16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

I have to defend the Black Cherry. Not sure why people are getting poor tomatoes. I would suggest buying seed from the best possible source. I got mine from Tomato growers Supply 3 years ago and have great results. They taste great. I also like sweet tomatoes. I've never grown Sungold, but from everything I've read, Sungold is the only better cherry. This silly little plant produced over 1000 tomatoes.

I have a little greenhouse up here in cold Alberta and grew black cherry last year and it was the biggest, tastiest, sweetest cherry we grew. Not as many fruit as other cherry plants but still enough to be happy and give away. It's skin was was not thick and it did easily split. I'm growing it again. I usually grow 6-8 varieties of cherries and 2 sweet million plants is all we needed for red as they literally produce a million. Haven't tried sungold but trying golden honey bunch and a few others. Will check back when I have some feedback.

Apparently the night time lights are not preventing these seedlings from doing their thing! I went out to check on them today and had to dig higher supports out of the snow from 18" to 24" to allow them room to grow and the German Giant, Better Boy, Super Marzano and Brandy Boy all had clusters developing - yeah!

This post was edited by Hudson...WY on Wed, Mar 27, 13 at 22:44

According to the CRC Handbook of Flowering most tomato lines are not photoperiodic.

Only a few lines have been reported to have problems with flowering when there are bright security or street lights nearby. But for the most part the effect is minimal. Especially at this time of the year for most varieties.

The heat to keep them going out ways the set back that might occur from this brief period of uninterrupted light.

Someone told me about this a few years back. I have never tried it, but will this year. May not be "organic" enough for some.

In one gallon of water:
2+ tablespoons of baking soda
1 tablespoon of Murphy's Oil Soap
1 tablespoon of bleach

OMRI is a joke...it only has to be like 17% organic to get listed. Look deeper into most OMRI products and you will be supprised at what you find!

Looks like just environmental damage from cooler temps, a bit of sun scald and maybe some windburn on older leaves. New growth looks food.

Maybe transplanted out a little too early or not hardened off enough first?

Odds are they will recover if weather cooperates.

Dave

That is my guess too... environmental.

Not always true, but often potato leaved plants are sort of gangly. Would it be likely to do well in your container? Keep one and give one to a friend who grows tomatoes. Mysteries are fun.

Thanks Carolync, I didn't know that potato leaf plants tended to be gangly.

Yes, I have decided to give one of these seedlings up for adoption to a co-worker of mine. I think I might just keep the potato leaf variety simply because I don't have any idea what it is and it will be a fun surprise. I've already been there, done that with Amish paste.

Thanks all

I get the distinct impression that we can't convince you that not only is it "unlikely that you have 'blight'", it is essentially impossible.

So ultimately you have to do what you will be most comfortable with. If that is toss them then fine. If segregating them is enough reassurance for you, do that.

For comfort in future years take the time to learn the real symptoms of the various types of 'blight', the causative agents, how they are transmitted, the types and conditions of expose required, and the time frame required for those symptoms to develop.

Good luck with your plants.

Dave

update

lost about 30-40 tomato plants in total. They all got the same symptoms, leaves died off, left with a leafless stem that dies pretty quickly.

now im just hoping it has not spread to my pepper plants.

for anyone that is interested, I have sent around 10 plants, some foliage, and soil samples to a plant pathologist to identify what this exactly was. The full report should be back sometime next week.

Nows the time to get your guess's in.

My guess, Sclerotium rolfsii.

" Cal-Mag contains Calcium Nitrate and is therefore not organic. Ca(NO3)2 is an inorganic compound. It's used more often by hydroponic growers who need a water soluble form of minerals. You would be committing organic tomato heresy using this product. Oh, the humanity!"

LOL...

Well newman...that's why i laugh at BER with the use of cal mag throughout the season.It's part of my watering regime while indoors and much easier to feed my plants at the desired rate rather then using DOL LIME.

We mix our own - less expensive - small or large quantities - we know what goes into it - different recipes for seeds and transplants - works great !

