16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
Growing indoors is a huge job. There are so many variables to consider.
First, the water that comes out of the tap is chlorinated, and it has a good bit of flouride, depending on where you live. Chlorine will evaporate out of the water, if you leave the water in a pitcher open to the air for a day or so.
temperature and humidity are a big issue too, tomatoes like it warm, top production happens at 85 degrees, and they like some humidity. Also, for pollination, the plants need wind to shake the pollen loose in the flowers that they set, you can use a fan or give the plant a shake every day.
that is a picture of chlorine damage in my indoor grown tomato
Here is a link that might be useful: My Garden
Thanks all:
luvahydrangea, you brought up a very good point. I thought the point of mounding is to have the root ball above ground so it warm up faster. If you have mount and plant below ground level, then doesn't that make it even worse because now it takes even longer to warm up the root ball.
Johnny
I don't believe it needs to be above ground, just not too deep as the soil temperatures are cooler the deeper you go. What I usually do, is dig out a shallow trench, and lay the tomato plant on its side to bury as much of the stem as possible. Its below the surface, but only by about 3 inches which is close enough to the surface to warm up fast.
my Black Krim is doing the same thing! The blossoms just drop without any pollinating. All of my cherries, my better boy, celebrity, mariglobe, and several others all have developing fruit on them but none of the black krim. The weirdest part is that the BK plant has the most overall flowers. Last year this time the BK was packing on some serious weight with all the emerging tomatoes, but not this year. Im pretty frustrated.
I can't help but wonder that since the Black Krim is an heirloom and not a hybrid tomato, it's going to be a little more finicky when it comes to weather conditions? Heck, if I were going to "make" a new type of tomato, I'd want to engineer it to grow under less than ideal conditions.
I have to keep reminding myself that's not even June, and patience is in order.
Welll if they are determinate then you won't want to prune them at all. If they are indeterminate then you aren't required to prune them either. It is strictly optional. So either way, no pruning is necessary.
That said, the variety called Chinese Purple is listed as an indeterminate beefsteak variety on the two sources I checked. So it will require caging or staking and any pruning yes or no is your choice.
As to removing blooms, that too is optional. The plant will either set fruit with them if it is mature enough or drop them if it isn't so it makes no difference and most just let the plant decide. Shame to miss out on that first fruit if it isn't necessary. So it is up to you.
Dave
The old dilemma: grow a just a few big slicers or lots of medium maters :-) I always go round and round myself. The best solution I've come up with is to plant a few of each and let some make as many tomatoes as possible and try to get a whopper off one of the plants by picking as many of the blooms as I can stand to do.
Regardless of what you do with the blooms n fruits, I'd support and prune the plants.
Thanks All,
Yes Dave is right, it was direct sunlight.
Okey then, Gene, I dont have any idea about how to make compost tea? I now ppl suggest buy compost, soak in water for 3-4 days and brew it and then add to plants. but dont know where to buy that and what is the exact method.
Thanks.
I am making my first batch of compost tea as I write this. I found a ton of useful videos on youtube. I used a 30 gallon molasis tub recycled from a farmer friend. I also used about 30 feet of soaker hose, connected to a dual output air pump from a fish tank. I placed 3 bricks on the soaker hose that is coiled up on the botom of the 30 gallon bucket. I useda 5 gallon paint strainer bag that I purchased from sherwin williams. I filled it with about 2 gallons of compost I purchased in a bag from walmart, i also put about a gallon of compressed freshly picked weeds from my neighbors field. I picked some clover but mostly true tap root style weeds. My thinking on the weeds is that tap root weeds take up hard to reach trace minerals and well clover is a nitrogen fixer. So I figured the green plant material would be a fertilizer boost. I zip tied the compost weed mixture so no solids will fall out. I had filled the bucket the day before with tap water, adn I areated it for a few hours. that should hav egotten most of th emunicipal chlorine out. Now I place the tea bag in the water, adn it sank. i also added about a cup of molasis. It has been bubbling about 24 hours now. It has a nice faomy layer on top, adn the soaker hose allows bubbles all over the bucket so there are no dead spots void of O2.
My first batch is not finished yet, but it smells the way many describe, the color is very tea like, adn it has the soapy bubbles as it should. I would guess I have a very good first batch. I have 24 dollars invested in the pump equipment from amazon , the bucket was free. the compost was left over from some mothers day potting gifts, but cost about $3 for the bag which is still over half full after several pottings, adn this batch of tea.
aerated compost tea is quite inexpensive adn cheap to make. dont be afraid. But if you were local to me I would be happy to give you a gallon to try out.
I am thinking about selling it at the farmers market. I figure have a frsh batch ready on saturday morning, and tell people to use it up by Sunday. I have read it sells for $3 to $10 per gallon. Ill probably play with mine for this year. See how it works out. If I think it is the real deal offer it to others. I know compost tea is the real deal. i just dont know if mine is.
I sprinkled some garden tone around my tomato plants
What are the application instructions on the box? Usually sprinkling dry fertilizers around plants is just a waste of fertilizer and has little to no benefit for the plants.
Dave
Yes, the crack will scar over. Don't throw the fruit out unless it gets to the point where there's so much mold the fruit begins to rot.
Try to keep moisture consistent as that will prevent future cracking; it doesn't look like you've mulched the container; if not, that will help. You can use almost anything as mulch, including shredded office paper, plain newspaper, or even cardboard.
