16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
Nitrogen soil tests are not particularly useful because nitrogen changes forms so rapidly. Total nitrogen tells you very little about the availability of nitrogen during the upcoming growing season. Nitrate-nitrogen tells you what is immediately available, but that can change rapidly.
That being said, if you had lots of flowers, the plant was not just growing vegetatively. The flowers either did not get pollinated, or aborted before they developed. Many tomato varieties are fairly heat sensitive, and do not produce fruit in hot weather. Cherry tomato varieties are very heat tolerant and will set and develop fruit even in very hot weather. I would try different varieties and not worry about changing your plant nutrition.
NOT FRUITING can be due to more than onen factor:
A) plant is not flowering:
--- Too much nitrogen, not enough P
In this case you can tell that the foliage is lush dark green.
B) plant is flowering, but NOT fruiting.
--- High or very low temperatures.
--- Too much nutrients, forcing the plant to stay in vegetative state. So the flowers are aborted.
Pollinators are not needed for tomatoes. So that is not a problem.
Seysonn
It was a pretty good producer, the fruits were tasty and even with their growth and size habit of the fruits. More resistant to cracking than the bigger tomatoes I grew, but about on par with the Juane Flamme. It was great for canning, and particularly good for dehydrating. Plants were sturdy and stayed on the smaller/more manageable side- still for sure needed caging. I would grow it again.
I read up on tomato spotted wilt virus. What I have going on doesn't look exactly like the pictures I saw, but there are some similarities. I didn't really see any info on what this means for the plant or how to treat it. Is the plant a goner? Should I just take it out?
I'm no expert on this, but i think this is the virus that affected mine a few months ago. anyway mine deteriorated quite quickly and then the plant next to it started to show the same symptoms so yanked both of them quick smart as i believe the virus is transmitted via thrips. The others survived.
thebutcher - We will both have an opinion on Jersey Boy - by the end of the season - I spent the big bucks at Burpee necessary to try this new variety. I can't tell you a thing about it except for what I have read at this point. My starts of Jersey Boy are already up and I hope it will be a great one!
Eva Purple Ball's oddity is in the name as there's really nothing purple about it. Its more of a dark pink/red. I like to think the person who named it was color blind. There's a very similar variety called Redfield Beauty, but I have yet to grow it. I'll add that Eva Purple Ball holds up very well in intense summer heat. 2013 and 2012 were the 4th and 5th hottest summers on record here and Eva kept producing while many other varieties withered and halted production.
That's exactly what I was running into, Seysonn, information overload. I once spent nearly 6 months researching DVD players before I settled on one, so I have a tendency to over research things.
In any case, it's settled, I've ordered a heat mat and am setting up my seed starting space.
nugrdnnut,
January was colder last year but February has been colder this year, at least east of the Rockies. For this area, last Feb. averaged 5 degrees below normal, but this year so far it's about 9 degrees below normal and that number will continue to climb with temps around 0 for lows this week.
Helen,
Cukes did well here too but it seemed other critters were more numerous. Maybe the constant cold kept them in hiding rather than false springs luring them out to freeze.
early is good, tasty is a plus. something to wrap the bacon around.
and the list has changed again. Jaune Flammee is def. on the list. About all my seed has arrived, about all the peppers are being germinated. i have 2 wks to solidify the list. then i have to search for containers.
dave
I love Jaune Flamme. LOVE LOVE LOVE. I grew it this fall thru mild Winter and processed all the seed out of one of the largest tomatoes. Dense planted them and now am separating them to give away to the unenlightened! I need to plant Siletz too I have heard it does great in high heat.
In Southwest Ohio near the southern edge of zone 5, I have had the best luck with tomatoes that have a day's to maturity of less than 85 days. I have about four months of reliably suitable tomato growing weather, and I would guess you probably have two or three weeks less. I can grow Brandywines that have their first tomatoes at the end of July, and with luck they will continue producing until late September. Here is an OSU Extension publication that lists suitable varieties and growing tips, but like most of the advice you get from extension agencies, they favor hybrids. But they do list heirlooms I've had good luck with, like Brandywine, Mortgage Lifter and Cherokee Purple.
This year I also baked my soil for indoor use. Haven't seen any insects. Last year I w.as fighting fungus gnat. I also soaked starter soil with peroxide solution.
Baking soil at 200- 250F will destroy any microbes in the soil, good or bad. .I find things like fungus gnat flying around very annoying beside the damage they cause .
Sysonn
I have to assume that hydrogen peroxide, or a bath in hot water, will also destroy any microbes in the soil, good or bad. In fact, the hot water will probably rinse out chemical nutrients as well. I'm not clear on this, but I don't see any advantages in soil microbes for seedlings. Correct me if I'm wrong, but soil microbes are of primary value in breaking down organic matter in the soil, which is kind of irrelevant for seedlings and seedpots. I suspect that highly sterile soil will allow seedling growth just as well as good-microbial-rich soil will. Ag extensions are pretty unanimous in recommending that seeds be started in sterile soil. As in, everything dead. Now, that being said, I understand that soil should not be overheated, or it will release toxic amounts of ammonium compounds. But that's a chemical issue, and not a microbial one.
Whatever the case, I think unstabilized tomatoes (peppers, etc.) are largely an unexplored frontier. I mean, with one set of seeds, you could get different kinds of tomatoes every year (and different kinds the same year, even). As long as they're bred to produce a desirable variation every time, that's totally awesome.