16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

Fireduck,
You have achieved good results. You are NO LONGER a nubie : -)

My first batch of tomatoes sprouted in 4 days too (without exception)
However , I soaked the seeds overnight. I was thinking that it is almost a record. So we have tied for the first place: lol

Seysonn

thanks for the confidence S. I actually planted a second round of seeds that germinated 100%. As my dad used to say..."I am a little bit proud". haha. My exuberance is leading to way too many plants...a good thing. My pepper seeds seem to be MUCH slower. I suppose that is expected?

Seysonn,

I just hope it's a quick decisive victory and not a long drawn out war. :)

Daniel, where are you ? We need a new thread !
Hello !

Seysonn

For telling when to water I go by the color (perhaps shade is a better word) of the potting mix and the weight of the pot or cell pack. Might take a bit of practice to tell but one that needs watered will have a mix lighter in color and will also weigh a lot less when picked up. There is no set watering schedule. And of course, if the seedlings look like they are starting to wilt then they definitely need water. :) Better to have them on the drier side than have them too wet.

Rodney

Good point Rodney. I can also tell by the weight of the pot if it needs watering. It is amazing how much a difference few oz of water can make But the top of my pots are mulched with pine bark or there is a lot of perlite that does indicate anything.

Just to clarify, I don't want to leave the impression that Big Beef and Cherokee Purple are early varieties. They were just the first to produce ready-to-pick tomatoes for me last year and they substantially beat out Matina, considered an early variety. Furthermore, after their first tomatoes, they weren't really in full production at that point. It was several days before subsequent tomatoes were ready.

I'll be noting Dave's suggestions for other early varieties for the future.
I should probably make it a point to grow at least one cherry each year, but I consider them the appetizer before the main course. Once the bigger tomatoes come along, the cherries tend to get ignored. Or perhaps its just that Sungold is so productive, I actually get annoyed keeping up with picking them.

Thanks Linda, I’ll look for that one.

Dave, if that is the case, then I should be asking, what is the most productive, best tasting tomato? I’ve read a lot of people rave over Cherokee Purple but say it’s not very productive, so is it possible to get great taste and productivity?

Nitsua, I am going to be growing Cherokee Purple anyway. I’ll have to look into Big Beef, I can’t remember if I’ve tried it. I tried Champion last year, recommended by the nursery that I purchased a few plants from. It was not a winner for me.

I meant 12 INCH pots.

I got Better Boy, Cherokee Purple, Homestead, and 'Bonnie Grape TamiG'. From seed I started Sweet 100 and Blondkopfchen. Can plant in 3 weeks. This year the fluorescent setup is on a rolling Metro shelf, I can unplug and remove the lights and wheel it outside during the day to start them hardening off in another week/10 days.

Regardless of the reason occurances like you experience can be very frustrating. Last year I tried a new variety called Grandpa Dutches Favorite from a seed Co. I'll not mention. Each of the 4 plants I trialed produced drastically different fruits; one even turned out to be a cherry type. I now have come to expect 5-7% "non-typical" plants in any heirloom variety planted. If I see 1% "non-typical"with hybrid varieties I'd be extremely surprised.

There may be an occasion that you get different color scheming such as with non-segregated crossings; Copia is a good example. Those are more tolerable and might even be looked on as pleasant surprise. I plant thousands of tomato plants and sell buth plants and fruit and I get concerned about other's results as well as my own. If you only plant a few plants those oddball ones can be deal breakers.

I grew Red Robin for the first time last season. One plant was absolutely wonderful-great little tomatoes with a beefsteak flavor. But one plant turned out to be cherry sized fruits that were deeply pleated and very sour. So now I'm paranoid about wasting my efforts on Red Robin seed which I really want to grow regularly.

Good new, We have Merced tomato seeds. We were able to get some to sell from a family that has grown them for 40 years. We sell them at maggiesgardenseeds.com or you can find us on facebook at Maggie's Garden Seeds. Hope this helps, maybe we can bring this favorite back. :) Have a great day. Maggie

I'm back, or you can e mail me at maggiesseeds@aol.com :)

It is time to update this. Also to bring something to the top that is not another how awful things are since the big change. (A shot at humor. I am still adjusting to things as well.)

I potted up 24 from the starter cells today. I have been needing to do it for longer than I care to post. I have been busy with so much as of late it feels like I have two full time jobs, and another part time job on the side. I will be potting up more tomorrow as well.

Yesterday I had to spray all of my plants with neem oil. After a weekend away for Valentine's with my wonderful wife I came home to find and aphid infestation of my pepper plants. The tomatoes appeared to be left alone. Though I am not going to take that chance. I lost 5 pepper plants.

I have 24 plants spending the night in my low tunnel. They are now sun hardened. Now to keep them out, unless there is an extended cold snap. Then they will come inside. 36 will be starting their first day outside tomorrow in the shade.

Long story short. This year is so far a way better start than last year.

Thanks all,

Nate Guilliams
Temple, Tx.

