16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

Experienced gardeners who remove suckers from tomato plants are generally training indeterminate varieties to a single stem supported by a stake or suspended string. This allows for good air circulation where humidity is a problem, and allows some people to grow more varieties in a smaller area. The fruit is more visible, and sometimes these gardeners also thin their fruits for bigger or more perfect individual fruits.

If you are planting in big cages, you can leave suckers (those which won't lead to fruit lying on the ground) on indeterminate varieties. Especially if the air is dry and the sun is strong where you live, good leaf cover is an advantage in protecting fruits from sun scald.

Did you leave the bottom on the kiddie pool in which you planted your tomatoes? How do you plan to support your plants? Are they determinate or indeterminate varieties? Pruning determinate varieties to a single stem will lead to much less fruit, as they do not make new flower buds throughout the season as a single stem grows taller.

Carolync I wish there was a way to give kudos points or a thumbs up, that's exactly what I needed to know! Thank you so much for giving such a complete answer. I'm the curious type, and I always ask why about everything.

I also use 1gph emitters on my tomato plants. I use sliver plastic mulch film and only water at MOST every 5-7 days for about 1 -1 1/2 hour. A LOT of people had horrible harvests in last year's heat because they watered too much. We had one of the best harvests ever in part I think to a consistent, deep watering schedule.

If your plants look wilty during the heat of the day, that's just their normal response to conserve water. If they perk up in the evening and look good in the mornings, they do not need water.

Thanks everyone, this information really helps. Just to be clear, I haven't actually started watering yet, I just set up the schedule. I will reduce it down to once a week and see how things go. My rows are actually only 10' long. I have 20 of them. I actually had a great harvest last year though we got a late start. My watering was erratic.

I didn't know about the dowel method for checking moisture levels and will look into that to keep an eye on things. Thanks all!

Last year, my hubs planted the tomatoes along the back fence so they got zero sun in the morning. They still produced, not our best year but it was ok. I'm sure you'll get a decent amount of fruit, good luck! :)

Thanks for the votes of confidence...I feel MUCH better now!

Thanks for the input. I sprayed with a copper fungicide made by Bonide, it seems to have slowed it down. Unfortunately now I seem to have bigger problems. All of my plants are exhibiting twisted and gnarled new growth indicative of herbicide damage. :( None of my immediate neighbors have sprayed anything, and after reading about Aminopyralid I'm beginning to wonder about the straw I mulched all of them with. Really really hoping it's not that! I am hoping they put on some normal growth soon, but so far it all looks bad. I am thinking I should probably pull them all up and start over while I still can. Between the fungal/bacterial problem and now the herbicide damage, all of the plants look weak and stunted, and they are really not taking off growth wise like they should in this weather (high 80's low 90's days, mid-upper 50's night). Although if the damage is from Aminopyralid leached into the soil I guess I'm toasted for a few years. :(

There could be a number of problems with the soil and possibly what you added to it. Review your source of information again for preparing your planting area and what you did. Consult a master gardener diagnostic clinic in your county. You can bring in photos, a leaf sample, etc. and talk to one of them. Usually, they're at stores or farmer's market regularly during the growing season. Search online or call your county cooperative extension office to find the schedule.

Try testing for herbicide by growing peas in 2 pots. One with clean potting soil and the other with the mulch in question. I had the same fear after reading a book in spring after using horse manure + bedding in the fall for our 1st time and ours turned out free of it.

If the herbicide is in the soil pulling up your plants and replanting won't solve the problem. The article should help you with that question.

Here is a link that might be useful: explains how to test for herbicide

she11va

Yep, Smithfield near Hampton. It needs to warm up and quick. I just can't believe how cold it's been. Just have to wait and see, and that sucks ;(

Well...its 2012 and seems nothing has changed since these posts were made in 2007. We had such an early spring OR SO I THOUGHT that when I saw my 5 fave mater varieties at the local hardware I grabbed them first week of April. They were good sized and I knew it was way too early to plant so kept them in the sun and watered and when the temps plummeted brought them in the garage. All was well and they got flowers so first week in May I decided to plant them. OF course it got cold (not freezing but cold) so we covered them with 5 gal buckets at night. They still looked ok. We had a few more cold nights but not that cold. Two of them look sad and are not growing and one even has a tiny tomato on it. They are early girl and better boy and are brownish green and the leaves are kind of stiff but not dead or at least I don't think so. The others are doing fine. Should I go ahead and replace them before time slips away? I gave them a shot of Miracle Grow today. I have never lost a tomato plant so am concerned.

greengrass1, here are a couple of links to excellent lists (with photos and some info) of a few dozen tomato diseases and some other conditions. Perhaps you could use them to pinpoint the possible problem(s) you have in mind:

Cornell's tomato disease diagnostic
(Click on the labels on the plant diagram to see problems with that part of the plant.)

Texas A&M's Tomato Problem Solver

Thanks for responses.

My tomatoes look great up until mid july when early blight becomes obvious.

