16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
Yes, I've grown it. It was reintroduced to the US by an SSE member in the early 90's as sourced from Germany but is not a German heirloom.
It was widely grown in Europe and in Hungary, I think it was, was named in Hungarian Goat's T*T for the small nipple at the blossom end of each fruit.
It's what's called a multiflora type and one blossom stalk can hold several hundred blossoms but usually only 30-40 set fruit. For me the taste almost approaches that of a good beefsteak variety.
It was grown in the US back in the mid 1800's as brought to this country by immigrants, and documented as being in Philly at the time and has a good reputation for one to make wine from. A friend of mine did so and that wine was delicious, more like a pale sherry.
I haven't the faintest idea of how tall the plants grow b'c when I was growing hundreds of plants and varieties each year I sprawled all of them, but yes, a vigorous plant, no doubt about it.
And note the spelling of it for anyone who wants to Google it or whatever b'c it's Riesentraube ( with i before e), and not Reisetomate( e before i), the latter being a completely different variety and an oddball at that, and also known as traveler and voyage.
Hope that helps.
Carolyn
Here is a link that might be useful: Riesentraube
Could you post a picture of some of the tomatoes please? It would help a great deal. From your description it could be several different things and we could only guess at the cause.
Are there any signs of pests? Stinkbugs? Fruitworms? How do the plants themselves look? Any signs of disease?
Dave
AND I just saw the fattest chipmunk I have ever seen. Scampering (or waddling) between the raised beds.
The raised beds all have hardware cloth bottoms, but this is our kitchen garden, it is about 12 ft across the front, the other three sides are brick foundation. Which usually makes for great growing conditions. I have taken the electric fence down and the cats are having a field day. (but banished to the basement so they don't yak up vole parts on my bed again) They are old but not that feeble. They just wait and wait, you think they are asleep and then a paw goes down a hole and comes up with something.
I think two plants are a total loss, but the rest seem to be surviving. I will try putting the hardware cloth down about a foot. I will be adding amendments and re tilling over the winter.
They are forecasting heavy rains today and tomorrow, the squash have just had it.
Well my Tomatoes (2 Better Bush) are both basically dead at this point, I got around 150-175 tomatoes between the two plants. Planted them in early April and they are done and dead in mid August, produced about 75-85 tomatoes per plant.
They are Determinate plants though.
Now I planted 3 Dwarfs which are indeterminate that were basically planted first week of June.
The HEAT and HUMIDITY have taken their toll on them.
The plants are fighting off Blight and are dropping on average 2-3 blossoms per day.
I only have just 3 tomatoes set on one plant.
But up until the past couple of days the temps have been in the mid 90s to low 100s and even at night it has been close to 80.
Next year I am going to plant them as early as possible, probably in March in the Vegtrug under the greenhouse cover then transplant them in their growing pots when they get too large (22+") for the Vegtrug.
Herbicide can travel up to 2miles when it volatilizes.
It can also travel on a mild breeze, such as across the driveway or a yard.
And it can travel via the spray turbulence itself. The higher the pressure in the sprayer, the smaller the droplets, the farther they travel.
Must always differentiate between virus and herbicide damage. Frankly, in my region, herbicide damage -- typically inadvertent -- is much more common than virus in home gardens.
5 gallons is pretty small, thats the minimum size I'd use for ONE cherry tomato plant personally. For bigger, like the Cherokee, I'd aim for a minimum of 10-15gal, maybe even more, and only use one plant per container. I use 10 gallon containers, but the roots grow out the bottom into the ground anyhow as I have them in the yard, if they were on cement I'd go bigger. Gotta give those roots room to spread out.
I shouldn't expect too much more from these plants, right?
I didn't say that. Your question was about plant appearance - "plants getting sparser" - not production and that was what I addressed. And without knowing what varieties or at least the type they are no one can say.
There is a FAQ here about the difference between determinates and indeterminates that explains how they grow and produce. Indeterminate tomato plants will keep growing and producing until killed by frost and as long as they are healthy and have enough water and nutrients they will keep producing fruit until they are killed.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: tomato type FAQs
Pollination rates have been unusually low here in the PNW for at least the last two years, probably because of our unusually cool spring and summer. You can help fruit set by shaking your plants to improve pollination. You can either shake the tomato cage or the stake or lightly tap the trusses with open flowers. I live in Seattle, and I transplanted my plants in early June under hoop houses. I kept them covered until early July, and when they had flowers, I would shake the plants to improve pollination. Based on my count today on 25 plants, I have just over 600 fruit, about half cherry tomatoes and the other half larger black and beefsteak tomatoes.
Because of the cooler weather in the PNW, tomatoes usually take much longer to grow and ripen even if they're grown under hoop houses for the first few weeks. For example, last year Sungold took about 70 days to break, and larger tomatoes like Cherokee Purple and Black Krim took about 90 days. This year my Sungold took 37 days to set fruit compared to 31 days last year, so it's was about a week longer than last year. The larger tomatoes took 40-50 days to set fruit, about the same as last year. Given our cooler weather, I've only been watering about every 2-3 weeks and fertilizing once a month with Dr. Earth or Organobloom, but that's also because my planting mix is pretty rich and retains moisture.
Yes, I am willing to bet it's weather issues. If it was nutrient issues, you'd know it, and would be talking about the condition of the leaves, not fruit set issues. Plants will grow a lot of foliage if they don't have fruit set, the reason some are saying they have large plants without fruit. This is normal for most plants in that energy normally put into fruit go into leaves. Like the person in Ohio, I am having a bumper year like I've never seen before. It's all in the weather.
Bonide's 3-in-1 is supposed to be good for fruitworms, and since I sprayed last week, the count has plummeted, although I did pick 3 or 4 off this morning. I also found, on the underside of a leaf, about a dozen tiny eggs laid out in a diamond shaped pattern.
They went down the garbage disposal.
I had fruit worms on the fruit that laid on the ground, on the part that touched the ground. I'll try better cages next year.
I have read that horn worms glow under a blacklight at night. I might buy a cheap handheld blacklight next year and try that trick.
Sorry, all I can do is empathise. I've had the same problem in the past with a few different varieties at different times. It doesn't seem like a normal die off, but other than that I have no idea. I always thought something was wrong, but didn't know what. The branches would die and get crispy fairly rapidly, and just fall off.
Branches steadily dying from the bottom up says considerable nutrient deficiency to me. The plants are starving.