16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
1. ignore that. It only applies to certain types of plants and yours isn't one of them. Even then it is optional, not required. You can learn more about it by searching 'pruning' in this forum.
2. continue as you have been doing. As the temps increase you will likely have to do it more often. Don't let it dry out.
3. approx. 6 weeks
4. once temps consistently exceed 90 shade will help. Check out the FAQS here, especially the one on 'blossoms falling off".
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Growing tomatoes FAQs
On point 4:
The ideal temperature for fruit set is between 17 and 25C (62 and 77F). In borderline conditions, fruit may set without adequate pollination, however this can result in puffy and flat-sided fruit that contain few seeds.
For best pollination and fruit set, minimum night temperatures should be
below 27oC (80F) and daily maximums above 18C (64F). If the temperature exceeds 28oC (82F) fruit can be softer and yellow or orange in colour, especially if there is not a lot of leaf cover.
Here is a link that might be useful: Best Juicy Tomatoes
I picked the last bushel of field grown (covered) tomatoes Monday (11/6). Many of these were just turning red. My greenhouse tomatoes are doing well with woodstove heat supplemented but I'm going to reluctantly cut off heat by next week. My goal was 6 full months of harvest from mixed indeterminate varieties. It is hard to pull the plug on such a good harvest season. Most cherry/grape varieties are loaded with blossoms. Customers are still raving about the homegrown flavor.
I love green tomatoes. I've not met one I did not like yet.
I can not comment on disease since all I get is fungal diseases.
Cherokee Green tastes great. I think better than Cherokee Purple. They make a lot of tomatoes at the same time, and do not have very long shelf life.
Malachite Box is the sweetest GWR I've had. So to me the flavor profile is different than others. It is very productive.
Aunt Ruby's has a fantastic flavor. It is not overly productive though.
Humph is my personal favorite. Very tasty and productive.
Garden Lime tastes great. But I do not not know about the plants as the tomato I tried was grown by someone else.
Moldovan Green has a wonderful flavor. It was not overly productive for me, but it had a bad growing spot, and since I've only grown it one time. I can't save for sure that is the norm.
Grub's Mystery Green is an other excellent tasting variety.
Captain Lucky does taste wonderful. It was late for me as I suspected it would be being Lucky Cross is a parent. It was not overly productive for me. Again I'll hold complete judgement since I've only grown it once.
Lime Green Salad is a nice small green on small plant so good for containers.
Remy
Personally I'd stop spraying the plants with all that stuff as it only contributes to the problems. Foliar spraying has a role in gardening but only under very specific circumstances and only when done with great care, proper timing, and well diluted mixtures.
Root drenching with your various mixes is far more effective.
There are numerous liquid fertilizer products available, both organic and non-organic, that could benefit your plants and that don't require the months of soil activity to be of benefit to the plants that all your dry or granulated additives require.
Dave
If you have the money, I think the best option is one of the new external wood stoves that heat water, which is then recirculated through the building you want to heat. They look like a metal shed in your backyard. They're not cheap, and there is a lot of trenching involved in burying the cable, but for about $10,000 you can have some very nice heat. If you used it to heat your house, too, it could pay for itself over enough time. It's nice to have the mess and smell of the wood smoke outside of your structure, instead of within, and from a physics perspective, it is a lot more efficient to heat water than to heat air, like I do. I just didn't have the $10k :(
Heating a greenhouse discussions from the Greenhouse forum - the FAQs too.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Heating a greenhouse discussions from the Greenhouse forum - the FAQs too
Thanks for the post. Mine, when small, are in a greenhouse with lots of sun, but, that also means high heat which seems to make them grow tall and leggy. I also try to have a fan going, but that only gives minimal air movement. I would assume theirs are in a greenhouse too, maybe they are able to control the temperature better than I do. I wonder if they use some kind of magical elixir. :-)
Just a suggestion that you may not like but my cherry types keep producing in higher temps whan many other heirloom varietys just drop blossoms. Picking Black Cherry is more labor intensive but harvests are continuous and dependable.
If you don't like the cherry fruit option the next best producers are the smaller fruited types. Pink or Red Ruffled, Japanese Black Trifele, or Eva Purple Ball are reasonable choices.
I'm growing close to 200 heirloom varieties in a greenhouse setting where summer temps. often reach 100F in the daytime and they all produce fruit, most at levels that meet my satisfaction, some less. I shy away from anything with "Brandywine" in the name.
well, usage is on the label most of the times. in organic we dont find higher NPK numbers, most like 10-10-10 or 20-20-20 are mostly synthetic. I like the ingreadientes of this organic fertilizer, so 4-5-3 could be prety balanced here with the exception of low K number here. I know Espoma sells tomatotone 3-4-6 20lb for $17 (only at Ozbo.com), so if you look at it from comparizon perspective, this one is sure a big steal, specially when I see prices of this 15lb elsewhere well over $15. I am stocking up and will mix this with Espoma and make y fertilizer 4-5-3 (Garden Elements) + 3-4-7 (tomatotone) = 7-9-10
If looking for cheap organic: contact a local chicken farmer.
