16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
I'd like to second Dave's point about plant labels and tags. I gave away over 70 tomato plants in small pots this year, with the sole proviso that the recipient use the wooden markers provided. And I kept a list of who got what. That way I can ask later on how a particular variety fared in that particular garden.
On the other hand, I quite dislike the all too common practice of sticking a plastic marker in among newly planted annual flowers. Fussy, I know :-)
WC2K8,
Interesting subject; I don't grow long keepers, but getting back to your question, there are 2 others - 1 of which might only be available from SSE members, Mercuri Winter Keeper.
Another- I've seen available at a few online merchants is Yellow Out-Red In. -R
csunbean, you can pick tomatoes when they're semi-ripe or when they're completely ripe, but either way you shouldn't pick them until the color "breaks." To know what color that would be, you need to know which tomato you're growing: the 'Fantome du Laos' ... or the plain 'Fantom' from Totally Tomatoes ... or something else?
If you're not sure what the name of the variety is, do you still have the seed packet? If you don't, where did you buy the seeds? If you bought them in a store, do you know the brand (Burpee, Ferry Morse, etc.)?
Have you checked Craigslist for compost or manure? Unless you're in a very urban area, it's likely that you can get manure delivered cheaply, or go pick it up for free if you've got a truck or trailer. If anyone near you has livestock of any sort, they would probably be thrilled to let you clean out the pens and take away the manure for free. Before I had a truck, I'd fill up Rubbermaid tubs of horse manure and bring them home for the compost pile. These days I get a 12 yard load of horse manure mixed with shavings and hay dumped in the fall and leave it in a pile to compost all winter. In the spring it is broken down and ready to be worked into the garden.
You are killing your soil with commercial fertilize...it's "Crack" for the garden. The more you use the more you have to use.
Compost, grass, leaves, weeds, horse, cow, sheep, pig, chicken manure. put in pil, make damp, turn every three days, and a little dirt from the woods, vacant lot, somewhere that hasn't been messed with for awhile. Make compost tea, water plants with it and put it on their leaves in the evening. Let the chlorine bleed of your water before using on you plants and making tea with.
Get your garden off the crack. I never buy fertilize. Quit all the tilling. Get a lawn mower with a bagger...empty bag into a pile...there's your compost. Quit working so hard.
No, it is a rip-off and preaches all sorts of weird junk. Unfortunately it keeps rearing its ugly head here and on other tomato-growing forums in discussions, strongly negative discussions except for the spamming by the seller. I linked a bunch of them below you can read through if interested.
Don't waste your money.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato magic discussions
Wow there seems to be quite a variance in appearance in the Mr Stripeys, of course not including the Tigerella's which are clearly a different variety. Is the variable color envoronmental or nutritional? Perhaps both?
*****
If we were comparing differently named gold/red bicolors I'd say the difference in the degree of coloration is variety dependent with respect to DNA.
But when looking at pictures of a single variety and seeing such variation, I don't know if it's environmental or nutritional, b'c there's no way to know how differently different folks grow their tomatoes, what they use for amendments, where they grow them and what the season was like as to weather in that season.
But I can't help wondering if the different coloration of the specific Variety Mr. Stripey, or the color variation that can be seen with many others of the same type, might be due to specific seed sources with perhaps a mutation thrown in here ot there.
No way to proove that either. LOL
Carolyn
The Mr Stripey tomatoes I've grown on and off for several yrs look like the ones pictured in Carolyn's link. I had 20 oz Estlers Mortgage Lifters last yr weighed on a Paula Deen scale from Wal-Mart but a 24 oz Mr Stripey was my biggest. Besides being oblate it was also oblong. They are a sweet tomato that I love if fresh and not watery with egg and bacon on toast. Wow!
I love KBX ( Kellog's Breakfast which is PL) and was one of the first to get seeds from Martha, in whose garden it appeared. The history can can be found at Tania's site which I linked to below.
At the time Martha and I were both posting in the AOL Tomato Forum and she distributed seeds to several of us.
It's also one of the few PL variants of an original RL that I feel is the same as the original except for leaf form, which indicates a single spontaneous mutation.
Many of the PL versions of original RL's are not the same as the original except for leaf form b'c there are several kinds of DNA mutations that can lead to more than one gene being affected.
But this has been discussed here before.
So yes, I encourage everyone to try it, great taste and production and as Martha said at the Tania link, not as susceptible to CRUD as is the RL form of Kellog's Breakfast.
Carolyn
Here is a link that might be useful: KBX
Don't forget to consider what chemicals may have been applied to your lawn and still exist in the soil. A lot of the chemicals used on lawns are not recommended for areas where food crops will be grown. I also saw a family member plant that way and grass was allowed to grow right up to the plant and I don't know if she got any tomatoes at all but if so, very few in a stunted plant. If you haven't used much chemicals on the lawn and its all you have, nothing to lose by trying. Heed the advise those above mentioned and maybe consider planting one or two in the largest post/containers you can find.
On Overwintering tomatoes and peppers, just use indeterminate tomato varities, they live for many years if taken care of. I overwintered 6 pepper and 8 tomato plants, the cherry tomatoes never stopped producing even in winter while other went dormant and woke up like crazy. I would not pull out the healthy tomatoe plants this season, but prune them sometime in mid Jan to early Feb to stimulate growth, also fertilize at that time.
Wow, that's exactly what's happening to one of my tomato plants, too! They're up against the fence that separates my yard from my chem-using neighbors. Should I leave the affected areas alone, or should I prune them off? Is the plant a goner, or will it survive? None of the other three tomatoes seem to have been affected, including another growing in the same earthbox.
High North. For future reference, Laying down a couple layers of cardboard and holding it down with some rocks or something would have killed the grass and weeds in a chemical free way. In fact, many people use cardboard or newspapers as a water permiable weed block under normal mulching circumstances, not just for killing off a large area of lawn.
It is very lucky for me that my family loves 'maters as much as I do. My sister keeps leaving cook books open as subtle hints.
I might just have some mystery plants, the Yellow Brandywine (according to Tatainia) is suppposed to have potato leaf, my reds do. These do not, but the undersides of the leaves are dark veined, if you know what I mean. and boy, are they so far behind mine in size but most of them have fruits.
I love surprises!
I've got a pepper like that - brought some cayennes, cherries, frying peppers home from my cousin last year, ended up with a Numex Big Jim type plant that neither of us started, I saved seed since it was so yummy on the grill, but it could have crossed with the cayenne, my Hinkelhatz, serrano or Thai since I didn't bag it - who knows what those plants will produce this year! Then again, it could have crossed with a bell...
The solution to over watering is DRAINAGE and proper "Potting Mix", not garden soil, make sure your mix isn't heavy.
Just drill about 10 or more 1/2" holes in the bottom of a 12-15 gallon pot.
If your soil is light and airy and the drainage is really good you basically cant over water.
If anything one of those globes will only keep your soil wet.
all right it was just an idea.