16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
Scientists have been studying nutient needs of different plant types for years and most have noticed patterns of supplementing that yield good results. More has been done lately with tomatoes because it is a crop lending itself well to drip fertigation technology. Often the results are not just in yield but also on fruit quality and in lower disease incidence. I've noticed a trend in tomato fertility that indicates a grower not only should be soil testing regularly but also taking leaf samples to determine what nutrients are actually low in the plant tissue.
But my simple answer to your Q is yes. Two major nutrients, Nitrogen (N) and Potassium (K) are needed in larger quantities after the plants set fruit. Nitrogen is naturally depleated and K is often determined to be low as tomato plants take up larger amounts. A word of caution-Too much of a good thing at the wrong time can be worse than nothing.
A word of caution-Too much of a good thing at the wrong time can be worse than nothing.
Amen to that. With tomatoes and other cycle-dependent plants, the timing of feeding is as crucial as the type of fertilizer used. A point many ignore.
"Natural"? Do you mean 'organic'? Yes, my personal preference is high quality, well-aged, manured compost worked into the soil before planting and used as a side dressing for all in-ground plants. But it only works if your have a very active micro-herd in your soil. Plants in containers is a whole other ball game and discussion.
Compost tea used for fertigation as well as any of the many organic liquids such as fish emulsion, liquid kelp, etc. works as a supplement. If you search 'organic fertilizer' here you'll find many discussions and recommendations.
Dave
Well, you sure won't get the same production from a pot that you will in the ground. I save my pots for smaller tomato plants.
Sun Sugar splits less and is sweeter than Sun Gold. Oddly enough, it also has thinner skin for me.
A real treat for your son might be a currant tomato. It might drive you crazy, but I'll bet he'd love it.
You don't say where you are in the country. That might help. :)
But, regardless, it sounds like you need to do some serious soil amendment if your soil drains too fast or not at all. Maybe mixing them together would help. lol Bunny, llama, alpaca and goat manure would probably be the safest to turn in and use immediately. Mushroom compost is my favorite growing medium. There are countless threads to refer to for advice in this area.
Find someone local who knows gardening in your area, and ask lots of questions. The Master Gardener program can refer you. If someone starts talking sprays and chemicals, say thank you very much and find someone else. That's your baby you're protecting there.
There seem to be a lot of PL plants in the Early Girl packs at commercial vendors this year - lanky ones. I bought one just for fun. Doesn't seem to like my growing conditions, but it set early fruit. I also saw a big Early Girl plant at Walmart with a branch sported to PL, but I was too cheap to buy it at the moment. Probably should have taken it home.
If your looking for a variety with few seeds give Ashleigh a try. Red beefsteak, excellent flavor with fruits averaging over a pound. The first eight fruits off the vine when I grew it were all over a pound with a total seed count of 15!!!
http://www.glecklerseedmen.com/Ashleigh/p80687_5460823.aspx
Here is a link that might be useful: Ashleigh
Good idea Ami, on Ashleigh or any other dense fleshed beefsteak variety, or for that matter almost any heart variety as well.
Rich, just a bit of a personal comment here about your wife being told to not eat any small seeds. And this situation has come up here at GW many times.That used to be the case with regard to some intestinal problems that they thought were due to small seeds getting caught in the pouches of the GI tract, but is no longer true.
So you can Google the diagnosis that your wife has been given to check that out. And after that she might want to consider a consultation with a differesnt gastroenterologist.
Carolyn, who has some, ahem, knowledge of these things.
Someone here, some years back ... maybe Raybo/rnewste in his Earth-tainers? ... posted photos showing how to use two of those 3-ring things to make a taller cage. The top 3-ring is inverted and the two largest rings are attached to each other with 3 cable-ties. Apparently it works well.
(I reluctantly confess to having purchased several of the 3-ring contraptions yesterday at WM -- for small tomatoes!)
You don't know if the Kumato you saved seeds from is genuinely F1. In the case of Campari, the people who have grown it out found it be quite similar. I recently participated in a global swap and Kumato F2 was shared by a participant--a lot of people have the seeds and I expect this coming fall there will be discussion about the reliability of the F2. Whatever they will be I expect them to at least be yummy. It's certainly worth a growout.
T
Last year I grew italian heriloom. I know its not a true paste tomato, but it was grown in Italy where they make a lot of tomato sauces. I found it was a good slicer eating fresh because it was almost the best tasting tomato in my garden, but also meaty enough to make a good sauce. It was fairly productive and is going to be a staple in my garden. Taste wise it was about 3rd out of about 35 varieties. Thats saying alot because I choose most of my varieties based on their taste reputation.
I also grew san marzano, amish paste. San marzano I thought was too soft and spoiled to easily for my uses, though it was VERY productive. My amish paste was not planted in the best of locations in my garden (a somewhat shaded area) but it had fair production of tomatoes smaller than usually proclaimed for this variety. It was middle of the pack for me on taste (possibly because of less sun). I am going to try it again in a more sunny location because I believe I really did not give it a fair shake. It has a good reputation locally here in Utah on taste, productivity, etc.
bindersbee, I have some good news and some bad news.
How about Tiguan RZ, a cherry from the Dutch firm Rijk Zwaan? They're apparently a veggie breeder.