Bruce, in my utterly non-botanist view, a tomato stem just sort of widens. The various structures (layers of outer skin, inner vessels, pith, etc.) stay in their places but increase in size. Not quite as simple as how your finger grows from babyhood to adulthood, but closer to that than to a tree trunk. There will be other changes in the tomato stem later, but not till your plants are much older than they are now.

Click on the links marked "Primary tissues" and "Secondary tissues" here:
http://www-plb.ucdavis.edu/labs/rost/Tomato/Stems/Stems.html

Here are some close-ups of tomato stem grafts:
http://www.ezrasorganics.com/ezras-organic-methods/ezras-grafting-process/
http://therealgarden.com/2011/05/tomato-grafting-spunky-pulls-through/

One of them talks about grafting stems which don't quite match in diameter; maybe that's what happened with your indentation. Could you post a photo?

I'm betting your leaf color issue would be solved with a bit of Miracle-Gro. Probably a lack of iron. But I-am-not-an-expert, so we'll hope one of them happens along soon.

Don't knock scars: they're very useful things. They hold us together. ;-)

-mto

Thanks very much for the links, and for your layman's explanation. Those are very nice-looking grafts in the photos! Mine look nothing like that! The ones on my plants are on a diagonal, and as I said, there's a gap of almost an eighth of an inch between the rootstock and the scion. There's the tan-colored scar tissue, around a narrower stem in the graft site.

We've had a few warmer days, but mostly "coolish" since I received them (40-45F nights, 55-65F days). I noticed in one of the links that the author mentioned he preferred warmer temps for the grafts to heal better. Perhaps that has something to do with the sluggishness. There just aren't enough roots to feed the scion, and the restriction around the graft site isn't helping matters. I could try a bit more fert, but I don't want to burn their feet. I know there's probably some leftover fert in the compost they're in.

I'm afraid my camera's not cooperating these days...

Thanks again!

-Bruce

Both plants have regular leaves. I was in the same pickle once with Sweet 100's and beefsteaks.

My experience with Sweet 100's is that their leaves are not as long as the larger tomatoes. The middle leaf seems especially shorter. I don't know if that is just me seeing things, but I've noticed it several times over several seasons. Middle leaf on Sweet 100 seems shorter than the middle leaves of larger tomato cultivars. Maybe that's a cherry cultivar trait; I don't know. Also, the sweet 100 plants seem slightly shorter within the first month of seedling. But the latter assumes same germination date to make such a comparison. I've also noticed the Sweet 100s to be of a slightly lighter green colour than the beefs.

Once again, these are just my own observations of my own plants over many seasons. I love sweet 100's.

Good luck,
Tim

Forgive my lack of describing properly the structure of tomato leaves in the previous post. What I meant by "middle leaf" is the end leaflet in a cluster of five or nine leaflets on a leaf.

linzelu100 - No this will be my first season growing the Reistomate. I am very intrigued by the structure of the fruit so I decided to give it a whirl. I have heard different opinions on the taste so I am excited to see for myself. Here is another pic! MMM MMM Good!

Now that's a tasty looking tomato...100 days until my first tomato will be on the plate, let the countdown begin.

I just looked at my notes from the time I grew seeds from a grocery Campari. It was one of the Late Blight years; I only got a handful of fruit, but they seemed like the parent fruit I'd eaten several months earlier.

I remember the F2's "white core" as more of a white thread or string: annoying but involving a smaller percentage of the fruit than the white cores some larger varieties have.

I was very happy with the taste of the Campari I started from seeds of the store bought varieties, as were the people I gifted with my extra plants.

I did not save the seeds and try for another generation. I not gotten into dehybridizing at all, but I have read that there will be much more segregation in the next generations, and that it is not until F-8 that one can be said to have a stable variety.

5 bucks for three or four tomatoes IS expensive. but when you look at it in the light of the comparison Uncle has made, it is really a bargain. And you don't have to pay postage!

Jan

Not really sure what you mean by "DE," so it's probable that I haven't tried it. Is it a kind of pesticide?

DE is diatomaceous earth. It kills soft bodied insects tat come in contact with it. It's not very effective against hard bodied flea beetles who jump around. As tomahtohs said, flea beetles don't do a lot of damage to healthy plants, although in large numbers they can weaken them. If you want something organic to deal with them, consider spinosad or neem oil.