check your garden often you should be fine.
I actually think hornworms are neat-looking and the moths they become are actually very pretty :-)
Many tomato diseases are regional, so I'm not going to comment until you share with us , just roughly, in a geographic sense where you garden and a gardening zone would sure help.
I first checked Your Page for your location since none was given next to your user name, but no info was there either.
Carolyn, going on an assumption of possible S CA coastal.
Thanks. Good advice. There has been plenty of applied compost and dug-in mulch over the years, so I think I'm OK. Also, as noted, these tomatoes at this location produce strongly in the spring. I've just never tried going for fall production.
I'm in SoCal and have heard about late crops in my
area too. I've tried a few times, but never have gotten
anything worth the effort to keep the plants going.
I do manage to keep them going through late Sep, but
it's fruit that set earlier in the year, not new fruit set.
I'm currently building a new raised bed, so healthy or even diseased plants will be put on the bottom under cardboard. So I have no worries about any fungal spores splashing up onto next years plants. And a couple years down the road, the plants can take advantage of the compost. I also add coffee and filters, and various other waste plant material, leaves, shells, rinds, sticks etc. Leaves are always shredded, although that matters little 12 inches down at bottom of raised bed. I have 5 raised beds I did this too, and it's working really well My 6th bed is for beans, at least next year. I guess the technique I use is very similar to lasagna gardening techniques.
In the furure I will bury waste deep in beds as mentioned by others in this thread. Keeping soil rich is a constant effort. Currently I need to wait till beds compost what's there now, it will take a bit.
I am in a different climate, SandraInSpain, and I hope you get some ideas from our Texas/Arizona gardeners. My climate is very much like the mountaneous north of yours (like in Burgos :o).
My grandmother was from Texas and raised a family in Oklahoma and New Mexico. She grew and liked Porter tomatoes. There are other, much more modern, varieties that I have not grown but Porter takes our arid, sunny summers here very well.
Thessaloniki is another heirloom tomato that I grow. As you can tell by the name, it was originally from Greece. It does just fine.
Growing advice? Keep the soil moist. Maybe afternoon shade would help.
Steve
Perhaps you can do two planting : One very early spring, as early as possible(say late March ). This way you will needs real nice size seedling (nursery grown or your own indoor grown). You should start picking ripe tomatoes around mid June(depends on variety). Then start another planting, like in late June-early july to bear fruits late summer and early fall.
That is how some gardeners do in Florida(USA). When the summer highs hit 38C(100F) most tomato plants either slow down quite a bit or even shut down production.
And I think DETERMINAT varieties are better for you.
Well blight is a fungus, so I suppose it possible spores could remain on the cage. Both options could damage metal, but not that much. Use mulch next year to keep soil spashes down. I use pine hay, as I have an unlimited supply. Works well for gardens and pots.
I don't know what you mean by blight. People use that word to describe all sorts of fungal and bacterial diseases that effect tomatoes. It looks like you're in Illinois, and according to USAblight.org, there were no reports of late blight in your area, so it's unlikely to be that. It's more likely alternaria, sometimes called Early Blight. You might want to read the other thread on this forum called Spray regime for tomatoes. There's a long passage copied from Dr. Carolyn Male that describes the different tomato diseases.
On your specific question, most tomato diseases cannot survive winter on a tomato cage. To be safe, you could wipe down your cages with soapy water or diluted (10-1) bleach or vinegar. But don't risk hurting yourself with straight bleach or fire.
Saood,
Winter growing sounds like it will work well! Tomatoes grow very well in the heat, but will not produce flowers. I think yours will considering time of year. 86 degrees is when it is too hot for flowers for most tomatoes, some exceptions exist. They might not need shade cloth, and once temps drop below 86, flowers and fruit will form. Often if they have fruit when temps go up, they go into stasis, not producing more flowers, but will once temps drop. I would experiment and try one under the cloth, one without. Although again the winter temps are not that extreme.
From what you say, it might be best to grow plants to fruit in January. You could do this if you grow from seed. I guess about right now is when you would start. Many seed exchanges exist, I'm sure many would send you seeds.
With tomatoes, their are a bunch of small seed sellers. Often promoting their own varieties. All the plants you mention can be grown by seed. Cucumbers are super easy! Direct sow. Other tomato forums exist, but are not allowed to be mentioned here. One is great with advice, vendors, recipes, it's very cool.
Thanks Drew
Yes. I bought some seeds also and they have germinated also. Now I am stuck with how to care for them when I have no grow light and appropriate arrangement of provide them a closer florescent light.
Thanks anyways for your advice. Appreciate it a lot.
I got curious and did some investigating on Tania's Tomatobase to see what other designations she used in the Variety type info. I randomly looked at a bunch of different tomatoes and came up with these. There may be more.
Variety type:
commercial
heirloom
created heirloom
family heirloom
hybrid
off type, stabilized accidental cross
off type, unknown
open-pollinated
open-pollinated, commercial
open-pollinated, de-hybridized
open-pollinated, heirloom
open-pollinated, stabilized accidental cross
unstable segregation line
And sometimes she leaves Variety Type blank for those tomatoes with only partial information available.
When I see the combined terms, it looks to me like she is using it as for added info on tomato origins, and not necessarily as a descriptor for the current state of the seeds. So you would have to check any further grow out notes to discover the current state of F generation of the seeds.
I would be confident that any seeds she sells would be quite stable and I would think growing two plants would be sufficient - to compare the two, as well to have a back up plant in case one did not do well.
Thanks for answers!