This yr I have resolved to take an early stand and would like to keep it organic. I have received a pkt of actinovate and I would also like to spray with sodium bicarbonate. Some have reported decent results.

There are some potassium bicarbonates marketed specifically as fungal cures such as green cure. The there is just plain old sodium bicarbonate which is fairly cheap. I was wondering if plain old pb is same as the stuff marketed for gardens.

Mine got a little sunburned, too. Its tough to harden off, though, when you work full time. I was faced with working all weekend followed by a week of forcasted rain. They would not get much natural sun for a week if I didn't start then, and would still have been set back. I was hoping with temps still not too high they would be ok, but a few leaves got nipped and turned a little white. Hopefully they will be ok. The later it gets before they harden off and get into the garden the more the risk that they will have to endure our first heat wave soon after going into the garden. As long as I work full time and mother nature doesn't cooperate, hardening off is going to be tough. At least I don't work nights and have to worry about not being there to take themn in if a sudden frost threatens.

Sue

Sue - don't feel bad, I'm home all day and with all this rain I'm having a hard time getting things hardened off (and other things planted). My tomatoes were out almost all day Mother's Day in the shade on the NE side of the house, but got a few "freckles". Got them out for a few hours yesterday when it wasn't raining but don't think they'll go out today. This weekend will be tough for me - hot and sunny and I'm gone all day Sat so they'll probably stay in the house rather than trust DH with them.

There is no documented correlation between not pruning and the incidence of BER. Indeed there is more evidence that the stress created by pruning can contribute to it.

This is not to say there is no effect, just that it may be nothing more than coincidence. Especially when one considers that commercial growers don't generally prune their plants either.

However the correlation between weather, the primary variable and beyond your control, and the incidence of BER is well documented.

Anecdotal info is that I too use Earthboxes and have for many years and I never prune. Yet some years I have early BER and some years I have none. So far this year has been quite BER-free but then we haven't had nearly the rainfall we had last year either when my BER was moderate to severe early in the season. And yes, it always goes away no matter what we do.

Some have a tendency to focus desperately on BER rather than just accepting it as a common factor in growing tomatoes. Just like hornworms and early blight. The hope is to ID the cause and thereby find the CURE when the 2 primary causes - plant immaturity and inconsistent spring weather - are beyond our control in the first place. :)

Dave

Conditions here in the north east have been TOTALLY different from last year. We've had a very mild, virtually snow free, extremely dry winter and spring. I'll bet Memorial Day will be as warm as the Fourth of July. I don't expect my plants to respond this year like they did last year.

Yes I/ve saved seed from a fresh tomato , it became known as the variety Sara's Galapagos.

I removed no gel, I did nothing with those seeds and there was 100% germination.

No fermentation is needed nor any of the oxidative methods such as Oxiclean Comet, etc.

We already had a discussion here about the fact that while we know what fermentation can accomplish in terms ridding the seed exterior of pathogens, bad guys, and all the other plusses from fermentation, but while folks looked high and low there is no data to date to indicate the efficacy of the oxidative methods.

So go for it. Just take the seeds out, don't bother to take the gel off, b'c the purpose of the gel is to prevent seed germination when conditions are NOT favorable for germination, like over the winter from dropped fruits, and it's part of the larger life cycle of tomatoes, and nothing more. It's the germination inhibitor that the gel has that affords that protection, but you'd be sowing the seed under favorable conditions for germination.

Carolyn

I use ProMix for Containers for the soil.

Used the same watering method as the past seasons -- 48 ounces per bucket = 1 inch of water. Only watered twice, once at transplant and then about 4 days later. Weather's been a bit cool with some showers so the top 1 inch of soil was still moist. Drainage is same as last seasons.

Disappointing, especially when I dont know what not to do next time :(

Hi,
I agree with Dave. It sounds like damping off. You may have very well done exactly the same as previous years, but weather conditions can effect what happens. if it is cold and wet out and plants are newly transplanted so there is not much roots to the size of the container, the water is not going to dissipate quick enough and things can go wrong.
I learned this myself the hard way too.
Remy

Can't see any problems with using the Garden Soil with in ground planting, just creates problems in containers. It does suggest mixing it in well with the surrounding soil. Did you do that?

Given the problems most of the country had last year with the heat I'd be much more inclined to lay the blame on the weather then on the MG.

Dave

missingtheobvious, the MG I used was the "standard" type, not the moisture control. I made a mix of the MG, plus some bagged topsoil, and added the surrounding soil when I planted the tomatoes.

So far, from the replies I've seen in this thread, I'm thinking that it was just the horrible heat wave that did the plants in.

I'm hoping that we don't have a repeat performance of these conditions this year.

With a hybrid, the parents can look similar (phenotype) but be drastically different for other traits one doesn't easily observe (genotype). So the offspring may look the same but express differently for the other traits such as disease resistance.

I noticed today that Kumato has excellent resistance to early blight.