16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

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.

So, if these seeds came from tomatoes that were selected for size then the seeds are stable for size? I had thought most seeds would be fairly stable by F5? Am I wrong?

My neighbor plants late, and doesn't weed, water or feed, then at the end of the year says, looking disappointed, "My garden didn't do much this year." Like he was expecting a miracle. Funny stuff.

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

Hey all,

Posting this on behalf of Mom :)

For my fellow gardeners: Hubby and I just did our own Myth Busting. He gave me a 22" blacklight for my birthday (romantic que no?) because I read that tomato hornworms glow... didn't really believe it but
I had to give it a try. We are here to tell you IT WORKS!!!! Very very cool!

Has anyone seen the flies that lay eggs on the hornworm. I felt so sorry for the worm that I squashed it but I have been encouraging those flies every since. There are u-tube videos that show exactly what I saw. The fly looks like an ordinary big fly or did until I figured out which ones attack the hornworms.

Here is a link that might be useful: trachnid fly

JD's Early black came in earliest at 54 days, and made lots of small (4-6 oz) sweet Black/Red beefsteaks till it shut down in July. Replanted for the fall season and picked my first fall tomato on Tuesday.

Plainsman was new to me this year, I hoped to replace Sioux with a Texas tomato. Three plants made a few tomatoes each and all three died before any of them ripened. Meanwhile Sioux did great, as usual. Will try again one more time but maybe not right away.

Big Dwarf was fair sized and good tasting, but less productive than I had hoped. It will go in a better spot next year.

Cherokee Purple was good despite being uprooted in the garden by a deer, and re-planted late in a too small container to get it out of harms way. It still managed to ripen a few great tasting tomatoes before the heat shut it down.

I grew Tycoon for disease resistance and hybrid vigor and had healthy plants that made a ton of fruit that was not very good to eat at all. They went from green to nearly white as they began to slowly ripen and cook in the sun, after they finally blushed pink it took about two to three weeks for them to turn red, some sat on the counter for several more weeks, but they still never really seemed ripe.

I would still like to find a hybrid red beefsteak for disease resistance and vigor but first it needs to be one that you would want to eat. I'm thinking of trying Big Beef next year and hoping to hear some suggestions.

I am currently enjoying the process of whittling down a long list of new tomatoes to try next year.
I'm also looking for an indeterminate dwarf cherry that tastes great for a container on the deck, and as always, for tomatoes with a Texas heritage to add to my already too long list.

Mike

I'm trying to get a stable OP out of my favourite hybrid, so the majority of my plants this year were the F3 of those. My goal is a 9-ounce(ish), heart-shaped tomato with a complex flavour and enough zing to make your tongue tingly. So far I've just been selecting my best-tasting fruits, but next year I may try a purposeful cross. A few showed up that were really fleshy (like a beefsteak), had great texture, very small locules and good flavour. If I can get that quality crossed with the other, zippier fruits, that'd be great (but I won't sacrifice flavour for the trait). I got a lot of plants/fruits that are on target, so I'm really pleased so far. I also had two friends call me up specifically to gush about the tomatoes (I had given them my extra starts in the spring). That's never happened before! :) As an added bonus, practically all the fruit were able to ripen on the plants outdoors before mid-September - a benefit for our very short season. I've only got a couple of dozen in the house yet ripening up in boxes (we had to get them out of the garden because I was rotating the garlic to that spot, which needed to be planted now).

I also grew Juliet for the kids. They love them (so does hubby), but I don't because the skins are always tough and they're far too sweet.

Lemon Boy was also for the kids; again, too sweet for me. The plant absolutely exploded with so much fruit, though, that the family couldn't keep up, so I've been incorporating a few here and there in sauces. I've still got loads of green fruit on that plant yet. If a person likes sweet yellows, that's certainly a nice one!

San Marzano did well, but I wasn't able to keep up with tying the indeterminates this year. I will grow these again, just to evaluate them when they're properly cared for. They did not to badly considering they were pretty much ignored, though.

Polish Linguisa I want to try again, too. The fruit was lovely, but the plants were pretty wimpy. Perhaps they're just that way or perhaps it was because of the neglect on my part. I want to have a re-try on those.

Roma VF wasn't really worthwhile. The fruit weren't that much larger than Juliet and the flavour wasn't anything special. I'd rather grow the other pastes.