I am not questioning quality or info at the least, my interest rather theoretical on what to do on my end.
Am firmly in with my Russian seeds too LOL some of them my parents used to grow so hoping for same...
This post was edited by lindalana on Fri, Oct 4, 13 at 14:09
Welcome to the forum. It appears you just joined GW.
There are FAQ short articles in many forums, including this one. A second way of gathering info about a certain sub-topic would be to Search the existing hundreds of posts. There is even a forum devoted to Computer Help.
Sometimes I jump outside GW for a minute before returning. Check a spelling, or look up a short article.
Our purpose is to exchange info and help others. Sometimes we can be a bit curt when a new person asks a question that is often asked (and has a number of threads or post already going on). It is a good idea to look thru the existing posts before asking a question.
More often than not, when a new person asks a question on a subject they are not familiar with, there is not enough info supplied to answer the question. Even if you had supplied a photo of the plant and tomato, your question could probably not have been answered.
I'm in Ontario too, and most of the red tomatoes are at least starting to turn by now ... it's been a tough year for tomatoes here though, and there are lots of green ones.
When I grow green-when-ripe varieties, there seem to be 2 ways to tell if it is ripe. The first is what others mentioned here, by touch. They do feel differently, like a ripe red tomato just without the colour. Also, lots of green-when-ripe tomatoes don't end up being bright green. I find that a lot of them get a bit of a yellow-ish tinge or a creamy tinge when they are truly ripe. Not all varieties, but lots. So you can go out there are take a look at them.
Northern Ontario, depending on how north you go, canbe difficult to ripen long season red tomatoes, or hot peppers, any veggies that need a long growing season :) I know, from experience! If they are completely green, and supposed to turn red, you should start looking for recipes for green tomatoes (there are some good ones). If they are starting to turn colour but not completely red, you can try bringing them inside (before the first frost hits them) and try to finish ripening them on your windowsill.
Congrats on finding a vegetable garden in your new home! That's quite a bonus! Probably has pretty good soil in those areas too, and next year you can choose your own varieties to plant!
Add Actinovate to your Agri-Fos/Exel LG and you will have a systemic and contact fungicide that will control a lot of fungal /bacteria types. Actinovate is a organic product to go along with your bio-friendly Agri-Fos/Exel LG which is phosphorous Acid.
Preventive spraying is the key as once the plants get infected disease is hard to eradicate.
I have never container planted tomatoes but judging from how deep and wide they grow(I just pull few off them few days ago), I can tell that their roots will not grow much deeper than a foot. and will not spread in an area more than 3 sqr-ft. So planting in a bigger container(trash can ?) may not have the pay off. Actually it may have negative effect, by growing a more than needed roots and a lot of foliage. Keep in mind that tomato is an annual and lasts just one season.
Tomato plants can grow roots that are 5 - 6 feet in length. I just finished breaking down my garden and did a study on root size. My German Johnson(indeterminate heirloom) had roots that extended well beyond a foot (depth). It also exceeded 8 ft. in height Also, a few of my plants in 5 gallon buckets had roots growing thru the holes and when measured were 2 feet+ in length. I also want to add that all of my plants were in excellent organic soil with plenty of nutrients. The roots obviously IMO weren't searching for nutrients.
I have grown san marzano redorta 3 years in a row. Great success. Great sauce tomato. I have had good success with seeds from Gray Isbin, Tomato growers supply and from seeds of Italy. You may have had some weather related problems with the cool spring and all the rain up there. Give it another try!
crazyoldgoose in Md
I grew San Marzano Redorta for the first time this year. I haven't grown others of its general type so don't have much for comparison but I like it well enough.
It was a little surprising that the fruits fall off at the slightest touch if it has even a modest blush.
"They were most definitely aphids"
Yeah probably an aphid that is immune to the toxin. I would think water wash would be too difficult to do on delicate tomato leaves. Maybe a garlic solution, or summer oil, or insecticidal soap, all of which should not bother beneficial insects.
Yeah we had a lot of rain, and fungal diseases were all over. I lost one plant of 6. But harvest has been good. Jasper f1 is an excellent cherry and didn't catch any diseases in a very bad environment this year. They taste great, super sweet. I will grow these again.
i did not read all the comments but i just wanted to say that YELLOW LOWER LEAVES, FALLING LEAVES are often associated with the potted plants of various kinds. It is just the plants mechanism to maximize its resources. In that respect , lower leaves do not make a significant contribution to the plant. So they are aborted.
Why The Leaves/Plant Yellow ?
The answer in "too much water.
Because the container plants need to be watered more often, the nutrients are leached out by watering. You add too much rain on top of that, the matter can get worse. That is why you have to feed container plant almost every time you water, BUT with a VERY WEAK solution (say 1/4 of normal recommendation)
With extremely small containers when the plant becomes rout bound, in effect one is growing hydroponically.
JoeOrganic,
I love cheap too, but I also know value. Value in the fact that better seedling growth in the early stages can make a big difference. The 2 foot - 4 lamp fixture I use is ideal, and I've seen the best small plants take off and become my best in terms of yield, and so I would recommend something, or exactly like in the link below.
Here is a link that might be useful: ebay seller 99% positive results
In agreement with simmran ,
It is all about time and your efforts that both are so much more valuable than 30, 40 bucks. By starting from seeds we aim to extend our season and beat the mother nature at her own game.
Of course, another alternative is to buy established seedlings when the time comes to plant. But it would be even more costly AND you may not be able to find a variety that you are interested in. That is exactly the reason I want to start from seed. I will also implement some purchases of the ordinary varieties.