16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
Hi Betsy or whoever might still be reading this!
So my tomato plants are all between 40 - 50 cm tall now and ive started to sometimes put them outside when the weather is good and taking them back inside at night. A few of them have started to produce flower buds! (the buds are quite small still)
Is this too early?? I read elsewhere that I should pinch them off so they can concentrate on growing but that sounds a waste if these buds could flower and become fruit.
Currently, I fertilise every alternate watering. So one watering with a tomato specific feed followed by one normal watering, and then a feed again. Is this ok?
Thanks for any help! I hope I am doing ok so far with my first try!
Just leave the buds. They won't hurt anything and probably won't set fruit anyway. Fertilizing once a week is the usual recommendation. More often than that is normally not needed unless they are in very small pots that require daily watering.
Also keep in mind that moving plants in and out and in and out isn't hardening them off. They have to readjust each time. I don't know where you live but if the night time temps are in the 50s consistently then they can stay out. If not then it may be too early to harden them off.
Dave
Spraying off aphids with a water hose gets them off the plants temporarily, but it does not kill them. They usually just climb back up. I have controlled aphids finger squashing, but when there is a lot like you are saying, that is tough to get them all. If it were me I would probably consider an insecticide. If you wanted to go organic, I knew a guy who would buy chewing tobacco, soak it in water, add a little Ivory soap and then spray the water on the plants/insects.
Agree with Capo - MG starting mix is too water retentive - hence the black flies. The mix is heavy and is not letting your plants' roots breathe.
Look into Al's 5:1:1 mix. I have had the best results of my long growing career with his lighter mix. (Basically it's 5 parts aged pine bark mulch, 1 part sphagnum peat moss and 1 part perlite. Depending on the plant, I will exchange compost for the peat.)
No, I didn't move them directly from the lights to the greenhouse. They've been moved in and out of the greenhouse for about 3 weeks now - the greenhouse is in mostly shade - so I move them out to get a bit of sun when the conditions are right.
Not all plants have these marks, thank goodness! Out of 30 plants, I'd say 7 of them do.
Thanks for your input, though.
thisisme:
I have never had a significant "Catfacing" problem with a round tomato. But some beefsteak or severely oblate tomatoes seem to "catface" no matter the weather, or how they are grown.
I have quit growing some varieties because they always do, and are not exceptionally outstanding, but have grown a few for years that are always lumpy, but taste so good I am willing to chop them up rather than slicing them, just because they taste so good.
Thank you for the replies.
I suspect cool night time temps during blossoming
And inconsistent soil moisture
were the culprits in this instance.
I will try to be more careful with watering this year,
Not much I can do about temps, though.
And no pesticides were used.
I doubt that there was too much nitrogen,
But I guess there could have been.
We'll see how it goes this year.
Again, thank you.
Rusty
I get lots of volunteers. The few that I miss pulling out and end up growing tend to grow small tomatoes that are a little bigger than cherry tomatoes. Note that hybrids will not grow the same thing from the seeds that are produced in the fruit.
Capoman, birds are well known to disseminate tomato seed so that's something else to consider.
I'm surprised so many of you say that your volunteers give only small cherry sized fruits.
I always got big ones and little ones of different colors and shapes from different volunteer plants and as I said above I loved transplanting those volunteers to see if I could ID them.
All I can think of is that cherry tomatoes are closest to the original wild type and perhaps are more able to overwinter. But then over wintering means different things to folks in different geographic areas, so who knows.
For instance Matt's Wild, introduced by Johnny's quite a few years ago is IDed as a cerasiforme next the name and that's important to know b'c if it were a currant variety there's a 50% chance the stigma would be above the pollen bearing anthers and thus require insect pollination.
A cerasiforme is a half domesticated cherry where the stigma is below the anthers.
If it were a true currant variety it would be IDed as Solanum pimpinellifolium.
