16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
In my opinion you wouldn't want to though... Tiny tim isn't nearly as good of a plant as red robin in production or taste, and red robin is almost as small. And they get big tomatoes for the size plants they are, like 1" diameter and larger if you take good care of them.
Here is a previous thread with pics that may help. IME with them they are like dickie said - BIG and TALL. Google Images has many different pics of them.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: San Marzano Redorta
How close together?
I planted Polbig last year and again this year. It produced lots of tasty tomatoes. It never got about 3 feet tall. I did prune the lower leaves, to bring it up off the ground, but that is it.
Last year we had a very cool spring and many of the tomatoes were "pointed". This is a trait that other saw too. We will see what happens this year.
Jay
Tomato seedlings do benefit from being transplanted (potted up) at least once before planting out. This stimulates roots, especially if you plant them more deeply (up to the first set of true leaves). If you don't want to buy larger pots, you can use 16 ounce cups like they sell at fast food places or even cut off half gallon milk/juice cartoons, with drainage of course. At the rate they are growing, they could be 18 inches tall in another three weeks. Generally you want the soil to be made of larger particles than seedling mix, so it drains very well. I prefer a mix that doesn't have fertilizer or moisture control in it. You want to let it dry out more between waterings and you want to be able to feed it with a balanced fertilizer at half strength or less.
Right on Ohiofem. Also, Brett, don't worry about higher nitrogen on younger plants. 3-1-2 is best for vegetative growth, the time nitrogen is used the most. Once fruiting starts, reducing nitrogen input causes energy generated by existing leaves to support the fruit rather then more leaves.
rhizo: My comment was kind of terse, but the soil deserves the bad comments it gets. Thanks for explaining why it is so bad. The water retention and fine structure make this a very bad soil to work with. It is too water retentive, attracts pests and diseases. Some people have made it work by watering in sips, but this causes other issues including salt build up. The best soils are the custom mixes made at home as most commercial mixes which are suboptimal. People have incorrectly learned to use and buy peat dominant mixes when they have better and cheaper options. Peat based mixes make gardening much harder then it really has to be. It's amazing how much better less experienced gardeners (and experienced ones) can grow when using a superior fast draining mix. The overwatering issue so common in peat based soils is no longer a factor in superior mixes such as bark based.
I don't think it's that uncommon b'c when I googled it I found it on quite a few trade lists and grow out lists.
But the only description I found for it is a person who lists it in the 2012 SSE YEarbook who said:
65-70 days, indet, regualr leaf, golden orange fruit, pearl shaped, high yields, sweet and fruity, very good plus flavor.
I know this person and know what adjectives he uses, and very good is below excellent and superb in his list of adjectives.
So give it a try and let us know what you think of it.
My only hesitation is if it's truly that small, as in pearl shaped, I wonder if it might be a currant variety.
Carolyn
Carolyn
I've only grown pineapple tomatoes for one season so far, but I found that they were super late to set (and one of my plants didn't even flower at all). They did finally begin to set fruit as it got VERY hot last summer, so that part of the description does seem to be correct. In the end, my one plant that did produce tomatoes turned out great and I was happy with the yield. They actually became my favorites because of their color & taste!
I can't really speak to dealing with frosts (my last remaining tomatoes of the season survived some very light frosts just fine, but so did all of them), but at least in drought, my pineapple tomato plant seemed to be fine.
You need to post this on the Exchanges forum please. It was created so that the discussion forum doesn't turn into a list of trades and exchanges. I linked it below for you.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Seed Exchanges
And when you post in the Seed exchange as Dave noted I do wish you'd clarify what you mean by Mexican Dwarfs.
There are indet and det, and semi-det varieties but true Dwarf varieties have rugose foliage and a very think main stem and I'd be surprised if there were any Mexican Dwarfs.
Just my opinion.
