16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
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.
Some of the people growing these seeds are now calling them Bigger Zac. As the records of what came from where and growers naming their new seeds after themselves, it is becoming impossible to tell what came from where. I have been growing some of these plants and I must say they continue to look like BZ tomatowise although some of the plants themselves are smaller with smaller root systems. It is interesting. There are seeds now that seem to be stabilized with nice plants and big tomatoes and solid records of what came from where but this is looking like the exception rather than the rule. Pumpkin growers who are growing these Big Zac offshoots are not bothering to keep good records and so the future of these seeds is not all that clear to me. Very confusing and probably not of much interest to most.
John, I find it very difficult ( impossible?) to ID any variety just with a picture and especially if the seeds were acquired in a trade.
What you do show is PL foliage, which is correct, I can't estimate fruit size, they should be in the one # range, the color and shape is about right and there should be 2-3 fruits in a cluster, which I can't see either.
So your call on this one. ( smile).
For those wondering why I was asked the question:
http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Brandywine,_OTV_(Off_The_Vine)
Carolyn
I agree, Ed.
It is weird how little time folks spend on their tomatoes late in the season. Makes no sense. If anything, backyard tomato growers should be spending MORE time trying to coax extra out of their plants. After all, the stores and markets are not offering any tomatoes that taste good later in the season.
So it makes sense to grow at least some cherry toms, and to water them faithfully, at a minimum.
UPDATE:
Here at the PNW, although our first frost might be quite away, but the temperaturea have cooled down to the point that life for tomato plants have become an struggle. Our next 5 days forecasts call for HIGHs under 60F and lows 45 t0 50F.
Even with rigorous pruning since August, I have some green maters (not a whole lot tho). From this point on nothing on tomato plans is going to grow, maybe some might turn color.
So, the decision to control new growth and flowering since about mid August turned out to be the right practices and the simple math behind it proved to be correct.
Lets hear how are you doing , Up there, Over there, ..way up north ..??
We are a little warmer than you - which surprises me. Some highs in the 60's, but more often in the 70's, with lows from mid 40's to mid 50's. I think the plants are slowing down now, but September has been the big harvest month. I have been processing (par-boiling/peeling & freezing) 30-50 tomatoes a week all month. (from only 8 plants)
I am finally starting to see some late blight or a fungus of some sort on the plants, but I suspect the frost will get them before that does.
A few of the plants still have a couple of dozen tomatoes trying to ripen, a couple of them only have a few fruit left. I have been to busy to be as compulsive about continued pruning, but at this point the plants are putting out so little new growth that it isnt an issue.
The Prudens Purple has been putting out beautiful big delicious tomatoes, I am eating most of those and freezing everything else.
I feel good about the decision to keep the new growth pruned - I'll do it again next year.
Since you are just starting out and don't have the experience to accurately calculate your overhead and shipping costs yet, not to mention all the other problems that arise, have you considered the option of just exploring local distribution for the first few years? You can always get into regional or nationwide marketing in a couple of years.
If you are only doing 2000 plants then that number is easy to market locally through local distributor contracts and personal sales and results in a much higher profit margin.
Dave
What kind of tomatoes sell best?
Round and red...
...unless your customers know something about heirloom tomatoes.
If I were to recommend just one heirloom/OP tomato it would be Eva Purple Ball. It has no weird shape, or color, or size, to discourage a customer. It's just a smooth, round, mid-sized, pink tomato, with excellent flavor.
Gary
I don't know about virus, but most tomato diseases are air borne, like E.Blight, L.Blight, Mildew. So composting should not be a problem.
But how about virus ?
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.