16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

Yes, taste is very subjective, and you will no doubt get a myriad of answers.

Having said that, on your list, I have tasted Sungold, Yellow Pear, Rutgers, Marglobe, Big Rainbow, Brandywine, Gold Cherry, and Delicious. Of these, the only ones I find worth mentioning in terms of "best tasting" are Brandywine, Rutgers, and Sungold.

I haven't tasted many on your list but I have tasted:

Sungold Hybrid
Yellow Pear
Rutgers
Brandywine Pink

I think yellow pear is very boring and bland. Sungold is good in my opinion, but my household and neighbors would tell you there are divine! Do you have kids? If so, plant the sungold for sure...they love them! Rutgers is a flavorful canner type and it is a pretty reliable tomato, lots of people I know grow them every year, and Pink Brandywine is very, very good. I grow it every year.

Hope this helps :)
Lindsey

PS - I have two sets (4 bulbs) of grow lights. 2 "blue" and 2 "yellow" to hit both sides of the spectrum above and below green. I keep them on 18 hours a day. The tomatoes are fine, but the peppers are getting a little leggy. It's still not enough light... It is very difficult to simulate the sun in light intensity. IMO.

Look really dry to me. I keep my starting mix moist. You're not growing cactus. Give them some water.

Potting mix and seed-starting mix are not the same.

No they are not, but they have very similar ingredients. You could make both at half the price you would If you bought a bag of it

Daniel - just followed the 2011 link and there's a couple
of pictures missing.

Thank you Daniel. Your trellis looks great although it is not the one I am looking for. If I had more space, yours would be "the one" !!

Spots aren't really any big deal, they happen for all kinds of reasons and 99 out of 100 of those reasons are no threat to the plant.

I'd be more concerned about the crispy edges of the leaves in the pics. That can indicate fertilizer over-dose and/or salt build up in the soil - which can also be white spot related.

So what is the mix they are in and what and how often have you been feeding them?

Dave

Johnny's Organic mix. I feed once every two weeks with diluted fish emulsion (1 T per gallon of water to all my seedlings).

I tried an experiment cutting back on watering this year, where I was bottom watering deeply twice a week only. The salt build up in the soil rings true simply because there may not be enough additional waterings to dilute?

The other 5 varieties of tomatoes aren't affected.

I will suspend all fertilizer and water alone from now on - but they only have a week and a half left of hardening off. We are going to transplant the weekend of the 27th.

Thanks for all the input! I am doing 1/2 in the bed and 1/2 in the buckets. this will help me compare.

Niallalea,
I'm in San Jose, CA. I have never grown tomatoes before, so I couldn't compare. But I had great luck. I have almost too much sun and some of the fruit seemed to get burned or bleached. My raised bed is in a little less intense area of the yard. Here is a picture of the home bucket garden! I used 1/2 potting mix and 1/2 manure compost, some fertilizing on a regular basis with fish emulsion and ? I think something else, cannot remember. I had tomatoes through to November almost.

That is a nice setup!! And some nice looking plants! That's exactly what I want to do with some of mine. I was trying to decide between SWC buckets and ones placed on the ground - I read the ones with ground contact are more forgiving because they act more like raised beds. I think I will try it, since I'm gonna have more plants than beds. :)

I have not used the 200 cell plug trays, but I wouldn't worry about root damage since transplanting and damaging the intitial roots encourages the growth of a stronger root system. (See number 8 in the link below.)

I hope that helps.

Betsy

Here is a link that might be useful: How do I start tomatoes from seed?

weirdtrev, you may also find that some roots have grown into adjacent cells.

When they're particularly stubborn, I push up from the bottom of the cell, though I'm sure that's not good for the plastic.

For the first time last year, I used Texas Tomato Cages in 25-gallon Smart Pots, and didn't prune. It worked very well. Here are a couple photos. Mortgage Lifter-Estler's at front left, Earl's Faux at front, right. Behind them are Kosovo, Omar's Lebanese, Cherokee Purple, and Goose Creek. All except the Omar's Lebanese (a complete dud in my garden) produced very well. I had less disease than when I used stakes. By final harvest in September, most had climbed over the top of the 6-foot cages and were a couple feet on they're way back down.

Three weeks from planting out, June 8, 2012:

Six weeks from planting out, July 1, 2012 (Mortgage Lifter in forefront):

Here's how I do it. Just PVC. Cuts and handles easily.

They disassemble and you can store them in a a very small space.

Follow the link for full instructions.

Here is a link that might be useful: QA_Guy's PVC cage page

Old fogy here and yes the aspirin claim has been around forever it seems like lots of old gar-an-teed to work myths.

Ranks right down there with putting TUMS, egg shells, a dead fish, or any one of a hundred other weird things into the hole IMO.

Have grown thousands of tomato plants in over 50 years of gardening and not one of them needed an aspirin.

Dave

yeah but what about the Gardner Dave?, ---doesn't your arthritis ever "Kick up"?

Gary

In zone 9 you are probably ok and shouldn't have to replant. Those day time highs will warm the soil well and the ground won't cool off that fast. But when the night temps fall to that low you might want to cover them. No lower than 50 is considered the ideal minimum.

Dave

Thank you for your help I went out and covered them just now. It was fairly easy. They are in two 4' by 8' by 2 foot high raised beds that I built this year.