Carolyn
It isn't so much a specific combo as ANY combo. Whatever varieties you happen to be growing. If you are growing only 3 or 4 varieties then mix them all. If growing 30 different varieties then it's even better. :)
I've made some great sauce using San Marzano, Beefsteak, Brandywine, Eva Purple Ball, German Strawberry, NAR, Opalka, Sun Gold, etc. well you get the idea. The more the varieties, the more complex the flavor.
Dave
Most of my tomato friends switched from using just paste tomatoes many years ago b'c the taste of most of them, with some exceptions, is not great, they're more susceptible to BER ( blossom end rot) as well as Early Blight ( A. solani)
I could list the paste varieties that I think have great taste if you want me to but I also know that there are many many threads here already with those suggestions.
When choosing what to use to add to paste tomatoes for sauce I strongly suggest using as many heart varieties as you can b'c they have dense flesh and few seeds and great taste/ And also dense fleshed beefsteak varieties for the same reasons.
Carolyn
It makes a big difference what varieties you planted also and if you got them in early before the extreme heat hit. Find out what tomatoes produce well in your area. Some varieties take all summer to produce and if it gets hot they may not set fruit. It was unusually hot here last year so I only had tomatoes from plants put in early under walls of water. The ones planted at the proper time did not set fruit.
It very well could be the excessively fertile soil or the lack of light. Can you trim a limb or two and get more light? Do you have a spot with more light?
A couple of rebuttals. First, about the heat, if you have an uncontrolled heat mat, I agree you are best without it. But if can control heat by using a controller that measures soil temperature so that you go no higher then standard room temperature, your plants will love it. Then there's peppers, which LOVE warm roots at any stage.
As far as watering, it's best to use a well drained soil mix, even for seedlings. With a well drained soil, you are best off off watering from the top, but using something like a baster to avoid splashing the seedlings and throwing up soil. I agree that a mesh on bottom is best to prevent sitting in water. The movement of water from top and draining out the bottom will draw fresh air into the root zone. Watering from the bottom will only push air out and tends to saturate soil.
Of course if you are using crappy water retentive soil like MG seedling soil, that may not apply, but I would hope gardeners doing their research on this site would already know the benefits of using fast well draining soil less mixes, even for seedlings.
Actually I find that peppers much prefer cooler roots as seedlings. We intentionally keep then at the ambient temp of 60-65 degrees in the greenhouse to avoid leggy growth and to encourage stocky, sturdy plants with a well developed root mass rather than lots of top growth. They really love cooler roots when planted deeply into the garden. That seems to be the consensus among professional pepper growers at any rate.
As to top watering 'drawing" air into the soil, that is difficult to imagine given the way osmosis works. The water fills the air cavities in the soil while displacing the air in those spaces at the same time.
So I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on methodology then.
Dave
Big pink I havent seeded in years. If its not too late I may give it a go! If your seeding all these varieties can you utilize the leftover seeds you dont use for next year?
So Sorry about your lost plants.
Do you sell these? Or do all those go in the garden?
Below is one link to commercial production of F1 hybrids, but there's several points that need to be made.
Yes, you start with two inbred lines to make the first cross and all that, but there are usually two lines that are used, let's call them A and B.
Within each line certain genes are introduced for uniform ripening, high solids and genes for tolerance to certain diseases, etc.
There can be up to four parental inputs in each line. Then they take the last one in line A and cross it with the last one in line B and that gives the F1 hybrid seeds.
Much commercial F1 seed is produced in countries where labor is cheap so yes, they still have to go through emasculation of the blossoms. But starting many years ago increasingly male steriles are used so you dont have to do the emasculation.
The info about the exherted stigma being found with potato leaf varieties is not correct as many of us who have grown hundreds of PL varieties have found. But it's info that has been in the literature almost forever and just gets repeated as does the info about lack of Ca++ in the soil, with two exceptions, being the cause of Blossom End Rot.
I'm sure there are other links for the info given below but this is the one I happen to have in my faves and does illustrate bulk production of F1 seed.
Carolyn
Here is a link that might be useful: Hybrids