Carolyn
I think your recipe would be too water retentive in a pot. I like using bumper crop as about 10-15 percent of a container mix, but it does hold a lot of water, just like peat. I used 5 parts aged pine bark, one part bumper crop and one part perlite to transplant my seedlings into. That's close to the 5-1-1 mix that's very popular in the container forum. It provides enough nutrition and water retention for two or three weeks before planting out, so you don't need to fertilize. A little biotone wouldn't hurt, but I wouldn't add any other dry fertilizer.
Since we are talking tomatoes you might also want to check for dominant wind direction for pollination purposes and choose one that won't be fully blocked.
And I'd really check the soil in the plots I was interested in. It won't all be the same so smell it and squeeze it and check the texture of it 6" down.
Dave
Hi tomtom,
Lucky you getting to be part of a new community garden! I am a community gardener, but joined several years in, and I love hearing the stories for the original gardeners when they tell about all the challenges/triumphs they faced in getting the garden going.
My thoughts for you:
1) I totally agree with missing the obvious about not wanting to be at a low point - being a part of a community garden means learning to live with outcomes of others' behavior (like overwatering), so its great to have a spot where such transgressions will effect you least.
2) In my C.G. cane berries have become quite the thing. Unfortunately, a lot of people put them on shared edges, and they spread. If this is a concern, I'd prioritize a corner spot so you have 2 clear edges.
3) At my garden, the plots are blocked in rows, two deep on the N/S axis. I have the southern plot, with shared borders on the E and W. This keeps me from having to worry about my neighbor planting ridiculously tall plants on my S-facing edge and reducing sun in the spring and fall. I like that, but it also gives me the responsibility to not plant tall plants on my N edge.
4) What are you pathways going to be like? In my C.G., the roadways/pathways quickly became overcome with quack grass. Because of this I am SOOOOOO grateful I have three shared edges, which reduces my exposure to it. I routinely spend more time in my C.G helping my neighbors combat quack grass than I do actually working my own plot.
5) On a last note, what kind of gardener do you want to be? At my garden, the first plot inside the gates belongs to one of the old-timers who acts as a sort of welcome beacon. Her plot is more beautiful than productive, and she thrives on the community aspect more than the garden.
6)I like Dave's comment. I know the home-test soil testers aren't all that great, but perhaps if you are torn between a couple plots you could do a couple tests and see if one is better suited for the plants you want to grow?
Best of luck, and happy community gardening!
T
I am by NO means a tomato expert nor do I even eat them, lol.. However, My wife loves the Campari tomato's - We also raise box turtles and they love worms - we have a 1/2s wine barrel that we raise worms in - I feed the worms differnt types of food - one day late winter/very early spring - I had a few Campari tomatos that I had tried to feed the box turtles and they were not interested - I threw them in the wine barrel - mainly because I was too lazy to walk around the house to the garbage and maybe the worms would eat them as they rotted???? around the first of May or last of april - I saw two very small tomato plants spout in the wine barrel - paid very little attention but left them out of couristy.... We left for a 4 week road trip on May 17 and got home on June 12 - walk to the back yard and WOW - those two plants in the wine barrel were HUGE - yesterday I noticed several small tomatos and called the wife - the plants seem to be the Campari I threw in there - NO other tomatos were thrown in - the new tomatos look just like the ones she bought from Costco and the stock of the plant is very stout - agian, I am NOT an expert and these plants sprouted and grew with NO effort on my part - One thing I will say is that the dirt in the wine barrel is very fertile because of al the worm casting.. I can post a pic, IF I can figure it out here and if there is an interest.
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/harley0711/T1.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/harley0711/T2.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/harley0711/T3.jpg[/IMG]
harley0711@yahoo.com if you want a pic emailed
Here is a link that might be useful: 
I saved some seed from a Campari that I purchased from Sam's Club back in the Fall 2011. I planted them in pots and they are currently loaded with tomato's. However, they are the strangest looking plants that I've ever seen. They have mitten shaped leaves that are about 6-8" long, and they are very "weepy" looking plants. The flowers were very large, but the shape of the tomato's that are growing on them are very true to what they looked like when I purchased them.
