16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
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.
Please see the thread below called End of An Era for the same announcement and I posted in that thread b'c many believe that Charlie Byles ( Radiator Charlie) was the first to develop Mortgage Lifter, but the Estler one was first and I explained why I like the Estler one over all other so called Mortgage ones.
Carolyn
Hadnt read the other thread but Bob's obit was in the Huntington paper today. He was my boss for a short while at a metals factory and once got us all together at Thanksgiving and said grace for our meal right in the middle of the floor of the factory.
Here's some info from Univ of CA about Yellow leaf curl virus in tomato
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PDF/PMG/TomBrochure04NoTriFold.pdf
And here's info from Univ of Fl
http://ipm.ifas.ufl.edu/resources/success_stories/T&PGuide/pdfs/Chapter5/TYLCV.pdf
Even so, I still suggest you contact your county's Extension Service office.
Here is a link that might be useful: from UFL
The extension office just confirmed that the symptoms on my plants (send email with description and pics) are the same as
TYLCV symptoms. The recommendation is to remove those plants and don't plant tomatoes in the same spot again. Treat the ficus with a systemic and spray other tomato plants with a 3 in 1.
Most home growers use either fermentation or oxidative methods, more the former than the latter, to process seeds and also b'c fermetation is a natural process.
I prefer fermentation b'c there's data to document what it can accomlish, but for the oxidative methods there's no data I know of that speaks to efficacy with that method.
Fermentation accomplishes the following:
It removes from the seed coat most, but not all, of many fungal pathogens such as the common foliage ones as well as some of the systemic ones such as Fusarium and Verticillium, to name two. And since infection is a quantitative process it means the less likely that the seeds will transmit infection when sowed.
IT removes the gel capsule from the seeds which gives nice beige, fluffy seeds as one might purchase. The gel capsule does have a germination inhibitor in it, but that's part of the larger life cycle of the tomato where fruits fall to the ground and when conditions are OK for germination, then some of those seeds germinate and are called vounteers.
It use to be said that fermentation also killed viruses, that in the older literature, but much more recent research has shown that for every bacterial and virus tomato disease that's been looked at, they've been found in the endosperm of the seed and only hot water treatment can be used to inactivate the bacterial ones. And that's a....do not try at home process. LOL
Have I ever taken seeds right out of a fruit and sowed theM? Yes, but not often, just when needed, and with no processing I got about 100% germination. BUT I garden in an area where there are few to no soilborne diseases, no viral diseases and very few bacterial foliage diseases; the two common fungal foliage diseases yes.
So yes, I do think that processing seeds by fermentation helps, and I've done a lot of it, believe you me.
Carolyn
I am 4 hrs west of Madison - great to hear about a tasty tomato that does so well here. I will definitely try them next year. I have eight different types growing this year, but so far am only picking Early Girls, Purple Russians and Genovese Roma. Of those, the Early Girls are by far the tastiest for me.
Do you WI growers top your tomato plants in the early fall? If so when?
Just pulled the last of my IHs on Friday after a hard freeze. It was still producing and ripening -- a winner yet again. Even though we'd been through several frosts and several cold nights the fruit was still completely edible.
A local tomato guru says to top your plants the first of August. I forgot and didn't do it until September. Oh well. The whole season was bizarre.
I didn't have luck with Cherokee purple a few years back and haven't tried again. Got 2-3 ugly fruit, total.
I tried Borghese this year ... a oval-ish cherry meant for drying. Over the top productive and very perfect fruit right up to the end. No disease or weirdness from the heat/drought. No splitting. Drying is fun but I eat the things like potato chips.
I remember when the Seattle Times did their big series on toxic wastes being used as fertilizer ingredients. At that time they listed Miracle Grow products as highly pure.
When you compare the .87 ppm of arsenic in their standard water soluble all purpose product with the average of 7 ppm in Washington State soils, the MG looks pretty good.
Even the reagent grade and food grade materials contain some toxic metals.
A poll won't settle anything, nor would a "Jury". Still might be interesting though.
Is Miracle Grow Safe To Use In The Home Garden?
Yes
No
In moderation
ÃÂ ÃÂ pollcode.com free pollsÃÂ
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