16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

Hi Susan,
I live in Southern California and in the area where I live (inland) the summers are very hot. Kosovo is on my 'must grow' list every year.

I won't speak to the foliage concern, being an eastern gardener myself... but Kosovo has been an outstanding producer for me with excellent flavor. One of my "must grow" varieties. Glad to see so many speaking highly of it.

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.

Hi, I e-mailed him back and he said it was supposed to be spelled crovarese not grovarese. Thanks everyone for the imput and help!

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.

missingtheobvious,

Do you still water from below when you transplant into 16 oz cups?

I generally water from the top, but water slowly. The top inch or two seems to dry out fairly quickly.

I just unpotted one of my stunted tomato seedlings and the roots seem thin and the stem seems to have gotten thinner. The soil actually looks wet, but feels dry. Maybe the problem is underwatering?

From the picture my first instinct would be to get the seedlings transplanted to a different media ASAP. Sure, the Al pan is a "No-no" and temps or light may be undesirable but occasionally you just get a bad media mix. I started a few plants in last year's media and I could tell just from the way the flats drained that something just wasn't right. Many coteledons were "Yellowing" as the seedlings emerged. Now that they are all transplanted into a new batch of an identical brand of media all growth and drainage characteristics are going back to normal.
There are a whole host of things that can go wrong- many were mentioned. Change your methods and start again taking all suggestions into account. I would suggest you not fertilize at the start and even scrutenize your water- Is it chlorinated; is salt level high due to softener; Are you watering with ice cold water? any of these things, seamingly minor, could cause problems.

Stupice was highly recommended and we didn't care for it. It is early, yes but the taste wasn't great and we didn't get much of a crop from it. Could just be anecdotal because I only tried it one year.

Glacier has my vote for the sweetest early tomato. It does ripen ahead of most of my tomatoes and I can plant it extra early as it tolerates cool weather very well. I also have to give a nod to Stupice. Neither Matina nor Kimberly top Stupice for me. I have a Stupice that over-wintered and is now setting fruit, so I should be getting ripe fruit extra early.

If you use trellis for determinates you can get a larger harvest per square foot. I learned this from seeing a small farm show how they had a whole field of determinate tomatoes that where not staked. They said how it is not worth the work to stake them as far as profit goes.

When your just the home gardener looking for the highest yield per given space, then staking them would allow them to hold more fruit.

I plan to grow tons of determinate tomatoe along a 3 foot fence this year and I think I can use the fence as a 'trellis' too!

Happy growing everyone!

I don't believe the issue is so much of the plant being able to hold the fruit because whether or not one stakes the plant may still have branches laden with fruit break over. But the percentage of quality marketable fruit will increase due to some form of support. The added attention given to support usually has rewards for the home or market gardener; the commercial grower for a processing market may not feel that staking costs are worth the return.

Wow! I never thought of that with indeterminates I grew. I bet it really works well with determinates!

Cutting from indeterminates work just fine and many routinely use cuttings to extend their season. There are many discussions here about how to do it.

Determinates are a whole other matter with different growth genetics and a totally different circulatory system. They are not generally recommended for cuttings. Once the terminal bud on a determinate plant or a lateral branch cutting blooms/sets fruit the plant/cutting will not grow any more. That is the nature of determinates.

Dave

Yea I looked that up and found the same thing. no cuttings with determinates...

Here's a Kamato from Mariseeds:
https://www.mariannasheirloomseeds.com/heirloom-seeds-catalog/mariseeds-heirloom-tomato-seeds/dark-tomatoes/25/kamato-detail.html

My assumption is that it's an OP someone stabilized, but there are no details, and I don't find anything of this name listed in the usual databases.

wow did not realize my old Kumato picture would resurface. I saved the seeds from this tomato back in Hawaii. What i do remember is that it was a prolific plant that kept on producing. I stopped growing it though. So many better tomatoes out there.

Thank you, Carolyn. I wasn't sure if GW's PTB might object to direct quotations.

I think of tomatoes in four size categories: small, medium, large, and cherry. I tend to think of "large" as, on average, a pound or more. Just my way of looking at it.

Lorabell, for porch tomatoes you might try one of the dwarf varieties. (Two Husky Cherry Reds were a manageable size on my small front porch last year -- narrow habit -- with plenty of red fruit. Stood up fairly well to the Late Blight, too. Just standard cherry flavor, but enthusiasm and productivity made up for that ... particularly once I began thinking of them as a pair of decorative shrubs and gave the fruit away.)

If googling 'Bai guo qiang feng' tomato instead of Baiguoqiangfeng, you will get more results. I believe it's a chinese pink variety available at the attached link (in UK?).

Hope this helps

Here is a link that might be useful: seed store in UK?

I still feel very strongly that no matter what varieties might be suggested that there's no way to ID a variety such as shown above, or for that matter any variety, with few exceptions, when a label has been lost.

it becomes an orphan, Sigh,

If seeds are saved from the fruits in that basket and lots of plants put out with those F2 seeds and all plants give the same fruits, then it might be an OP variety, but if different plants have different fruits it probably was an unknown hybrid to start with,

Carolyn

Very true, Carolyn. And I think this one is likely to be a hybrid. It may only be possible to come up with a variety with similar characteristics.