16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
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
Thanks everyone for all the help. Do far, no more damage but I am sure I now know what damage to look for now. The birds in the garden yesterday at noon may have solved me hunting failure as at midnight last night with a flashlight resulted in nothing and there is no more damage this morning. Will keep a close eye out. Thanks again.
I'm worried about trying to separate them in that moss mix they are planted in so maybe I'll put them in a 30 gal barrel.
Please do not. They will separate with minimal if any damage and will quickly recover. Each of those plants needs their own container and they need to be quite large containers. Both Mr. Stripey and Better Boy are huge indeterminate varieties easily reaching 6-8' in height and 4' wide. You don't mention the name of the 3rd plant?
While a 5 gallon bucket is the minimum they will tolerate they will not thrive in one. A 30 gallon barrel might be a a bit big for 1 plant but not by much and it will thrive in that size. With 3 plants in it they will all be stressed and it will be impossible to feed, water correctly, and support all of them in the same container.
Dave
Personally, I would drop the Siletz. Out of all the tomatoes I have grown (100+ varieties over the years) that one is at or near the very bottom of my list of what I like. (But right now I would almost kill for one since I am at least 3 weeks away from starting my seeds!)
Bets
I came across a picture of this tomato (German Head) while surfing seed websites. I was stunned ! This is the closest thing I have seen to the tomato I have looked for for so long. Said to be a pink, the picture I saw looked orange to me.
There wasn't much of a write up about this German Head so I did a Google and made my way here where so many are saying they are GOING to try them but no follow ups on how they turned pout. (On site search turned up nothing)
So I'm asking..LOL How did they turn out ? Details about taste IE sweet sour, strong bland etc would be very nice.
Thanks in advance !
Thank you Dr. Carolyn & Dave for the quick response!
The tag that was in the plant is one by Walmart & while I rather doubt they grow their own, there isn't a grower listed. It also says it's a determinate, but who knows?
I guess I could call the store but I think I'll just go ahead & save some seed anyway. It's rather sad that they're selling it as a dwarf as it seems that's NOT the case.
It's definitely a tumbling variety.
Price is $2.44 online (see link below) but I bought 10 of them 2 weeks ago locally for 17.90 plus tax.
Then there are these stakes for $1.98 that also come in packs of 25. They are just to anchor the cage so don't need to heavy duty steel and they don't need to be all that tall either.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Lowes fence post
We got some of those vinyl-coated steel stakes last year just to slip non-metallic conduit over for deer fence - they break too easily in our rocky soil and with the wind.
But the U post is a possibility - I was just looking at taller T-posts, for some reason I though U posts were more expensive.
Digdirt is on the right track. Larger tomato plants may look great, but you are sacrificing production for a few early fruits. Here is why.
Tomatoes have a juvenile growth phase and a reproductive phase. When you keep the plant in a pot long enough to reach the point of producing flowers, that plant will never revert to the juvenile phase and grow as big as it should. The correct size transplant is 4" to 10" tall with 6" to 8" the ideal size. The best age is from 5 to 10 weeks with most plants at the ideal size in about 8 weeks. Some longer season varieties may take 10 weeks and if you have to, there are tricks to maintain them at ideal size up to 12 weeks. Any larger or if grown any longer in small container and you risk triggering the reproductive phase which always results in lower fruit production. The objective is to set out a shall but healthy transplant and let it grow in the juvenile phase as long as possible. This results in a huge healthy plant before the first flower is produced.
The tomato growers mantra should be "Small But Healthy".
DarJones
Thanks for the explanation - I don't think any of the ones I started March 24 last year had flowers by the time I planted them, but certainly some of my cousin's did (he gave me a few different varieties and by mid-June they were in 2-5 gal pots). I don't know if he plants them this huge every year, but he's been gardening for years and they always seem to have huge yields - but he fertilizes and sprays heavily.
Just 1 more question - is that measuring from the soil line up to the growing tip (which both keep changing as you pot up), or from the bottom of the pot up? I measured, and the 4 he gave me yesterday (potted all the way to the bottom of 2-gal pot, I just put maybe an inch of soil in the pot, placed the plant in, and filled around the sides and up the stem) measure 18-20". Mine in the 4.5" pots measure 4-6" with only 3" above the soil (but 3" of stem/root below the soil), but I expect they'll grow another couple of inches in the next 2-3 weeks til I transplant. They do look healthy. But a little smaller than last year, and smaller than I used to buy (unless I wanted a lot of 1 variety and bought a 6-pack).
Most of my peppers are even smaller (the Burpee hybrids seem to be bigger than the ones from Fedco seed or ones I started from traded/saved seeds) but they were tiny last year and grew into huge plants (some 3'x3') by the end of the season - again, didn't plant til mid-June so was harvesting peppers in October. I hope to be earlier this year.
So 46 degrees at night to 54 degrees in the daytime? Wow weird weather for zone 7B? I'd think your could have been planted out by mid-April like the rest of zone 7.
Anyway, yes I think they should be able to go into the cold frame as it will be much warmer in there than it is outside the cold frame. You may have to double check the night temps in it and maybe add some little heat now and then but they will tolerate those temps.
Dave
3 plants in the same pot? What variety? Unless that pot is the size of a kiddie pool or the plants are small dwarf plants then that is your main problem right there.
Can you post a pic or at least provide much more info? What container mix is in the pot? How old are the plants? What variety? What and how often have you fed them? etc.
Dave
Also: Are there drain holes in the pot?
Before it rains again add mulch till the mulch is higher than the rim of the pot. Then put plastic over the mulch and secure it with twine or tape or anything you want. That way the water will run off and you won't drown your plants.
Most likely something store bought. I think im leaning more towards one of the soap solutions but theres alot of choices so now I just got to narrow it down to one. Is it possible to have both mites n aphids together because theyre differnt sizes and dont look the same to me besides that theyre both red.. ill try to get a pic of them.
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
Thanks Dave!!