16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
Another Idea:
In the spring time local GW gardeners make and exchange meeting, once or twice and swap plans. It is possible there could be ones who may sell extras that they have. They might not openly advertise it on GW, but if you contact them privately, they might sell you few plants.
You have to take the first step by going to your local/regional forum and try to advocate such a practice.
I have seen that being done around Atlanta, GA.
Araujo's Garden Center is in Dighton, MA about thirty miles south of you. I have been dealing with them for years. They have an extensive collection of both tomato and pepper plants for sale each season. Probably 50 or 60 tomatoes including heirlooms and perhaps 30-40 pepper varieties. I would suggest that you check them out.
You have at least six individual plants in a pot that can support two at best. Did you buy at the end of season, when they have been growing in their cell packs for a little too long and are already on the decline? In my experience, they never recover from their less than ideal start.
17.2 ounces!
Now, it may not sound like a record, BUT it was grown in a 6 gallon (maybe 7, I'm not quite sure) self-watering container on a balcony.
It's Cherokee Purple. The name sounded pretty good when I was picking out a plant at Walmart. If I new it would get to be over 8 ft tall, I would have never bought it. But, for whatever reason, it's deliriously happy, and it's been producing like crazy. The only problem is it's taking up a ton of space on the small balcony. But it's worth it :)
The former USSR is a very large area, Russia now is just one of the manystates in theCIS ( Common Wealth of Independent States)
Tania says it's a commercial variety,so it isn't an heirloom variety growning in a particular place.
The streets of Yalta are lined with PalmTrees, while the long summer days in Siberia allow for growing many varieties that do well everywhere,not just in cool areas.
All to say,I wouldn't assume that varieties from the former USSR, or even from the state of Russia, are cool weather varieties. ( smile)
Carolyn
yep, familiar with above, am transplant too LOL
Someone in similar by weather area to Chicago, i.e. Ukraine, Ivano Frankivsk, reports that it is quite popular and well loved tomato midseason 110-120 days from seed start, indet. Other sites list it as OP.
Well then, how about this one. I had a unknown variety of tomato I had seed saved for 2 seasons. It was a volunteer when I decided to grow it next season. It grew short 4 feet tall both years and had small baseball sized irregularshaped pink fruit. It set easy and had clusters of 7 flowers. I looked forward to growing it this year and when it grew out I was shocked to find these. now I got these, and the plant is 7' tall with over 60 set fruit. I was racking my brain as to what happened and I had a cherry last season 15 feet away. I am thinking the 7ft is hybrid vigor. They are structured inside like a cherry. They almost remind me of a campari. I dunno but they taste GREAT.
Carolyn:
The Sweetie I grew is this one from Burpee. Quote:
Tomato, Sweetie Organic
Deliciously sweet. Perfect for salads.
Bite-sized tomatoes, deliciously sweet, are produced on vigorous plants. Fruits are good size for eating out of hand, or for salads. Indeterminate. Certified Organic Seed.
Days to Maturity: 65-70 days
Height: 48-60 inches
Spread: 36 inches
- Just remove ALL the yellowed leaves, with holes, damages.
- Whiteflies are similar to aphids. an naturally they are WHITE !
- I would remove any yellow and/or suspicious and be on the look out for recurrence. Such leave harbor diseases and are just burden on the plant. No reason to baby them.
I think a picture of the whole plants can help. One bad leaf here and there often is not important.
You have partially answered your question.
NO stake, No Cage, the plant is low and its roots are shaded and cool.and the branched are all clumped together.
When you stake(also do some pruning ?) the ground around the stem, over the roots is open and probably not shaded. So the soil dries up faster and gets warmer. The remedy is simple: MULCH, MULCH, MULCH.
The wilting after few cloudy days, when it gets warm and sunny, is a normal reaction. As long as the soil is moist there is nothing to worry about. Just keep waterin on schedule. DO NOT WATER because you seed them (POOR THING ! ! ) are wilting.
Dave:
Thanks for your input. Had I thought more about it I probably should have figured it out on my own. But, I didn't. I have had blossom-drop before but never to the extent this year. Looking at my plants now I see there are hardly any tomatoes at all on the bottom of the plants and all the new ones are coming on the top. I still have not seen much pollen but it has to be there since I am getting tomatoes. The weather this year where I live has been horrific. Thanks again.
Well, I have seen some improvements over the years, such as :
1- Edit Function: Help to go back, correct your typos, add, subtract etc.
2- Single Photo Upload from your PC. This is also very good. I am too lazy to go to another site back and forth. I WISH this feature were expanded to more than a Single photo, tho .
"Also there is no quote facility here."
Copy and paste still works. (grin) Stick a quotation mark at the beginning and end and Viola! you have a quote. Some people set the quote apart from their reply with a line of dashes, periods or asterisks. Others, like me, use some simple HTML coding to italicize, bold or color their quotes.
Forums that have the quote feature are the lazy persons way out and so often you have to wade through a long repeat of a post or posts because someone didn't edit out the non-relavant material to get to the meat of what someone was replying to.
Just my personal preference. But then I am an old coder (not codger) from the days when web pages were written with HTML tags in a text editor and viewed with a browser before uploading to the web.
Yeah, I did that, once upon a time....
Betsy
LATEST SECRET to prevent BER !*/&^??:)D
I have read this recently that POSSIBLY magnesium (Epsom Salt) can help tomato plant to uptake Calcium.
But to veryfy this one has to do it early in the season, just before transplanting. Say, take two spots with Epsom salt, two spots without. Plant your worst BER friendly tomatoes in there (like Roma !!) and collect data.
To me, it has to do something with the soil pH/chemistry. Some varieties have a very narrow tolerance range. Then when the soil temperature may also play a role. Isn't that why BER stops after a while ?
I thing the Epsom salt therapy is worth experimenting and it has no bad side effects on the plants and the gardener. hehe
I mentioned Epsom Salts in my long post earlier in this thread.
It's of use only if the soil is too acidic to allow for uptake of soil Ca++ b/c it raises the pH.
But again,getting Ca++ into the plant does not ensure that BER will not occur b'c of all the other variables I also mentioned in that post,such as all thestresses that plants have to deal with and which can cause maldistribution within theplant.
Leaf transpiration is also an issue and that's related to ambient temps and humidity.
So yes,there are two reasons that no Ca++ is available to the plant,one is that the soil is too acidic,and the other oneis where there is no Ca++ in the soil.
And both conditions are quite rare indeed.
And getting Ca++ into the plant does not ensure that BER will not appear.
Carolyn
I find a long, dry, heat wave can cause it. I noticed it last year with out drought and this year when we had a week or two that were pretty steamy.
Last year, once the temps dropped, the new tomatoes didnt have the tough skins. So, I do think as weather improves, you will notice a difference.
I find a long, dry, heat wave can cause it.
*********************
Make good sense.
It is a defensive mechanism to reduce evaporation and retain moisture. It is also in general true about a lot of leafy veggies that tend to get tough for the the same reasons.
Possible powdery mildew -- but I'm uncertain. Where do you live in zone 10?
I live in San Diego, near the water. It hasn't been over 80 degrees yet, and the nights don't get below 60.