16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
I don't agree that wintersown plants are hardier than inside plants and when Trudi refers to that she's talking about areas much colder than where your are, such as her NY location on Long Island and mine in upstate NY.
Uh, no.
Carolyn, please don't make things up about Winter Sowing--you don't know anything about the method. WS is for plants in a temperate climate. You don't need snow and ice to WS, you just need the season called winter. I'll repeat it as you posted the same wrong info at that other place too. No snow and ice required. Just your own local season called Winter. Oh, btw, that's covered in the WS FAQs which you can refer people to for correct information.
Winter is different for folks across the country and for some it is much milder and gentler. In 8 and 9, the winter season is far shorter and often without freezes, but it is still winter. The daylight hours are still shorter and the night temps are remarkably cooler than daytime. It's winter, not like our freezy cold NY winters, but milder and warmer but still cool winters.
Trudi Davidoff
Trudi, It was juist a matter of time before you showed up here to post.
And yes, I do know about wintersowing, you shared that info with everyone.Have I done it directly myself? No, just based on the appearance of volunteer plants in the Spring.
Do you remember the old days here when I or someone would post why wintersowing wasn't an option for us, and gave reasons, and then you'd go back to your Wintersown place here and call up the troops and there would be a slew of folks defending you?
All one had to do was to go back to the Wintersown place here at GW to see the call for troops.
You have your own opinions and are cerainly entitled to those and I and others have our own opinions and are entitled to those as well. There should be mutual respect for those whose opinions disagree.
Carolyn
For future reference if you will go to Tatiana's Tomatobase and click on the variety, then on the Seed Availability tab at the top. it will provide you with a list of several seed sources for it.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Tatiana's TB - Red Zebra
Here he is:
http://californiahybrids.com/dr-kanti/
With that background, he really should know better.
Some of the names given to the varieties at the California Hybrids website, especially the "heirloom hybrids", seem to me to be invitations to a retailer to license a hybrid and choose their own name for it. This seems like a strictly wholesale website.
Interesting that he has apparently bred miniaturized red and yellow per tomatoes, yet called them "red pear" and "yellow pear". In the text, their "yellow pear" is called "baby yellow pear" once.
You mean that's the label recommendation, right? So they can create product-dependent plants and sell more of the product. Seriously.
Sure not the recommendation offered around here much of the time. IF one must use it try using 1/2 strength max instead. Better yet, switch to one of the many better balanced, more plant friendly water soluble fertilizers.
Dave
growneat, I will also suggest that most people aren't good at math and don't keep a lot of measuring implements in the garden. 1 tablespoon per gallon is easy to mix, whether you're stirring it around a 2 gallon watering can or letting a hose sprayer mix it for you.
["Higher math for the gardener" involves fun stuff like figuring out the correct amount of Ortho Poison Ivy Killer concentrate to add to the not-quite-1-qt. spray bottle for the next batch of poison ivy eradication. If I were more organized I'd find an indelible marker and write it on the spray bottle....]
digdirt,(Dave) would you say the benefit is the same whether you pot up into a 4" pot or, say, an 8" pot?
No we are talking about the normal incremental potting up to slightly larger containers - aka staged transplanting - not jumping from say a cell pack to an 8" container.
Putting tiny seedlings in huge containers creates all sorts of problems for them - primarily root development due to all the excess moisture.
Dave
I was at Lowe's a couple of years ago and saw something organic which was labelled as (Somebody's) "Garden Plant Food." Not a brand I'd heard of.
Anyway, they claimed their "garden plant food" was good for everything -- but the cover of the bag had a photo of a 10" wide tomato from one side of the bag to the other -- no other plant or veggie, only the tomato. The fertilizer was 4-3-2. I don't know if that makes sense for organic fertilizer, but it wasn't what I'd read was recommended for tomatoes.
It seemed so odd that I wrote it down (and actually remembered where I'd written it).
