16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

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.

Bonnie, the origin of Ludmilla's Pink Heart I find interesting.

Reinhard Kraft in Germany and I have traded seeds for many years and it was from him that I got the Ludmilla ones the pink, red Plum and yellow Giant.

I think the heart one is very good but the Ludmilla's Red Plum is outstanding, but not a heart.

I don't know if you've been to Tania's superb website before, but when on the page I linked to go to the upper left and click on Main, look around, but them click on shortcuts at the top and when you know the name of a variety I find it's easier to use the alphabetical way of searching, so just click on that link.

Many other ways to search for this and that are also on that shortcut page.

Tania now has pages for over 4,000 varieties with pictures and seed sources for those that do have seed sources, and that link is on any specific variety you look at.

She also sells seed for about 600 tomato varieties.

Good luck with the Anna Russian seeds and let us know how that turns out.

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Ludmilla varieties

Thank you again, everyone, for all the helpful suggestions!

Here is the list of what I ended up sowing:

Aunt Gertie's Gold
Amish Paste
Amazon Chocolate
Anna Russian
Black Cherry
Box Car Wilie
Earl's Faux
Galina's Yellow Cherry (the few Isis Candy seeds I had left didn't look viable, so I had to pick another cherry type.)
Giant Belgium
Gold Currant (I'm going to give the hanging basket a try.)
Gold Medal
Indian Stripe
Ludmilla's Pink Heart
Matt's Wild Cherry
Neves Azorean Red
Soldacki
Virginia Sweets

I sowed 2 - 6 of each, depending on the age of the seed. Tomato plants are usually pretty easy to give away around here in May, so not worried about the extras, assuming I can find space for them until then!

gunnarsk: "I suppose Orange Strawberry is orange due to the "tangerine" allele ("tt") rather than "rr",which gives a yellow flesh color ripening to orange. You can also try Anna Banana Russian, available eg. from Gleckler and Knapps."

Heheh, I don't know anything about 'alleles', but seems I read somewhere that OO is sometimes streaked with red inside.

It's hard to tell through cyberspace, but I hope my friendly question was not taken in the wrong light.

&&&&&&

I did take it in the wrong light when you asked about my business ventures, of which there are none.

I wouldn't have written what I did above if it weren't for that, since I didn't want you or anyone else thinking I was making money off something, presumably tomato seeds or profits frommy book, of which there were none.

I don't think folks realize that when I, or anyone else, sends seeds for trial to a seed vendor, there's no money that changes hands.If the vendo likes the variety and then listsit, all money goes to him or her.

As for SSE listings and a request piice, SSE sugggests $3 for a minimum of 25 seeds which I think is way too high, especially since most of the listers are not professionals, but amateurs ,so in the 2013 Yearbook I offered 10-15 seeds for $1 to both listed and unlisted SSE members ( the SSE request price for the latter is $4), anywhere on earth.

The SSE Yearbook in my opinion has become a seed catalog and no longer has much to do with seed preservation by relisting varieties requested.

For my seed offers elsewhere I let those outside the US e-mail me their requests and then I pay the postage for all of those wherever they go.Gunnar can attest to that. (smile)

Finally, you want to see my bill for supplies from Staples and my postage costs? No way can I cover what I need as supplies from SSE requests but my supply costs also pertain to my seed offer elsewhere, I agree..

What I prefer to do is to share what new and old vareities I have with others, for a SASE for my annual seed offer and going as low as I can with a request price for the SSE listed ones.

Ok, Peace.

Perhaps I over reacted, it's possible, but let's go forward now.

Carolyn, who has not seed any red streaks or blushes in OO or Orange Strawberry or Herman's Yellow or any of the orange hearts she's grown in her area.An allele is an alternative form of a gene, not all genes have alles, but to give one example, the gene gf ( green flesh) has I think 4-5- alleles, I didn't check those numbers but I'm close, and scientists have been able to determine the specific allele in different so called black tomatoes and put them into categories which then gives an estimate of where they originated from. And that helps distinguish heirloom ones from ones that have been bred more recently or are the result of natural cross pollination.Doing that it was found that the 100 yo variety Cherokee Purple was not that old, seeds given to Craig L by John Green of TN who was told that when the seeds were given to him.

Cut off one of the stems and put in a small amount of water. If you see a white milky substance coming from it, it is Bacterial
Wilt.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato diseases

These are the same plants from your previous post about them? If not then have these plants been outside?

If they are then that information needs to be included here.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: I think I killed them all post

I am reminded of Fedco's description of another Sungold like tomato: "From a chance sport in their tomato patch Rachel and Tevis Robertson-Goldberg from Crabapple Farm in Chesterfield, MA, selected and developed Honeydrop, sent us the original seed and continue to grow our seed crop. Growing in our estimation, Honeydrop is drawing comparisons to Sun Gold, only with much less cracking in wet weather. Its sweet juicy fruity honey-colored treats taste almost like light grapes." I grew Fedco's Honeydrop Cherry Tomato ECO OP in an isolated area and saved seed for sharing if anyone is interested. I also grew Sungold and consider it superior in terms of yield, vigor, flavor, fruit color, and productivity over many weeks.

