16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
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.
Tigrovy, aka Tiger-like, has long been listed in the SSE YEarbooks. In any one YEarbook, for SSE members only, there are lots of listings for Tiger this and Tiger that, all pretty much the same.
Tigrovy, aka Tiger-like, was not lisited in the 2012 Yearbook as it has been in the past, but the following are:
Tiger
Tigerella
Tigerette
Tigerette Red
Tigerly
..... and in recent Yearbooks Tiger Paw and several others.
Carolyn
Dot's Delight and Dorothy's Delight are two different varieties. The former is pink and PL and the latter is red and I don't know the leaf form but probably RL since there are not that many red fruited PL varieties.
Al's Gardens introduced Dorothey's Delight in 2009 and named it per the story they told at their website.
Dot's Delight was known way before that per the info I had posted above.
Dot posted here for many years and was in the process of setting up a website where we could put links to seed sources b'c there was no way that that could be done here at the time. But she never got around to it and then stopped posting here.
Many of us who posted here at the time knew her well and I asked Craig L and a few others and no one could come up with her last name, nor the original variety that changed from RL to PL.
Below I've linked to Tania's page for Dot's Delight and you'll see Neil, from IL, and his report.
Neil is still listing it in the 2012 Yearbook, for members only, not the public SSE catalog.
I hope that clarifies the situation; two different varieties.
Carolyn
Here is a link that might be useful: Dot's Delight
Thank you Carolyn, I hope you don't get tired of people saying your knowledge is enviable. I've learned a lot from you by lurking on the forum.
It is RL and the closest picture to the fruit I've found is Anna Russian (which I have not grown, only seen images online) The foliage is slightly droopy, kind of like opalka, but less so.
Interesting stuff. I have always found my plants like rainwater far better then my hard well water. I thought it was mostly because of the excess minerals in the well water, but makes me wonder if this is also a factor? I wonder how well stored rainwater can can hold these sources of nitrogen?
I have a big side yd garden but I growin containers also....mostly tomatoes, Ichiban and Bell Peppers. I have caught rainwater enough to fill barrels holding approx 150 gal. I have the mosquito stuff in there as well. I use the rain water for the container plants only with manure stirred in occasionally and am having good success.
I rarely use fertilizer in my soil garden. I have nutrient poor sandy soil, but amend it with a lot of compost made mostly from grass and leaves from my property. I occasionally add epsom salts for magnesium and sulphur for pH reduction but that's about it. Once my new beds mature after a couple of years and the worms move in, I just mulch deeply with chipped branches, grass and leaves and it breaks down quickly. I rarely have to add anything after that.
Below is a link to a search I did here at GW about grafted tomatoes and there are several threads about it with the opinions of others.
I have my own opinion but will wait until you have a chance to read those threads. ( smile)
Carolyn
Here is a link that might be useful: Grafted tomatoes
Oh, cheers, Carolyn. I cannot see any reason to go for these as the only really annoying problems for me in East Anglia are blight (and crappy summers). I grow about 50 or so for making sauce mostly and get a regular smith period update so I can rush out with the bordeaux if needed. Also, i like to keep things as simple as possible (and, as a poor jobbing gardener, as cheap) so I am thinking that grafted toms are going to remain in theoryland.
Hearts are another totally different class from paste and plums. Never grown it but description are often misleading as they are very subjective. About all you can do is read several descriptions and see what the majority is. :)
From the link below I'd call it heart.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Teton de Venus images
I've grown Teton de Venus and it is a heart and a fairly good one at that. Not known as a paste variety but does have dense flesh with few seeds, please see below.
The fruits of ANY variety can vary in size , for the same variety, from year to year and there are lots of variables as well, such as where grown, the weather that season, how the plants are grown, amendments added and on and on.
Five folks list Teton de Venus in the 2012 SSE YEarbook, for members only, and two of them state the size of the fruits they got:
NY, 24 oz
OH, 10-14 oz
TN, just says large meaty heart
VT, good paste tomato
WI, good tasting paste tomato
And I bet the ones who said good paste tomato are ones that have already switched from conventional paste varieties to using hearts and beefsteaks for sauce, etc.
Just noting that sometimes a paste variety has plum in the title but is also a long one as well, the best example Iknow of is Sarnowski Polish Plum and there are others.
Most of my tomato friends switched long ago from using paste varieties to using dense fleshed beefsteak varieties as well as hearts, of which most are dense fleshed with few seeds, and that's b/c most paste varieties are not all that tasty and b'c many of them are susceptible to both BER ( blossom end rot) as well as Early Blight ( A. solani)
Carolyn
Your plants look fine now based on your fertilizer addition, but one concern I have is that you mention "layers"... Peat moss and bagged "garden soil" can add a organic matter, increase water retention, and improve drainage - assuming that it is mixed in well (and deeply as missourigardener1 mentioned) with your native soil (or delivered top soil in some cases).
As far as not seeing any worms, I wouldn't worry too much about that. If it's been dry at all lately (and by your pics it looks dry), the worms will go deeper into the soil and you may not find them very easily. It's nice to see them, but a lack of them at certain times isn't great cause for concern. Adding more organic matter and a little mulch will encourage them to work closer to the surface and closer to your plants - And I would definitly look into adding mulch if your concerned about high temps and / or the soil drying out too quick.
My garden is usually covered in worms, but when we had a drought about a year or so ago, I went almost the whole summer without seeing one.
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.