I'm trying Kellogg's Breakfast this year, but I've been growing Red Brandywine for a few years now. A very productive, tasty round red tomato. Tomatoes are fairly uniform with little cracking or splitting and have good taste. I haven't canned any of them before, but I'd assume that they'd make a good canning tomato as well.
as far as flavor, production
Trying talk about taste is near impossible since that all depends on your growing conditions and your personal taste buds. So all I can tell you is if I like the taste or not. Bonnie's Best the wife and I like, not spectacular or unique taste but good. And it is good for canning with a good level of production.
Red Brandywine also taste good to us but the production is low compared to many other varieties so few of them are left for canning.
Costoluto Genovese doesn't appeal at all to me. Don't like the heavy ribbing and the taste leaves a great deal to be desired. Personally I'd replace it since you still have season time to go.
I linked a previous discussion here about it below. You can find discussions about all of them with a search by variety name here.
If canning great tomatoes for winter use is your primary goal then there are much better varieties to choose from.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: costo. G discussion
It would help to know roughly where you live and garden, that info is not given at your page, b/c I'm of two thoughts on whether you need to use cages or some other method of supporting a plant.
Here in the NE most of us just let our plants sprawl and of the about 3,000 plus tomato varieties I've grown to date, maybe 95% have been grown by sprawling and the rest in cages and sometime the same variety in the same season in both a cage and sprawled.
I spaced plants 3-4 ft apart in a row 250 ft long and the rows 5 ft apart. Yes, as the plants mature the vines pretty much cover the area between the rows, but I don't find that to be a problem at all since I know the traits of each variety I plant out before I ever sow the seed so have little problem following the vines out to harvest the fruits I want to save seeds from. Each season I'd put out several hundreds of plants and varieties.
The major diseases where I grow were/are the common foliage diseases that almost everyone has problems with and sometimes an occasional plant with Verticillium which is one of the soil borne systemic diseases and those plants usually grew out of it.
Yes, there is a small amount of fruit loss from fruits resting on the soil and rotting, but if you've never sprawled plants you may not realize that the majority of fruits are nestled in the foliage and never touch the ground/
Other critter problems? Not really.
However if you live in the south where it's hot and humid and have many critters that can and do eat the fruits and/or damage them, then you might want to get the plants off the ground. Continued high heat and humidity can result in leaf diseases b'c of poor airflow which is increased somewhat if the vines are supported.
So as I see it, it depends on where you garden, geographically, what space you have, if you're growing mainly indet with some det varieties, and last, but not least, how many plants you're dealing with.
No one solution for everyone. ( smile)
Carolyn, and from the picture of your plants they appear to me to be too big to now set a cage around them and try to train them to the cage. One should set out plants at perhaps 6-9 inches tall and THEN put the cage in place.
You guys are awesome. Thanks for your help. I am definitely going to work on staking them or supporting them. I was out of town all weekend and when i came back I had a nearly full grown tomato just sitting on the ground growing - woops!
I hope it's not too late to guide them upwards....
ps. I am in north Georiga if that matters
I bottom water in a tray when soil is fairly dry I don't over water. Yes there are drain holes.
These seeds are from Longkeepers a standard non-hybrid variety. As stated in my recent post the seeds I used in my current test are from the same seeds that I planted in the same window last year and grew just fine.
I'm really stumped on this.
I'd water them more often and see what happens. It's either that or the seed-starting mix.
I started three trays of seeds -- mostly tomatoes -- each a week or so apart. The first and third were normal and happy, while the plants in the second tray were an odd color, not as lush, and shorter than the younger third tray. I used Burpee's seed-starting mix with all three: most of a bag for the first tray, the rest of that bag and part of a second for the second tray, etc. No explanation, though the second batch were happier after being potted up.
Similar to Earthbox, which I grow in. A SWC (self watering container) known as a closed system. Earthbox was invented and developed by a professional tomato farmer in Florida. All the ferts get used instead of washing away. It is not uncommon to have plants do better than they would in the ground. Typically use the same type of solid ferts as would be used in ground, be it organic or synthetic. ONe thing about many patio, bush type determinate plants is that a lot of them have a different leaf type which is heavier and greener than even potato leaf tomatoes. It is called Rugose, maybe that is what you are seeing.
Here's where to find out more info about the dwarf project.
http://www.dwarftomatoproject.net/History.php
Also, there are a number of crosses that have originated in
the U.S. One is Brawny, which I did a couple of years ago
to make a Dwarf Cuostralee... which is still a work in progress.
Check out tomatopalooza.org for lists and images of many of
the dwarf varieties that have been sampled over the past
few years.
Summertime Gold is the best, imho, followed closely by Rosella Purple.
Lee
Yes, Craig only goes weekends.
The dates and times are given at his blog, but he's through for the year right now.
I think you should go to the go to the next Tomatopalooza, which is organized by Craig and Lee. So you can meet Lee as well and all the others who attend.
Lee, does that Tomaopalooza link give the directions to Efland where it will held again this year? A storm is coming and I don't want to take the time to take a look, and besides I'm also thinking of Yellow Bosnian. LOL
Carolyn
sierra_nevada, did you talk to your county's Cooperative Extension about identifying the soil problem? Some tomato varieties have been bred to deal with some of the soil problems.
We have the 2 gallon pots of grafted tomatoes here for $16.99, which I think is kind of dear. Perhaps in a few weeks they'll be reduced in price.
I wonder if the rootstock affects the flavour of the grafted tomato at all? And can you save seeds (or cuttings) for the grafted tomato if it's an heirloom...or will it become a Franken-mato?