Well, The Wow! seeds are one of two varieties of tomato (out of 15) that haven't germinated after 3 weeks, the other being Bellstar. Now I wonder if I should bother to try starting them again. Gold Nugget is doing well (and a couple of other paste tomatoes).

Not all seeds are the same size. Smaller seeds sometimes produce smaller cotyledons. Even some larger size seed will produce smaller cotyledons. It all happens way back when the seed was forming in the fruit it came from. It happens all the time and is not an issue.

It makes no difference, either to the plant, how well it will grow or produce, and it makes no difference when they were planted.

Dave

I think the answer to your question is in the other thread you posted right after this one called Mysterious plant. You are using top soil with weed seeds in it. That is also the answer to your other recent thread What's wrong with my tomato plants leaves. There seems to be a common theme here.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Tomato-Cage-Plans-do-yourself-gardener-/230559478768?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0amp;hash=item35ae6a73f0

Hey, Spaghetina...I designed the Tormato, and have been using them for about 5 years now. They'll hold whatever you can grow on them! I've had nearly 2lb beefsteaks on them and they did just fine.

I'm always eager to get feedback from whoever uses them, so don't be afraid to drop me a line!

Here is a link that might be useful: Tormato!

Thank you both. I do have a fan running in the room because I thought that might be the issue, but I will scrape it off and try the cinnamon as well.

And I'm going out of town for a bit and my mom will be watching the plants...I'm sort of betting on her to forget watering every couple of days :-) That's why they're in the larger pots now.

Please tell your Mom NOT to water "every couple of days"!!!
In those large pots it will probably take a week (at least) for the soil to dry out. You should only water tomatoes (and most plants) when the soil is pretty dry. poke your finger in a couple of inches. If you feel any moisture, do NOT water.

I'd just like to add, for anyone who doesn't go to the Growing From Seed forum or sow outdoors, that the linked "DIY growing light stand" has a serious drawback in that the light fixture is at a fixed height. With that much distance between the soil surface and the lights, the baby seedlings would stretch in search of light and end up seriously leggy (resulting in weaker plants).

Wire-type shelving is useful for seed-starting and seedling growing because you can hang lights under the shelves when you need to start seedlings, then remove the lights once it's warm outside and use the shelving for another purpose. The type of shelving that lets you change the height of the shelves is preferable.

This is the shelving I have; I've seen them in catalogs, at Lowe's, and years ago at Target (Target may still have them, but I haven't looked at their furniture lately); I think Walmart may have them as well:
Style Selections 74-in H x 48-in W x 18-in D 5-Tier Wire Freestanding Shelving Unit
These shelves come in different sizes; the individual shelves are adjustable (though you probably have to take the whole thing apart if you change your mind); it helps to have a second person to begin the set-up part, though I've done 7 of varying sizes over the years without any help.

4' wide shelving allows you to use 4' fluorescents and put two 20" seed-starting trays on a single shelf.

To avoid having to raise the lights as your seedlings grow, I place styrofoam blocks under the seedling trays, then remove layers of styrofoam as needed so that the tops of the seedlings are 1-2" below the light tubes (leaves won't burn if the plants come in contact with the cool tubes). If you don't have styrofoam you can use something else (wood; cardboard boxes; anything you have a lot of that will support seedling trays). If you like the idea of styrofoam but don't have any, you may be able to purchase it at a crafts store.

I'd also suggest more lights than are shown in that video: a minimum of 4 tubes in width if you're using 20" x 10" seed-starting trays.

There may be plants for which the high plastic dome would be good, but with tomatoes the lack of air circulation could result in disease. And ideally you'll run a fan on your seedlings, both to increase air circulation and to strengthen the stems.

the linked "DIY growing light stand" has a serious drawback in that the light fixture is at a fixed height.

Excellent point. Plus it is only a 2 foot fixture which is normally not enough. Plus the 2' fixtures and the bulbs for them usually cost more than the 4' fixtures and bulbs do.

There are many pics of much better light set ups over on the Growing from Seed forum.

Dave

And is there seeds in the soils. I use top soil because I'm afraid of mold,larvae, and gnats from Miracle Gro.

Sorry but that makes no sense. Not only is using soil/dirt never recommended for growing seedlings but there is 50x the chance of getting mold, larvae, gnats, fungus, strange seeds, etc. etc. from top soil as there is getting them from ANY potting mix.

Dave

You should always use a soilless seed starting medium when planting tomato seeds. NOT dirt or regular potting mix. As Dave says, you are far more likely to have problems with your seedlings with anything other than a soilless seed starting medium.

And yes, dirt does have seeds in it. They are called weeds.

Betsy

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