16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

Tomatoes no way. I like to plant early, and usually push the envelope in late April with a W-O-W and an early variety, looking for a "June" tomato. Tomatoes no, potatoes yes. FWIW, planted potatoes in mid-March, and they're breaking ground now.

I planted 12 rows of sweet corn on March 18th in North Central Missouri...it's up with a good stand and good color. Planted 60 tomatoes on March 31st because they were getting so tall from being in this great sun on the deck...sure hope this fantastic early spring weather holds up. I have about 60 more tomato plants that are 3 inches tall, but I would sure hate to lose the first batch.

The variety "Delicious " is the current record holder with a tomato over 7 pounds

I had a Gold Medal tomato at a little over 3 lbs. last year. It had good flavor.
I have heard that Big Zac is the best tasting of the HUGE tomatoes.
Grandpa Charlie & Grandpa Willie are excellent tasting BIG tomatoes.

Whenever I get ants around my plants or in the compost bin, I always sprinkle corn meal on top of the soil, around it. One day later all ants would be gone. I hope that will work for you.

Some organic ant-killers. Most I haven't tried.

Rather than repeat it each time, for 1-5:

= You'll need to keep these ant-killers from picking up soil moisture, so put them on small squares of cardboard or plastic, or in an upside-down small lid with low sides.

= Place near the nest or near ant pathways.

= Remove when you water or when it's going to rain.

1. Dry cornmeal or grits. Theoretically the ants take it back to the nest and eat it, and it swells in contact with the moisture inside their bodies and kills them. This worked for me, though it took a few days.

2. Same as the above, but crush a bit of uncooked white rice.

3. Mix 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup molasses, and 1 tablespoon yeast. The ants take it back to the nest and they all die. [Extra can be stored in the freezer.]

4. Mix 1 part sugar with 2 parts borax detergent; add enough water to make a gel. If your soil is high in boron, you shouldn't use this.

5. Ground-up citrus peel is supposed to repel ants. Store in the freezer until needed.

6. If the ants are nesting away from the plants, you can pour hot water in their nests. Seems to me I tried that once, but so long ago I don't remember details.

7. If the ants are nesting away from plants, you can spray them with a mixture of isopropyl alcohol and water. This is useful when you find a winged swarm moving to a new home. I have used this and they died quickly. I used the leftover pine sawfly larvae killer that I had on hand, which was equal parts of isopropyl alcohol and water, with a small amount of dishwashing liquid.

I seem to have been getting very good germination results on
my saved and fermented seed for the past 8 to 10 years. I'd say 80% is less than average--I expect to get much better.

Originally, my process had simply been to pick seeds out of a saved tomato , spread them on wax paper, and dry them on a sunny window sill. Seeds had lots of dried gluckie on them, I had a lot of disease carryover, and my germination percentage was maybe 50 to 75%.

Now I have gone to fermentation and have kinda put together a simple repetitive process that works very well for me.

I think good seed saving starts with selection of a healthy looking regular fruit THAT TASTES GOOD! Others have commented on when and where to select the fruit from the plant but I confess I've never got the hang of this.

Every now and then I'll select a tomato for seed that I find later to be "off taste" or poorly pollinated, or diseased when I slice him up to eat and save seeds. So I just have learned to pitch any with questionable looks or taste and select another.

I just use open top small glass jars to ferment in. I wash the seed saved in a small coffee strainer while flushing with running sink water and rub with my fingers. Into the small labeled jar the seed goes with name and start date prominently displayed. I try to reprocess after 5 days. Our lake tap water is very low in chlorination-if I can smell it I'll use rain water and that does work best anyway when I can collect it fresh. I do the fermentation in the airconditioned house--not outside in the sun, and about an inch to 1 1/2" of water is all that is needed. After fermentation the seed is again run into the coffee strainer, held under running tap water and lightly rubbed,
then spread out on labeled and dated wax paper--not plastic or saran--waxed paper releases the dried seed nicely. I find my seed dry enough after a few days on the waxed paper that I can then transfer it easily to a small
clean labeled metal container like a dog or cat food can or even the screw cap that might come with a standard spaghetti sauce jar. I have a bag of containers like these
I store year to year in a plastic bag so it's no big deal.
By going to the metal containers for full long term drying I save MUCH SPACE IN THE HOUSE FOR DRYING ROOM AND CUT DOWN ON SPILLAGE (FROM CLEANING TYPE LADIES, ETC). Secondary drying goes on till late fall/early winter. Then I pack into labeled plastic coin envelopes, and the seeds go into
my freezer.

