16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
I concur. Planting it deeper is easier, quicker IMO. With existing roots lower down, you don't have to worry about it drying out as it gets established.
If the plant never got enough light and is very long and skinny, I guess I could see trenching (so you don't have to dig through bedrock). Roots do need some air... so I'd suggest you keep it less than a foot deep.
I read an article by a gardener who lives in the mountains where the mornings are cool. The article pointed out a couple things about trenching - the surface soil warms up faster each day than the deeper soil. Since tomatoes need warm roots to grow, you get more effective growing time per day, esp. early in the season. Also, by orienting the roots to the south of the plant, you get more direct sun hitting the soil where the roots are, since the plant's shadow is out of the way.
I tried an experiment planting tomatoes with the trenching method and with a vertical deep planting method. I can't say that I got any earlier tomatoes with the trenching method, because there are too many variables involved, but I did see an interesting difference in the roots. At the end of the season when I pulled up the roots, the vertically planted tomato looked like a dogbone - a ball of roots 10" down where the original root ball was, and another ball of roots close to the surface. The trench planted tomato had dense root growth all along the section between the original root ball and the surface. This is reason enough for me to use the trenching method. Of course, your mileage may vary.
Most of the neutral greenhouse research I have read seems to find little benefit for the plants over MH or HPS. No detriment but no documented benefit either. So I don't think I'd buy into the "LED grow lights might offer quite a few advantages and will take over the state of the art status from High Intensity Discharge lights, so called HID lights" statement quite yet. :)
The heat from MH and HPS also provides a supplemental benefit depending on your location/weather.
Sun Systems offers various set-ups for much less than $500-800 you mention and bulb life expectancy all depends on how you use it. So personally I still find both MH and UPS systems more cost efficient for me than the current costs of comparable LED systems. Hopefully over time the LED systems will come down in cost as the novelty falls off and the demand rises.
JMO
Dave
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LED lights provide advantages over MH or HPS lighting including more efficiency, less weight, and less heat. Apparently, high efficiency means that 90% of the light is absorbed by plants.
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When LED lights are referred to as high efficiency, it means that it takes less electrical power to produce the same amount of light output. The LED lights should last virtually forever, too.
I'm growing black cherry this year for the first time along with golden nugget and red jelly bean. I've never really grown cherry tomatoes before, I'm not a fan of them, but I've come to the conclusion that if I don't grow them, that means I will have to wait until August/September for tomatoes and that simply will not do! :)
Last year I planted four Black Cherry plants. They where alternated between other cherry plants 34" apart. They Did not want to fruit here in hot weather or any weather for that matter. When they did fruit they did not fruit much and took forever to ripen. On top of that the flavor was not so hot. All the other cherries did well. I see no reason to make the same mistake more than once so I will not grow it again.
I used 3/4" for my cucumber trellis and would have to say that I think it would be a little overkill to do that for my tomato cages. Besides I've seen 1/2" used in many photos and people seem to have no issues with it. I think as long as the sections are not too long, you won't see too much flex. The more tee connectors I use, the more stability it will have as well.
My plan is to make two PVC cages for each 2x4 raised bed. The cages will sit on top of the soil and will be mounted on the inside of the bed frame secured with conduit clamps screwed into the frame (eliminating the need to drive it into the ground). For added stability The two cages will be joined together with the use of snap-inn tee connectors (that I will have to order online).
I gave up on remesh because of the availability of it in my area. You can't paint over rust and all of the sturdy remesh I have seen is either rusted already or bent to crap. The coated fence material is just too thin of a gage and the openings are too close together.
Bottom line is the PVC approach is easier, faster, and more cost effective approach (provided I used the cheapy HP/Lowes connectors, not the expensive ones online).
I'd pound that PVC 12 inches into the ground myself. Wind
will cause the PVC to flex (especially if you don't go
with the 3/4 inch stuff) and I'm afraid the conduit clamps
won't be up to the task.
Pounding the PVC into the ground is easy. Get a piece of
steel pipe about 18 inches long and a cap for it. Slide
the pipe over the top of the PVC (I use 30 inch sections)
and pound away. That gives you 18 inches above ground and
12 inches in the ground. Works like a charm.
Thinking about it, I'd bet I could pound in a section much
quicker than you could attach the conduit clap to the boards.
Take a look at the cages in the link below. The lady in
that video uses a different configuration than I use. I
think you'll find the crossover ( X ) connectors easier
to find than the ones she used.
I've grown both cucumbers and tomatoes and I think the
cukes have lighter leaves and fruit than tomatoes. I don't
think you'll find the 3/4 inch PVC overkill for tomatoes.
If you do decide to go with 1/2 inch, I'd be very curious
how that works. I've always recommended 3/4 inch because
the 1/2 inch is so bendy.
Here is a link that might be useful: Tom's PVC Tomato cage page
I totally agree with Dave about growing conditions being the problem. Mortgage Lifter is capable of producing quite large tomatoes, and Better Boy is certainly larger than a kiwi. But if you want some monsters you might try Omar's Lebanese, a great pink when ripe that has produced huge tomatoes for me. Zogola and Coustralee are two others that can grow very large under the right conditions.
