16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

Billyoscar: I've seen this kind of health in my garden in the woods in northern Minnesota (my home). Wonder where I could find half rotten logs or pieces of the forest floor here in Colorado. We have a trailer so we could go dig up chunks of forest floor if I just knew where to be able to go dig. I was so lucky to be living on forested land years ago.

Westy

1. Set the mouse traps early
2. You can grow productive tomatoes in containers as small as 1 gallon as long as they are drip irrigated.
3. Don't pick a fight with nature - you will lose.

I always use my Back to Basics Processor and make tomato juice. I use whatever's on the counter at the time. I reduce it down and add a little bit of canning salt (the recommended amount for canning) and sometimes a touch of sugar. When I've reduced it by ~40 %, I put it in quart jars and can it. Later in the winter, I can use that extra thick juice to make all kinds of things from picante and salsa to soups, stews, ketchup, or whatever trips my trigger.

Years of trying to do whole or chunked tomatoes just didn't work out. If all else fails, I also love tomato juice that has that taste of fresh from the garden.

Ted

In average, tomatoes are 90% water. Part of the remaining 10% consist of SEEDs , SKIN and bad pulp.
So in effect, a can of tomato paste is reduce by more than 80%.
Spaghetti sauce is reduced my more than 60%.

Reducing above percentages by boiling is both TIME and ENERGY consuming. There is a much simple method:

1- wash them
2- smash them and blend with stick/hand blender(in the same pot). Until fine pree.
3- Strain through a Jap/chinese rice strainer. You will get the skin, seeds, hard pulp out.
4- pour the strained must/puree into a a bag(made of fine woven fabric, cotton or nylon) and tighten its mouth.
5- Like making cheese, put some weight on it. You should see almost clear water with a little color coming out.
6- when it is reduced to the thickness that you wanted,, empty it to a pot, cook a little bit and can it.
7- use the juice as drink, make soups, ..etc.

I meant to mention that they are in the ground. I will cut down on watering. Thanks!

Not the right thread, but do you know if you can do the same for pumpkins? I have them in with my tomatoes in the same plot.

Another point is that, tomatoes can stay in green/growth stage for a LONG time(40 day ?). with large fruits it can even take longer. So, if there have bee new sets(late comers) , it will take them a while to grow and ripen.

And yet another point: In zone 5, CO, if the wether has been cooling off, it will slow down both growth and ripening.

The other point, already mentioned, is that if you fertilized with nitrogen rich stuff, the plant will concentrate on foiliage growth.
JMO.

i don't grow in a greenhouse,i live in northern alberta and my tomatoes are red and the plants are over 7 feet.no fertilizer,just rain

My brother told me he had tomatoes in Dallas that he kept alive during the scorching months, and they didn't start to fruit until the weather cooled.

I've had the opposite situation, weather wise. I'm in northern MN. Our temps stayed in the 60's and 70's for most of July. As soon as the weather warmed, my plants began to really take off. Now they all have gorgeous fruit and some are still blooming.

This image is the best I can get at the moment. The plant usually sits on a window ledge where the sun gets its all day. I water it every few days and use tomato feed once a week. I'm not sure what kind it is as I was given them by an acquittance I am no longer in contact with. As you can see its starting to grow a bit wild. Lol.

I think Jean probably has the correct diagnosis, but can't tell for sure since we don't have a closeup. If it were early blight there would be watery looking brown spots on the leaves and stems and even the fruit would be affected.

If it is strictly a watering issue, just get the watering and feeding back to normal and the plants should put out new leaves. You season is long enough that it should be useful. Of course if you prefer, you can dispose of the plants since I think some people in your zone plant a late crop? (Not sure about that, we don't have that option here in Idaho.)

At any rate, if you water them and feed them as one normally does for tomatoes in pots, the fruit on the plant would have a chance to ripen.

I hope that helps.

Betsy

Did your neighbor water the soil, or water the top of the plants?

My neighbor watered the tops of his plants. I told him that spreads the blights at a much faster rate than if water was applied at the soil. Most of his plants were brown in July.

Dave said it all.
In MO and many other places, fertilizing tomatoes at this time is not going to do much good. Remember that most nutrients stick around for quite a while , if planted in the ground. Exception might be the Nitrogen but you don't need that now anyway.

Seysonn:

You don't think there is any chance that a indeterminate cherry tomato might benefit from fertilizer this late in the season?

