16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
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
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
At the top of this page there's a link to FAQ's ( ferequently asked questions) and I linked to the FAQ that discusses exactly what info you're looking for.
So take a look.
Carolyn
Here is a link that might be useful: Preventing cross pollination
Space to grow, I know what you call Zhiraf by its translated name as Giraffe and grew it quite a few years ago.
Yes, it's a long keeper but don't look for taste;
In the Fall I used to run out to the tomato patch when frost approached and pick all those with a tad of blush, wrap them in newspaper and let them ripen ,going through them several times a week to take out the rotten ones.
it didn't take me too many years before I gave up on that,that's for sure.
Below I've linked toTania's page of longkeepers and Glenn at Sandhill lists some other ones as well.
Yes, it was common to hang what are called the small winter ones in the rafters years ago, in both Italy and Spain, one can find the Italian ones easily, but not so easy to find theSpanish ones.
And it's also good to remember tha tthis was done many years ago b'c there was no refrigeration back then so perishable fruits were pickeled and/or dried
Carolyn
Here is a link that might be useful: Long Keeper varieties
The original question was has anyone had experience growing the Italian winter storage tomatoes: Principe Borghese, Grappoli D'Inverno, Ponderosa Sel Oro.
I have. Principe Borghese is really a drying tomato; in Italy, (southern) they grow it, pull the entire plant and hang it outside to dry. Around here [I used to grow them in Massachusetts] the fruit will hold on the vine for a very long time. Obviously you do not dry them outside in Massachusetts, but a warm oven does a pretty good job with them.
The inverno is a large red cherry (maybe 2 ounces), holds well on the plant, and this is one of those plants that you pull, bring into your cantina (which most Americans do not have) and it will hold until well after Christmas.
I had the best luck with the Ponderosa sel Oro. The plant produces an enormous quantity of 2 ounce or so yellowish fruit. They will store for months. By November/December, they tasted pretty darned good.
The photo is a bunch of Ponderosa sel Oro tomatoes.
Bill McKay
annabelleducasse - to follow up on missingtheobvious post, while I am not certain it would be a direct reason for the yellowing/ lack of growth, the only issue that jumps out to me is the size of the pots.
Tomatoes can easily become root bound, and judging from the size of all the plants (they seem small for 2 months old unless they were started direct from seed) you could have a problem there.
The smallest pot I use is 7 gallons (27 litres), and is roughly 1/3 meter in height & width. Its hard to tell from that picture since there is no scale, but I am guessing the pots are much smaller than this?
Assuming thats the case, at minimum I would do what missingtheobvious said, and fill up the pots as much as you can (roots will grow off the stem). Also, if possible, you may want to consider putting them in a much larger container if you have one.
Either way, good luck!
Thanks for your responses and help.
The weather has definitely been extreme! We've had the regular heat waves which caused many bush fires. Check out http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/nsw/sydney.shtml .
The temperature was over 40 C for about 5 days so maybe Stumpy just couldn't handle the heat!
Yes I did start the plants from seeds. I got the kit as an early birthday present on Dec 23rd. The pots are 25L, and are the same width as yours (the picture makes them look smaller), and yes they have holes in the bottom :)
I'm going to mulch the plants as suggested, and give the Stumpy one a bit more TLC.
About puny seedlings and small seed size; it's not theoretical since two folks I know have done the following.
They took the dried seeds after fermentation and divided them into three seed sizes, getting rid of the flat whitish immature ones, and them planted separately by seed size.
And both found there was no difference in time of germinaton, vigor, etc.
I haven't done it myself and still, at least when sending seeds to others, crumble the clumps, sit there and pick out the largest ones to send. LOL
But I do believe that such differences can be due to seed depth when sowing seed , that is, it takes longer for seedlings to come up when the seeds are lower in the artificial mix, And since watering, etc,can sends seeds to a deeper level, there you go, since there's no way of controlling for that as far as I know.
Carolyn
They look fine/normal to me. Other than that they are in awfully big cups of soil for such young seedlings. If you are going to use that size cup then only fill it about 1/3 to 1/2 full of soil when you seed then fill it as the plant grows.
Dave
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.