Black Krim finally produced for me this year, but I had to start it much earlier than all the others. It was nice, but had nothing of the "smokey" flavour I always see in its catalogue descriptions. I likely won't grow again.

Dickie,
Where can you find one? Are they near the board stretchers?

Macbettz,

Yep, just down the aisle with the prop wash and sky hooks. *Grin*

"Milorganite seems to have kept the deer at bay"

How does that product keep the deer at bay?

Betsy

Laurel of "Laurel's Heirloom Tomatoes" sells for a lot more than that, about $5.50 per plant~~~~~Plus shipping.

It was worth it to me because of the quality of the plants and She had the varieties I wanted.

Gary

Thank you all for your suggestions! Thanks especially for that link! Helped me with the packing plants part of this venture!

this fall I would take a soil test and send it to the lab asking for recomendation for a vegitable garden. Also tell them how many square feet of garden you have. Follow there recomendation as what your soil needs.

You might want to contact your state extension agent for advices. Most states offer free soil test as well.

Tim

thanks will test it

I think I might have to be on safe side and do cover bags for next year as I grow many varieties at my community garden and we are surrounded by gazillions of other gardeners tomato plants so no saying what is going on. Regarding Garden Peach, I did get different plant from my friendôs saved seed which produced non fuzzy golf ball sized bicolor, nice and tart in taste. I saved those seeds too. T&M Black Russian seed packet produced at least 3 different varieties of the plant, one of them does resemble original picture.

Garden Peach has several subset species being sold under that name by several different vendors. Different sizes, different variations in coloring, although they are all "yellowish" bicolors, and less or more 'fuzz'. It is a good example of the contamination of a variety mentioned above.. Add traders to the mix and the variety purity % falls even more.

And when growing in a community garden - so different from the average home garden - where intensive cropping and cross-wind layouts are common, bagging would be the best bet.

T&M Black Russian seed packet produced at least 3 different varieties of the plant, one of them does resemble original picture.

But do keep in mind that vendors have problems with cross-packet seed contamination. In other words it isn't necessarily cross-pollinated seed but different seeds accidentally included in the same packet. Needless to say some vendors have better controls than others.

Dave

Carolyn,
email sent on Wed. Thank you much!
Ellen

Ellen, I did get your e-mail and will et back to ou when can.

Right now I have several people to get back to, so am behind on e-mails. Then theree's other stuff to deal with here at home like water spouting all over the place in the basement, and with my walker I can't get down there, so I'm glad the Orkin man saw it when he was down there placing mouse traps( smile)

That's just one situation of many that's happening and it makes life interesting.LOL

Thanks in advance for understanding,

Carolyn

makes me feel blessed...as I read that chart north to south!

My tomatoes are worn out. The ones producing are making smaller tomatoes. Bugs and rain and drought and heat have taken a toll. The only thing still going like mad is Matt's Wild Cherry - foliage is pretty little tomatoes are bright red. I predict I will have millions of them next year.

Here is a link that might be useful: investigate and plug in your city

Carolyn - do you mean the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange or School of Earth, Society and the Environment ? Thanks for this info - and thanks too for the info from fcivish - all extremely helpful. I have heard of sweat bees and have seen the tiny things....I'm positive this mess I have is hornets (although I still haven't had time to study the difference between those and wasps - maybe the same animal?) - I haven't seen a bumblebee since I left Illinois - used to have a lot of those there. Never been stung by one and I don't even know if they sting - I have so much to learn. So thanks again.

Westy

I mean Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.

Jeff McCormak was the person who started it but sold it a few years ago. I know Jeff very well and if you were to look at the tomato and pepper offerings I think you'd see that quite a few were from me.

I've linked to the article below so you don't have to go looking for it. There's a wealth of information in that article for anyone interested

Carolyn,

Here is a link that might be useful: SESE article

Agree. The benefits gained by ignoring him are 10x greater than anything he can do now.

Dave

By ignoring him, you won't do much to prevent hornworm problems this. year. But it is already pretty late this year. However, by ignoring him, two things happen. First, since he is parasitized, he will NOT produce offspring to infect your tomatoes next year. Second, you will be producing MORE parasitic wasps in your area for NEXT year, and each parasitic wasp will be available to lay eggs and parasitize a lot MORE hornworms in the future. Hopefully catching all the hornworms early and preventing future cycles of hornworm infestation.