Hope that helps.
Lew
thanks for your comments, they are all indeterminate. i have 5 different kinds; this one in particular is a 'mortgage lifter'. i read up on heirlooms, they all seem to be indeterminate and everything i read indicates that pinching the suckers is better for the fruit formation and results in better sized tomatoes. i went ahead and pulled them off, i don't want the plant getting out of hand and becoming unwieldy. i am sure i will have more and post a picture then. thanks again for your comments.
Hey just saw this post and wondered how your pruning turned out? My Heirloom Brandywine Pink tomatoes are doing all kinds of strange stuff... First it had a "megabloom" seeming to grow right out of the top of the plant, no lie looked like a small sunflower plant. Now the main stem split into two main stems and those two into two more and so on... the suckers grow out of the leaf branches its the weirdest thing... I can post pictures if anyone wants to see them...
Was there any variety name on the seed pack at ALL? The Shakers sold seeds of many varieties to others wherever they had their places, whether the home place where Mother Ann Lee started from, and that was near the Albany airport and I was raised in a Shaker built home/farm, that was one of their outlying farms. So have always had a strong interest in anything Shaker.
The Shakers did sell seeds for a variety called Early Large Red, maybe that's what you have, and it dates back to about 1840 so the timing is correct.
It's a large red beefsteak, quite ribbed, indet and RL,, I've grown it b'c it was resurrected and SSE listed many years ago by a husband and wife who were SSE members, and I think it's of historic interest but doesn't have the greatest taste as is true of many from that era where seeds are still available, as they are with Early Large Red.
I tried to link to the page at Tania's site, but it was loading so slowly that I gave up for now.
Hope that helps.
Carolyn
I own several Earthboxes as well as several Garden Patch containers. While I think they are great, I quit trying to cram 2 indetermant varieties in them, although thats what both companies say to do. I now plant 1 per box, or grow something like Patio 2 per box.
I don't want to discourage you, but you might want to rethink the 2 per box idea.
Lew
Hello,
I am a newbie at growing tomatoes so I couldn't tell you. Kinda looks like iron deficiency. Maybe this site can help you ID it? Good luck!
Here is a link that might be useful: Scroll down for photos/description
Looks like classic herbicide damage. We get lots of this kind of pic every year at this time when folks bring out the weed killers.
Even if you haven't been using herbicides the neighbors may have been and it can drift for 1/2 mile and still do damage. Mulch contaminated with herbicides has the same effect on plants.
With no further exposure the plants may recover if the exposure wasn't too bad. You'll lose some leaves but unless it is in the mulch the new growth should be normal.
Dave
It is a snipe fly laying eggs in the leaf which will hatch into leaf miners. The white spots are areas where the eggs have already been laid.
Normally leaf miners don't pose a big threat to tomato plants unless the infestation is severe. You can Google 'leaf miners' but you'll find they are difficult to control because the larvae hatch in between the layers of the leaf so pesticides can't reach them.
Yellow sticky traps to catch the adult flies and row covers are the most effective prevention. You can squeeze the egg masses with your fingers before they hatch to gain some control.
Dave
Google searches pull up threads (discussions) that are in the GW archives - note the dates on the discussion - but no longer on the message board. Works the same on most all forums, not just GW.
Servers for this forum have a limited storage capacity and when a discussion gets to the bottom of the last page of this forum it falls off into the archives. It can only be accessed via off-site search, can be read and you can even add to it but it cannot be returned to active status on the forum.
And yes, just as with most discussion forums, getting folks to come back and report on results is a chronic problem. :)
Dave
salthart, here's a Google Advanced Search for the phrase "German Head" on the Tomato forum.
way long Google search address
The thread you're looking for is the second. And lots of others you can check!
To do an Advanced Search, first enter a basic Google search, then go to the bottom of the results page and click on "Advanced Search." Add whatever you want on the Advanced Search page.
[IIRC, GW's search is not a Boolean search. So you'll get every thread where "German" appears and every thread where "Head" appears -- but most of the threads won't have both words, let alone both words together.]
If you don't want to add tomato paste from an outside source, it takes an absurd number of tomatoes to make sauce. I find it very disheartening.
Even my elderly neighbors, who make and can all of their own sauce, and who have an entire city yard filled with tomato plants, buy their sauce tomatoes by the bushel from a market.
If you freeze the whole tomatoes for an entire season you can save enough for sauce. A good measure for most tomato plants is about 10 pounds a season. If you have 4 plants you could easily save 40 pounds for sauce. Freezing makes skin removal very easy too.
For best production, the least stressed plants, and the least amount of daily care - 1 per container that size.
If they were self-watering containers and you wanted to do extensive pruning and something like drip irrigation with auto feeding etc. you might do ok with 2 plants but production will be reduced.
Dave
I'm not sure if they're "Army Worms" or what, maybe an expert will tell us.
I had them too, mostly eating my bush green bean and occasionally eating into a tomato.
BT(Bacillus Thuringiensis) seemed to mostly bring them to a halt for me.