If I had to pay those prices for I'd be broke before the season ever started but i'll admit I splurged on a whim and bought 2 1/2 gal each of foliar applied nutrients- Nutri-Cal & Nutri-K for $100. I guess we all need to try and learn.
when I hear it's going to hard freeze, I go out and pick all my larger green and turning tomatoes. I take them into the garage and sort them into green, breaking, and pink tomatoes, and pack them into 10 lb tomato boxes in single layers. I stack the boxes on shelves in the garage, heated to 40 degrees. then I go in there about once a week, check all the boxes for spoilage, throw out any bad ones and take the "pink" ones to the house and put them on a shelf in the kitchen to ripen up where it's warmer. In about a week they're ready.
Then I sort again, and continue doing this until all the tomatoes have turned, shriveled or spoiled. I usually have tomatoes until around Christmas that way.
I sell tomatoes at the farmers market and they don't taste quite as good as summer tomatoes of course but I still manage to sell most of them at a reduced price, "they're not as good as summer ones, but better than store ones"--and use what's not pretty enough to sell.
I ended up throwing my greenies away. Some of them eventually turned, but the texture was weird and the flavor lousy. If they are too green, not much hope. I agree with Carolyn, it's just not worth all the work, especially if they haven't turned at all.
Sharon
Nearly all seeds in the wild (up here in KY) get frozen not just once but multiple times and still manage to germinate. In fact some seeds require a freezing. I've had volunteer lettuce, tomato, squash, amaranth, ground cherry, and Lord knows what else that I know the parent seed had to be frozen multiple times through the winter.
Can't recollect any volunteer beans from the previous year though.
if I wanted to save seeds of those, I would anyway. Especially if I didn't have any more to use. I'd try to save about 50% more than I usually would want. But then after saving them, I'd label them as seeds from tomatoes that froze and then do a germination test on them and see what percentage sprouted. Take 10-20 seeds and put them in a wet paper towel and put them in a baggie in a warm place and see how many sprout. Then you'll know the percentage. and note that on the pack of seeds so you know how many to plant.
Its name is "tomato leaf roll' (you can Google that term) and it is a physical response of the plant to stress of some kind. It isn't necessarily harmful unless it becomes really severe but it is important to identify the cause of the stress and eliminate it when possible.
Normal garden plants respond this way when exposed to inconsistent or excess water such as after a heavy rain. But in your artificial environment there could be several other causes or contributing factors - the growing medium, the soil pH, the nutrients (excess or insufficient), insufficient light, container size, etc. etc.
You will need to evaluate and/or modify all your parameters to identify the cause or causes.
Dave
I have seen the same thing in my containers but mine were top watered and not SWC's. Being an hybrid seeing this robust root system does not surprise and I don't know if I would consider it root bound or it just liked the environment it was growing in. Ami
Big Pinks, if you look at the link I gave in my post above you'll see that there are several sources where one can buy seeds for the Estler one.
I have all the SSE Yearbooks going back to 1975 ( I joined in 1989) and as far as I can remember, there have always been folks listing it, but then when all the so called strains ( not) came along they kind of displaced the excellence of the Estler one, sadly.
Carolyn
Yes Maam I understand what you are saying but for about a 30 mile radius in the Huntington area where there are prob about a dozen diff greenhouses, only Joyces received seed from Mr Estler. Here and there maybe one or two sold Estlers plants from their own saved seed but mostly they sold Radiator Charlie plants or they sold plants they had purchased from Joyces. This from the man I referenced above. I also saw the local extention agent say the same thing on TV. Wouldnt really be a big deal except that many local gardeners dont realize that they're not all the same.
Re-greetings, Dave! Well, that's one way of looking at it. But maybe it would be less discouraging to consider that some might realize the limitations of their situation and abilities and wish to grow the best they can within that scope. Then rather than a cop out it is wanting to use thoughtful consideration in choosing. And of course, I do not frequent this particular forum, so I am not very aware of the phenomena of which you speak.
I personally favor taste first, then suitability to my area, then productivity when choosing things to grow for my own use. Generally speaking, blemishes don't even hit my radar, which is why I know so little about the causes of some of them. But I know enough about the people who will eat at our restaurant to know that they won't eat tomatoes with healed over cracks, and I can't in good food safety conscience send them tomatoes with open splits. So if I can stack the deck in my favor, genetically speaking, then I am reasonably assured of my abilities to avoid splitting in my tomatoes most of the time, and so I will come out ahead. That's my fond hope!
You might give "Mountain Spring" a try. Medium-large, and about the most crack-resistant, blemish-free variety I have ever grown. Taste is quite good (but not extraordinary) when fully ripe (IMO).
BTW, my experience is that tomatoes grown in a mostly covered container (such as an EarthBox) and which have a more-or-less constant moisture profile have much less cracking than those subject to alternating wet/dry cycles. Might be worth an experiment for you. (?) Even growing tomatoes using plastic "mulch" seems to help with cracking as well as controlling weeds and lessening foliage diseases. And putting a "soaker" hose under the plastic sure makes watering a lot easier when dry conditions prevail.
-wc2k8