16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
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.
Knobby stems may be the result of root initials. Seldom, if ever a problem for the plant.
Stem knobiness can also be due to a whiff of 2,4-D or other broadleaf herbicides of the same group. That said, I don't see the damage that often shows up on the leaves at the same time.
Compost contaminated with long-lasting herbicides such as clopyralid can cause similar symptoms.
Tomatoes are also sensitive to Roundup but the symptoms are different. The new growth at the tips becomes bright yellow.
I don't see any evidence the stem has been chewed.
Any chance of posting more images?
- view of several plants in a row
- view of one entire plant
This post was edited by jean001a on Wed, Aug 7, 13 at 20:46
Jade,
Are you using any manure in your garden? Sometimes farmers spray their hay with a broad-leaf herbicide, the cows eat the hay, and the herbicide is not completely deactivated and remains in the manure. I have read that it can be quite a problem if we buy this manure and plant vegetables in it!
Linda
There is a red submarine, and it is RL. (Which is what your plants in the second picture appear to be, I think Seysonn was looking at the Basil leaves in the background of the first one.) There is also a red pear (haven't grown it) but the pics I have seen of it tend to be more narrow at the top: Red Pear. I've also seen a couple of other tomatoes with Red Pear in the name, but they aren't shaped anything like that, more knapsack shaped.
What you have looks more like red plum, but as Dave said, no way to know for sure.
You may want to contact Seeds of Change and let them know what you are getting, I'm sure they'd like to know. And if anyone else has gotten the wrong type from their SM seeds, they may want to pull the stock of their San Marzano. Of course, you may have just gotten a stray seed. It happens.
Betsy
Here is a link that might be useful: Red Submarine at Tatiana's TomatoBase
This post was edited by bets on Wed, Aug 7, 13 at 15:31
@ ir4ten & Betsy
As Dave mentioned, I also thought that the tomato in question has PL. But since we did not know of a ROMA with PL, then, I looked into other possibilities. I was not sure what color the ripe tomato will turn into, Yellow or red.
It was a 50/50 draw.
Anyway, I searched and came across a CHERRY ROMA, just like in the first photo.
Below is the picture of the Cherry Roma.
Not sure what you mean by "trouble free" tomato plants.
I've never heard of anyone growing tomato plants for their attractiveness. Most grow them for fruit, not eye appeal.
Even the most healthy and pest free plants look pretty ragged by the end of the season.
Dang that looks fine!! Just the thing to go with the grilled pork ribs planned for dinner tonight.
I'd want a twist or 2 of fresh ground pepper on top but then I'm a ground pepper lover.
Ever tried it with some shaved fresh parmesan on top?
Dave
Thanks both of you and thanks again for the support. Parmesan is great on top as well, and another great thing is fresh Mozzerella. I will show you some awesome Italian stuff to do with tomatoes soon. I got to go away on another trip but will be back in a few days and get some more nice photos. I will also have the old lady do a youtube of the old fashion italian recipes with tomatoes.
Also remember you may need to adjust the garlic basil ratio to your taste along with salt.
- Mr Beno
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.