Extra dry seeds stored in the freezer will hold at up to 75% germination for 5 years minimum and up to 10 or more years at maybe 50% germination. The small coin bags are stored in larger ziplock plastic freezer bags marked appropriately as REDS, PINKS AND PURPLES, YELLOWS, ETC. I think the large ziplock freezer bags tend to stabilize
moisture content at a low and more constant level--anyway it works.

I know this message is a bit long and may not be of specific interest to many but I hope some will get a few ideas to help with setting up a good consistent practice.
Anyway I had a little time this morning.

This year I had 9 of 64 varieties that didn't germinate. I replanted the varieties I had extra seeds for using the same procedures (I know it's insanity to expect different results repeating the same procedure.). I put these on my plant stand facing a southern window. Most have come up. I think the difference is the heat from the sun warming the pots. When 55 varieties grow and 9 don't, it's tempting to blame the seed.

Hate to burst the bubble but when you do find it ,it wont tste like you remember it anyway.

You are bursting my bubble....but how come it won't taste the same?

Thanks for the link , Dave . I was thinking about prevention versus cure . Is that possible ?

All tomato diseases are primarily prevention oriented. There are no real "cures" once the disease is established. But there is no blanket prevention for all diseases either and if we sprayed on all the various mixes that would be needed to try to prevent everything we'd likely kill the plants. :)

Daconil fungicide sprayed weekly from the first day of plant out has a pretty good record at preventing fungus diseases or at least stalling them. But it does little for bacterial diseases and nothing for viral diseases. Copper sprays can 'help' prevent bacterial problems but does little for fungus and nothing for viral diseases. See the problem?

And there are many preventative environmental controls that folks would argue are as effective as using fungicides. Things like planting the more resistant varieties, increased spacing between plants, off-season soil treatment, positioning to improve air circulation in among the plants, heavy mulching, drip irrigation, increasing sun exposure, etc.

So again that all depends on what disease we are talking about? What diseases are prevalent in your garden, your area, your region? What have you had problems with specifically in the past?

The link I gave you gives some recommendations for each of the many diseases but sadly there is no "one for all". If there was we'd all be using it.

Dave

My fans are on a timer, they run for 15 minutes every 2 1/2 hours, and I keep it running as long as the plants are under the lights.

Betsy

I transplant mine up to their necks in the garden so I don't care/bother.

Larry

Thanks az_pamperedchef. It takes a two gallon sprayer though to spray my tomatoes. I think spraying wettable sulfur is a lot cheaper in the kind of volume I need.

You're welcome, thisisme.

We've had excellent success with Better Boy. Hybrids have their pluses. Here's a page that outlines the pros and cons for both hybrids and heirlooms.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hybrids vs. Heirlooms - What's the Difference?

I love the taste of heirloom tomatoes but I like to have a reliable crop of tomatoes for my salsa; I grow Big Beef every year.

how do i decide which ones to use?

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You must have made some decisions when you selected what to sow seeds for based on what you thought might be best for you.

So stick with those and if you have room grow the others on to about 4 inches if you have room and want to and give them to neighbors, nursing homes, adult homes ( assisted living) and the like, who might be very glad to get them as gifts.

Carolyn

A good temporary "pot" for donation plants is a 16 oz. plastic cup from Walmart or whoever's cheapest. Use kitchen scissors to snip 2 or 3 holes in the bottom edge for drainage.

I print up a slip of paper with the variety name and a brief description.

If you want to be extra-thorough, print easy tomato-growing info from a website.