See p. 7 on the far right here:
http://www.rijkzwaan.com/wps/wcm/connect/a7d2598047b9fff48ba0bf771bee7b7a/PDF_S%26S_FEB_2011.pdf?MOD=AJPERES
I can't find info on either spelling in the big tomato databases (including the really huge ones in France and Germany).
I went to Rijk Zwaan's web site and didn't find info there either. In any case, they don't seem to offer that variety in the US -- but neither do I find it listed for their French business or even in Holland.
But the "RZ" suffix in "Tiguan RZ" seems to be how they denote all their varieties. And here's a bit of possibly bad news: in their variety lists on the three country web sites I checked, every single variety name is followed by "F1." So whatever Tiguan RZ is, it's a hybrid and doesn't breed true.
The seeds you have may resemble the original Tiguan RZ closely -- or not. At the least, they're likely to have lost some or all of their disease resistance.
So since it's not the original Tiguan, I suppose you might as well continue to call it Tiguna. 8-D
...
Okay -- the first link mentions that they're grown in Spain. So I figured it would only be sensible look at RZ's Spanish web site ... inasmuch as I read Spanish a heck of a lot better than I read Dutch! And the variety is listed there:
http://www.rijkzwaan.es/wps/wcm/connect/RZ+ES/Rijk+Zwaan/Products_and_Services/Products/Crops/Tomate
(If that doesn't open to a list of tomatoes, click on "Productos & Servicios" at the top left, then choose "Tomate." And if necessary, click on the small drop-down "Choose website by country" at the lower left; you may need to do that more than once.)
On the variety list, the round gray icons after some of the varieties are supposed to indicate Organic, Industry, Convenience, and Flavor. No variety gets more than one ... and some get none! Tiguan rates a Flavor icon. [And notice that their tomatoes are either organic OR convenient OR flavorful -- but never more than one!]
...
VW sells a car named Tiguan ... originally made by another German firm. According to Wikipedia (I really hate having to use them), "Tiguan is a combination of the German words Tiger ("tiger") and Leguan ("iguana")." How that translates to tomatoes, I really don't know. But given when the auto model was developed and named, the tomato must have been released in the last several years.
I would think pill bugs before I thought cutworms only because they seem to be everywhere. These bugs seem to have a million regional names so I included a pic below. I know some people think they won't do that, however I have watched one of these bugs cut down a healthy tomato seedling just as you have described.
You mean one of my favorite bugs as a kid, the rolly poly, can cut down a tomato plant? I did not know that.
According to Wikepedia, they can indeed forage on tender seedlings. And they do have lots of common names, although they will always be rolly polys to me:
Common names for woodlice vary throughout the English-speaking world. A number of common names make reference to the fact that some species of woodlice can roll up into a ball. Other names compare the woodlouse to a pig.
Names include: "armadillo bug",[2] "boat-builder" (Newfoundland, Canada),[3] "carpenter" or "cafner" (Newfoundland, Canada),[4] "cheeselog" (Reading, Berkshire),[5] "cheesy bug" (North-West Kent),[6] "doodlebug" (also used for the larva of an antlion),[7] "pill bug" (usually applied only to the genus Armadillidium),[2] "potato bug",[8] "roly-poly",[8] "sow bug",[9] "roll up bug",[10] "chuggypig" or "chucky pig",[11] "slater",[12] "gramersow" (Cornwall),[13] "butcher boy" or "butchy boy" (Australia),[14] and "wood bug" (British Columbia, Canada).[15]
Definitely not damp off. Actually they look like pretty healthy little newly sprouted tomatoes, as Homgardenpa said. They are leaning reaching for the light, or from the fan blowing constantly on them, but that is normal. 6" is a bit far to have the light, they may wind up leggy because of it.
There is no reason to fertlize seedlings, but it sounds like your solution may be so weak that it isn't a problem, though I did see a couple of crispy edges, but that looked like seed coat issues rather than fertilizer burn.
What makes you think they are sick?
Betsy
Agree with the others that basically they look ok, not great, but ok. But you do need to lay off the fertilizer bit completely. You can dilute feed after they develop their second set of true leaves if you wish but not before.
When you compare your plants in the peat pellets to these and see the differences then it's clearly ferticube related. One of the issues with both, and especially with ferticubes, is that they surface-dry so quickly. Makes it look like they need watering when they don't. So they both tend to get way over-watered.
Next year consider using the recommended alternative to both - seed starting mix in small containers - for best results.
Now with the ferticubes - do you plan to grow these hydroponically? If not you will discover that ferticubes don't transplant into soil at all well. They aren't intended to. So soak them well before transplanting and bury them deeply into a good loose soil-less mix so the roots can get around and out of the core cube easily for best results.
Dave
Well, first thing I see happening is someone spoiling their cat. Next Couple I can't tell. Last one sure looks like your tomato plant has Early Blight.
Not only reemove all leaves touching the ground. Remove all that are heavily infested with the brown spots. and spray the whole plant with a fungicide. Otherwise your plant will produce only a few tomatyoes before dying.
jrslick--- I'm in Tulsa and I have planted some polbig for an early crop and I'm stagering their plantings at two week int. Can I ask how long they produce, 1-2-or 3 weeks?
You had no email listed.
Aside from all these dwarf varieties, which are generally meant for pots, if you have room, you can grow regular varieties by training. You can top them, espalier them etc. You may get a larger yield doing this, then growing dwarfs. It all depends on how much you are willing to put into it.