Brett: it sounds to me as if most of what you are doing is right. The only exception is that it sounds like you started too soon. My plants get to about 12 inches tall in six weeks. Some of the giant heirloom types can be growing almost an inch a day at that point. They get very floppy when they get that tall. Each year I force myself to start later than the previous year. Our last frost date is around April 30, but I don't put my plants into the garden until two weeks after that. I started my plants April 1, and they are already four inches tall. I'm nervous that I started too early once again. In spite of all the talk on GW about putting out plants earlier because of mild temps, our 10-day forecast calls for lows in the low 30s on most days.
In your situation, I would transplant to larger, deeper pots and bury at least 3 inches of the stem. I would also increase the hours of light to 18 and add a small fan. I really think you need to wait until the soil temperatures are over 50 and night time lows are reliably above that before you start a week of hardening off.
Last year, my tomatoes got very leggy because the garden kept flooding when it was time to plant them. When it did dry out, I planted a good long section of the lower stems and they did fine.
It's worth it to try to prevent them from getting leggy when you can because they're awkward to handle and are more easily damaged when they flop around, but it's certainly not the worst problem they could have. It will probably be a lot easier to safely harden them off, though, if they get planted deep into larger pots.
Linda, Joe did not breed Boondocks, I hope my post didn't indicate that.
For many years he participated in the seed exchanges at Organic Gardening and National Gardening, as did many others way back then. And that's where he got it and he had no history for it.
But Joe did breed Isis Candy and all the so called white ones, like Snow White, Ghost, Rabbit, as well as many others, but by the time he got to some of the Marizols and the various Sara thises and thatses he was making up histories for then to pass them off as heirloom varieties.
As he once said, if it's heirlooms folks want, I'll breed them, and he did.
What I know was authentic from him, not made up, was Eva Purple Ball and Marizol Purple and Marizol Gold.
And it was me who was responsible for waking up the varieties of Box Car Willie, Mule Team, Red Barn ( so overlooked), Great Divide and Pasture, b'c he found glass jars in the toolshed with varieties already named and couldn't germinate any of them and sent them to me and I was lucky enough to get up the ones I've mentioned.
There were three I couldn't wake up and I always wondered what they might have been like.
Carolyn
Thank you Dave! I was told your one of the best tomato disease specialists on here so I trust your opinion!! You actually diagnosed my original tomato plants with alternaria that also had some early blight (according to my county ext. agency) about a month ago. I ended up having to pull those plants up due to I couldn't get them trenched without breaking the stems and more of the growing tips were broke than I realized, so I just decided to start over. These are now the new plants and the only thing they have been spared of is a hailstorm and this time I was prepared with buckets! :) Lesson learned the hard way... don't plant when storms are forecasted on that day lol. We're supposed to have nice warm weather (80's day/60's night) with slight chance of rain the next few days, so hopefully that will help them recover.
Also, my transplants into the garden got some transplant shock and wilted/curled under somewhat but remained green so I'm not too concerned about that, but I was wondering if I was transplanting my plants correctly. since they were a little rootbound I have always been told to "rough up the rootball" by loosening the roots all over to prevent them from continuing to be rootbound. Is this the proper way to do it or should I just barely touch the roots just enough to untangle the roots on the bottom?
Thank You!!
ut I was wondering if I was transplanting my plants correctly. since they were a little rootbound I have always been told to "rough up the rootball" by loosening the roots all over to prevent them from continuing to be rootbound.
It's easy to get TOO aggressive with root balls. Only a small amount of disturbance is needed right where the worst of the root mass is. I can't come up with a really good analogy. What I do is use my 2 thumbs to tear the middle of the base of the root mass open just a bit. IMO good hole or trench prep is more important than tearing up the root mass.
Give them a good hole and the roots will do what root do.
Dave