16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

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.

thanks Capoman!
I'm all for the worms. what do you think of composted cow manure or how about the lobster compost?
dale

Just go back from Wal-Mart and they had it in stock. If your local Wal-Mart doesn't, you might ask if they can order for the next delivery since their supplier definitely stocks them in their stores.

I will check around some more. have not checked out W-Mart yet. Thanks every one. My usual store does not have everything stocked yet so maybe they are still coming. Thanks for the links Carolyn!

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

That would be P20 from OSU. This is the first year Indigo Rose was available to the public. I'm not sure if it's actually P20 (I would guess it is, but I know very little about breeding tomatoes!).
I'm growing it & while no fruit of course yet, it's a very very vigorous plant!

Indigo Rose is a single plant selection from the highly diverse population that was bred by OSU and known as P20. There was an earlier escape from the breeding program that was known as OSU Blue. In my experience, OSU Blue has less anthocyanin than P20 and P20 has less than Indigo Rose.

DarJones

Your setup is similar to mine. Raised beds in a compact area.
Why not give my PVC cage a shot? You could pound the
uprights in the box for stability. My cages don't fall
down because they're driven into the ground about a foot.

I limit my plants to 4 main leaders and tie one to each
upright of my cage.

Here's a couple of shots of my garden.

And down below is a link to a page telling you how to and stuff
like that about the cages.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tom's PVC Tomato cage page

Right now I'm debating between the Florida Weave idea and DIY round cages from fencing material with larger openings than my gaden fence. Obviously the latter will cost more.

The boxes are going nowhere...I used nail stakes to level the beds. You can't see them in the photos unless you look very carefully at the last pic which is more recent.

If you are lucky: No germination.
If you are unlucky, bad tasting tomatoes.

******

Now td, that wasn't very nice.

In your opinion Yellow Pear doesn't taste good but in the opinion of others it does/

If I were to list what I call my spitters there would be folks who just LOVE some of those on my spitter list.

Taste is personal and perceptual and there's even a human genetic issue involved, so not every person tastes a tomato variety the same way.

And I say good on that b'c if we all tasted tomatoes the same way it would be just darn boring. ( smile)

Carolyn

I can't imagine yellow pear would be around after all these years if everyone hated it.
I seem to remember when I was a child, I thought they were really good.

LOL! @ buzzsaw8

Betsy

Let me tell ya 'bout the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees

All the spring rains dilute the flavor too and as the plant matures so does its circulatory system.

Dave

Absolutely agree, that's been my experience as well

Thank Dave and bigpinks. I do have a 1/4 seive as I thought this was too big for the 5:1:1. I know the gritty mix has to be much smaller. Thanks again.

here's the link to the gardenweb forum.

Here is a link that might be useful: Soil, Compost and Mulch forum

I've never heard of any of these brand names in Canada. We use a copper-based fungicide (brand name Bordo); it's commonly called Bordeaux mixture and can be homemade. Is my stuff more, or less, effective/toxic than what you guys are talking about?

Don, I feel your pain. I'm in San Diego and have experienced major problems in the last three years. By early July my tomatoes are losing all of their lower leaves and just look hideous. By August, I've usually given up (and they have too).

I've tried so many different things I don't know where to start.

This year, I hate to admit it since I've always been an organic gardener, I've decided to say screw the organic stuff. I don't want to lose 20 plants I started from seed. I've been spraying with Ortho Disease Control (pretty sure that has the same active ingredient as Daconil). So far, so good. They are healthy and lush and about 3' high. No signs of the first lower leaves turning brown and drying up but I guess that usually doesn't happen until sometime in May.

I also realized I have a liquid copper spray that I use once a year on my orange tree. Maybe I'll try that on the tomatoes instead of the Ortho thing. Thanks for creating this thread--some interesting ideas.

I guess living in So Cal comes with its blessing and curses. While plants may thrive, so do the garden pests/diseases.

Here you go for starters -

Red plastic?

Red plastic mulch experiment

Red ground cover under tomatoes?

Ok, i see my mistake was in searching "Red mulch" I should have searched "red plastic." Thanks for posting those Dave. :)