16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

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.

Appreciate the answers. I have a large, sunny area inside with grow lights,etc., that run up to 18 hours/day for my plants when weather is poor. I already assist with pollination of my container citrus trees. Even though the tomato plant will likely die this winter, I'm still going to try. - can't hurt.

I routinely grow cherry tomatoes up chicken wire trellis, in summer temperatures that are over 100F for several weeks. Never any problem. In fact, the wire intercepts very little sunlight, so it won't get any hotter than the air. The air temperature is what determines the wire temperature. Also never had any problem with the wire cutting the vines.

I believe that floral wire is of the same gauge as the lightweight chicken wire I use, so support is unlikely to be a problem. Don't try it with pumpkins, but cherries are fine.

Definitely get a better light source on those babies. 4' shop lights are a good bang for the buck. Agree that it's too early to set out, and they need to be hardened off first.

Potting up will take care of those long stems. Use a larger pot and place it so that the stem is covered with soil leaving only the top leaves above the soil. Roots will grow along the covered stem. Then put them closer to your light. It will look like you have started over again but you will have stronger plants to set out later. If you don't use a fan tweak the plants a few times each day to help build up stem strength.

Harden off slowly then you can take them outside and inside as temps indicate until you can plant them.

carolyn, the biggest question in my mind is what happens to the plants vining habbit? will det/indet give favor to the bush traits or will the plants be more prone to vining? essentially, what genes will prosper over the other? also, i'm alright on that link, thank you. i also ferment my tomato seeds with great success; but if you'd like, you can still post it for others to see in the future. it's relevant to the thread.

I like your answer mule..

"As one gets into other generations they will segregate out between det and indet. The intermediate types should eventually disappear."

this is very interesting. why do you think (or know) that the vining traits will disappear?

why do you think (or know) that the vining traits will disappear?

Mule didn't say the indeterminate vining traits would disappear. He said the intermediate (the mixed middle) ones will disappear. The pure lines will sort out.into determinate or indeterminate.

The reason - the basic laws of Mandelian Genetics. Dominant genes will dominate and recessive genes will recede. They are recessive to the point where they are no longer dominated at which point they become the dominant gene.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Mendelian Genetics

When I planted in a row garden I would give the tomatoes 4ft ea way and they would crowd each other out. By the end of the season you couldn't walk down the aisles. But I never pruned the suckers then either.

With SFG I have grown many, many volunteers all in one 4x4ft frame. And I am still not a religious pruner still yet.

I had a problem only one year (last yr in row garden) with powdery mildew on the tomatoes but that is wind driven and only so much you can do. I never ever had the Late Blight even the year it was rampant in CT. But I think most folks got that from plants purchased from big box stores.

Hornworms I have only had 1 worm on 2 separate years. It's Scissors for the hornworms when found. I stopped using insecticides and commercial ferts years ago. I let the spiders and other predators take over the garden. I make due with compost and compost tea. Oh and lots of leaves.

That's my story and I'm stickin to it.

I had good luck last year with building an A-frame trellis. It sorta looked like an A fame swingset.

Lots of options on building materials:
1x2s
bamboo
PVC

I dropped a bit of twine down for each plant and also added vertical lats to support the branches.