THat sounds great, Nate.
I am germinating my first batch of 8 varieties. The rest I will start end of FEB. That will be roughly 6 weeks to plant out time.

Seysonn

I have a pack of seed for Sara Galapagos. I want to try them soon.

yes: 2 die 4 … that's what the fla seed provider said … we'll see. i have about 8 types of cherry toms i am testing, along with the sweet 100s, which come up vol, and never make it in to the house.

I've grown Riesentraube for at least two decades, originial source for me from Curtis Choplin who got it from the German Seed Bank. But known to be grown in Philadelphia in the mid 1800's and also grown in several other European countries. I think it was in Hungary that it was called Goat's T#T for the small nipple at the blossom end of the fruits.

And no, I've never had a problem with seed germination from the ones I got from Curtis or the ones I saved seed from in susequent growouts, primarily for my then many hundreds of varieties listed in the SSE Yearbooks, And it's also one I featured in my tomato book.

I'm sure there are pictures at Tania's website and know that each blossom stalk can have 200-300 blossoms but only about 40-50 of them set fruits.

Almost forgot. One person I know made wine from them and sent me a few small bottles and it tasted like a wonderful dry sherry with color to match,

Carolyn

Thanks Carolyn, interesting histories always make it more fun to grow a variety, and I'll be sure to watch for both billie-goats and trolls that try to nibble on my baby goat Riesentraubes ;-)

I see now that some (like yourself) with more dependable seed seem to have no issues, but on the other hand, I'm not the first to to have trouble specifically with this variety. For example, take a look at the comment in this link selling Riesentraube seeds (not my source unless by coincidence, unfortunately mine are likely not traceable to origin): "The germination time of the seeds tends to be a bit longer than that of other varieties." Opinions on seed sources aside, I found the same comment in other places since my OP.

Perhaps there is something different about how it hibernates or goes into dormancy or more to the point the way it wakes up. I'd better admit, that my seed starting conditions haven't been as controlled as I should, but really it was my only variety of nearly 25 that gave any indication of difficulty. I wonder if you noticed whether the emergent seedling was extra fine leafed (leaved sp?)... That is something I haven't seen addressed anywhere, if in fact there is anything to address, seems like most people don't pay too much attention to that aspect as long as they eventually get healthy plants. I'm curious for curiosity sake at this point, but the knee jerk reaction originally was I had received something wild.

You mentioned in your book that not all plants express the heavily bunching trait. Is that still true or I wonder if growers have managed to select it out by now.

Thanks (as always) for you kind input!

PC

Hoosier,

That sound like a real good idea. I am definitely going to try that. I will have to put some kind of ground cover around them. I usually use the black landscape plastic or heavy paper grain bags around them but I can do it later as the plants get established.

Helen, .. that is like planting tomato's cousin, Potato. That is good if you are planting in a row.

Talking about Spring Training: Today (Mon, Feb 16) we are going to have an incredible weather, SUNNY and high reaching 60F. So I am going to do a little more work. I have to empty the rest of the pots, clean up, and refresh the old soil by adding some more fresh ingredients and cover the soil , to prevent from getting wet again. So when I am ready for my container planting (Mostly peppers) stuff is ready.
I might also start making some cover cages or make another mini hoop.
So far February has been more like April. But I am sure we are going to get a lot of cold snaps til mid April.

Seysonn

Geez !! I got the impression that you already have the grown seedlings/plants from seeds, where you said "TO SET THE POTS....",.
Starting seeds is another process and normally is not done in pots.
My misunderstanding !

Seysonn

They have all germinated now doing good. Planted in solo cups about half full will add more soil as they grow taller to encourage stronger plants and roots. Got about 60 under the lights now. Cherokee chocolate, cherokee purple, indian stripe, black krim, black from tula, black cherry, and purple bumble bee.

Thanks Sue and asm. Ohiofem, you've made some interesting comments over time. I think Sue meant you could search for anything, including a user, because this formum doesn't yet have a "see all posts by user" function. It happened to me that I posted once some time after I started a certain plant, later lost the start date, unimportant at the moment, but then the plant became important and I was able to search and find the date here and confirm I had gotten a fresh tomato to eat from seed in under 100 days ;-)

Seysonn, I agree but sometimes searching the whole site brings up stuff that is unrelated. I've never liked the search function and use Google's instead for here. Maybe it can be improved though which would be nice to be able to include/exclude terms for a more specific search.

Example: Hillbilly pH

Before you got everything with either, so tons of soil and hydroponics stuff showed up, but I only wanted to see if anyone said anything about the pH of the Hillbilly tomato pulp.

PC

Thanks to all for the tips. I'd like to be able to search all garden forums -- like tomatoes, container gardening and vegetables, for example -- excluding the home improvement forums, but that doesn't seem to be an option. Actually, I had the same search problem on the old GW site that PC mentioned. You couldn't search for "tomato cages," for example, because it would bring up any post with either word in it. Also, older posts couldn't be found by searching GW. The best way to search then, and I hope now, was to use Google. I could find something specific by entering site:gardenweb.com and then a specific phrase in quotes on Google.