2/2 Cont.
Will show up August 8-12th. That is not uncommon for us to have an off week picking tomatoes around that time.
Overhead Irrigation during the heat of the day (11am-3pm) can help a lot. I even leave sprinklers going over the whole greenhouse tying to keep things cooler.
I sowed amish paste tomato and austin pear seeds around 20 each( I live in N.jersey area). I bought from Tomatofest.com. Not a single one germinated. I don't know the reason. I bought around 13 varieties from tomatofest.com. Other 7 varieties had more than 75% germination rate. I don't the reason for this neither I could find the reason from net. Anyone has any clue. The same germination condition for other varities applied. The germination rate of Italian Heirloom,Ildi,arkansas marvel , ammana orange was very low( 40%). ..( I bought brandywine red,yellow,aker's west,italian heirloom,ammana orange,Ildi,sprite,wisconsin 55,san marzano & arkanasa marvel).
Wow, sorry to hear that! I hope you got lots of tomatoes from the plants that grew though.
I don't know what went wrong, I am a new tomato grower. (Though it sounds like maybe the seeds weren't so good. Since all the other kinds grew.)
You might want to post your question separately in the forum, you'll get more replies that way. Also, maybe contact the seller, they might have some thoughts. Maybe those kinds are just tougher to grow.
Sneezer, tell them that for $100 you'll tell them where they can buy seeds for the F1 Dona.LOL
Carolyn, and then split the money with me for my dark chocolate budget since I am the first to suggest to you to tell them that. Wait, up it to $200 so be both get $100. LOL Wait a bit more, give them a wee hint by saying that you just love omlette avec jambon. ( smile)
Sorry, Carolyn, I was too dumb to think of that and I've
already told them. Let's see if they have the sense to
take advantage of it. Actually, I don't know what their sales
would be; I guess about the same as now but at least it
would be an honest deal and probably make them look
a little better. As in "cachet".
FYI, the source I revealed is www.ducrettet.com
Oh, and if you like I could send you some dark chocolate!!
Too bad about the omelettes, though. I already get those
from eggs that I buy at one of the local farm markets.
Every time I go there the chickens tell me, "Those eggs
were mine. Enjoy, enjoy".
Call your county's Extension office and ask them when your area's average last frost date is. (Google your county's name and "extension office" if you're not already familiar with your office.) Start your tomato seeds 3-4 weeks before this date. Expect to transplant your seedlings into the garden when they are 6-8 weeks old, or 3-4 weeks after the average last frost date.
To give you a more specific example, I'm in west-central Indiana, which is likely similar in climate to northwest Ohio. Our average last frost date (50% chance of frost afterwards) here is around April 20, so I start my tomato seeds around March 20. Last summer (2012), I was able to transplant them into the garden on May 14, but if the weather hadn't cooperated, I could have kept them inside under the lights for another 2 weeks. Usually by Memorial Day, it's safe to transplant the most tender of plants here.
You might need to push those dates back a week or so if your average frost date is different from mine, but that should give you an estimate to start with. Good luck!
Kathy
Start your seeds April 1st in 16 oz. clear beer cups with holes in the bottom (I use a cheapo soldering iron but a knife is fine.) Put about 2" of seed starting mix in the bottom, plant about 4 seeds to each cup and cover with saran wrap. Once they germinate, uncover and keep in a sunny window. Once the babies have their true leave and 2 real leaves, start back-filling with soil. Do this until the leaves reach the top.
You will end up with super healthy seedlings with lots of roots (that you can see through the cups). Start hardening them off once the temps outdoors are in the 60's/70's. Just a few hours a day at first and then leave them all day and bring in at night. Once the temps outdoors are settled and the soil is warm (60 deg.) you are ready to plant. Soooo easy and no leggy plants. Also, no need for indoor lighting, etc.
I've been doing it like this for about 20 years and it works!
I am interested in Cherokee Purple, Arkansas Traveler and Black from Tula.