I have not used fertilizer on my tomatoes past the month of August, but mainly out of laziness. I usually get cherry tomatoes thru the end of October. State of Missouri.

I have several tomatoes in a hugelkultur bed and still got late blight infections on the plants.

Though truthfully I doubt anything other than physical isolation could stop a late blight infection. It's like Ebola, only for tomatoes, and spread by air currents!

CH

Back on the subjec: Effects of rotten log:

I think most organic matter can play similar role. Instead of a rotten log you can bury lots of coarse compost , mixed with some peat moss, underneath the top 8 inch standard soil. It will play similar role. The root system can grow much easily in that medium than in a compacted medium. The same idea is applied in soil less potting mixes that provide a fluffy ,less compact medium.

TY for that info, seysonn. I'd hate to ruin them after all the work and love I've put into them.

S....actually, my Cherokee Purples have had no radial cracks at all. For me, they are a better quality fruit.

Sorry for double post but here is the evidence of them birds. I taped a few hours of it but this video is only about 17 minutes long. The sound is kind of dull because my GoPro camera had the the full housing on it.

Sorry for lack of music and sound but thought it was interesting when I placed them CD's up and awaiting the bird netting ect... The camera was rolling with out anyone on it, just placed next to one of my other plants for a few hours.

Thanks again all,

- Mr Beno

Here is a link that might be useful: Watch them birds fly near my garden

This post was edited by thebutcher on Sun, Aug 25, 13 at 19:30

No luck this time but this can be a good thing. The battery cut out after 40 min and no birds, it should of lasted for about 2 hours but I forgot to charge it all the way. Anyway I made this out of a red cup with ductape and put my trusty old Gopro up. I was trying to think that the birds would fly around the red cup

Tomorrow I will do the other direction and make it spin more. Knock on wood though no new pecks in the new maters I pulled off today, so maybe those CD's are really helping a lot? lol

Edit: on Bird net, I jut got it today and will do it in a few days for added protection. So now I got the water pan out, CD's reflecting and gona try to find that reflective tape as well.

This post was edited by thebutcher on Thu, Aug 29, 13 at 19:07

Joe, mine are pretty much goners as we had so much rain in the last month it was impossible to keep up with spraying. And now we are away for a week. Would like to hear how this milk treatment does for you. I had not heard of spraying with a milk solution.
Jennie

Update: Returned home today. I am almost positive this is Septoria Leaf Spot as the dark spots have grey centers and the fruit are unaffected. If it were bacterial Spot the fruit would be affected. And the hybrids finally succumbed to it also. I have quit spraying as it is too far gone, but I am not pulling the plants yet hoping some of the green tomatoes start to blush. I can't complain, I have had the best year in five years! We froze, ate, gave away and still couldn't keep up with the production. First year doing containers and I am a convert!
Jennie

I can't tell you about the 90+ heat as Bonnie claims. We have barely been in to the 90's a few days this year. We are usually having 100+ heat in July and August.

A lot of nights have dipped in to the mid 50's and it has been cloudy and/or raining almost all day every day.

It was planted later than my other tomatoes and has just gotten started fruit wise. The plant is still small, only 2' tall.

It is a thicker skinned fruit, but I don't mind that, more fiber! ;)

I'm just happy to get some tomatoes with some taste this year.

My tomatoes have been crappy taste wise this year.

This was like that first tomato from the garden after eating the fake tomatoes all winter from the grocery store.

If you like Phoenix, try Florida 91. It is a "sister" variety to Phoenix. We have over 250 of these plants growing and harvesting from for the late summer/early fall. I like their predictability and uniformity. We harvest after they start to blush/about half red. I know that when we do this, take inside to our storage area, they will be bright beautiful red in 1.5 to 2 days. Then they will hold at that bright red for another 3 to 5 days without any loss in quality.

We grow these plants outside and inside high tunnels and both are performing wonderfully!

Here is a picture of some Florida 91's that we had at our December Farmers Market several years ago. Most were picked at blushing to green the week before the market. They were grown in our high tunnel.

Enjoy,

Jay

All sorts of issues can cause lesions/blotches on stems besides Late Blight. No reason to just jump to the worst possible conclusion just based on that one symptom. Especially when LB is the least common of the possible causes.

Dave.

If you scraped the stem lesions a week ago, but the plants are still alive, it's not late blight.

Please post pictures.