None of those are new varieties. Those are all available any time of year.
Tomato seeds are viable for decades so there is no reason to wait for what you think might be "fresh" seeds. Odds are they will be 2-3 year old seeds in 2014 packets and you wouldn't get fresh anyway.
When a seed pack says "packed for 2013" it doesn't mean they were just grown last year. That they were "just harvested" is a common misconception often discussed here.
Dave
I continue to plant seeds of two of these and many more that I collected in 2001. I keep thinking I should replenish my stock and will this year (yeh.) but they continue to germinate just as well as they did when they were first collected.
If you save your seeds (completely dried) in zip lock baggies in a regrig. they will last a very long time. Or even if you don't. Remember, many of these seeds we grow now were brought over by the pilgrims and they didn't have zip lock baggies or refrigeration. BTW, I also plant perennials/other veggies that I have saved for decades. Each is a little embryo that wants to be a life. They don't die easily.
Okay, I guess I didn't check the C's in Ventmarin.
Ventmarin has it with a cryptic note I've seen before:
Crovarese OP: Variety from Italy registered in the official journal of the European Union (which is called something along the lines of) "The common/joint? catalog of varieties of types of vegetables."
(Crovarese OP Variété originaire d'Italie inscrite au journal officiel de l’Union européenne dans le catalogue commun des variétés des espèces de légumes.)
http://ventmarin.free.fr/passion_tomates/tomates_cl_cz/tomates_cl-cz.htm
So it's from Italy, and it's open-pollinated, and it's listed with all the other vegetable cultivars in Europe.
It doesn't appear in the sites where I did check the C's: Tatiana's TOMATObase and the database we can't name.
http://compagniedetomates.free.fr/crovarese.html
tells us it's an early cherry (1/2 - 1 oz.) on trusses of 15-30 fruit, red, few seeds, thin skin, indet, 4-6 1/2' tall, keeps well, productive. Photos at the link.
Other sites if you search by name. The vast majority seem to be in French, with the rest in Italian or other European languages.
Barry, I couldn't find your heart. Here's what I did find:
1. Tatiana's TOMATObase just lists this plum (for seed sites, click on the tab):
http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Giannini
She's the only one to post who's grown it, and as she's in BC, her sizes tend to be a bit small compared to people farther south.
2. If you can read German (I'm clueless), there's this (the photo looks like Tatiana's plum):
http://www.tomaten-atlas.de/sorten/g/2152-giannini
Nothing whatsoever in Ventmarin (giant French database); Cornell's Vegetable Varieties; Rutgers's tomato list; the database at the site we're not allowed to name or link to; NCSU's Vegetable Cultivar Descriptions for North America (mostly commercial varieties the last time I paid attention to it); Luc Fichot's list; Heirloom Vegetable Archive; Tomatisidan; Tomodori; the other German sites; the Canadian cultivar database; Tomato Index; etc.
Your tomato may have been a local variety people are still growing in that area, but which never came to the attention of anyone who knew how to share it outside the area. You could go to the GW site for that state/area and ask to see if anyone's heard of it. You could also try the other garden/tomato forums out there (which we can't name or link to either). You could try other Internet sites with regional forums (like city-data.com). You could also contact the older and better garden centers in the area.
ty for the reference sites they were very informative even the german language site lol.
and yes it is a hybrid of the roma tomatoe for colder climates. I no longer have the seed we used with the heart shaped fruit and the fruit was the size of a mid sized cherry tomatoe with a sweet tangy flavor. we brought it to Nevada from Oklahoma not really sure where the family got it from before. but do believe it to be a french variety. or italian grape tomato variety as it was described to be a fruit used by roman royality. I will continue to look for it and may be able to locate the original stock again. if I do will either get with you and maybe go in together and purchase from them a few of the seeds for reintroduction of a very flavorful tomato. or buy them myself and send you some of the seeds.