16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

Oh no, hopefully they are not that bad. Are micro Toms ant better? I wanted to try Red Robins, but still no seeds. Maybe in the next week or two.

An update on my Red Robins.

I moved them to Solo cups a few day's after Christmas.

They took off, I think they like the new potting soil (MG) a lot better! I have been moving the lights up every other day.

I need to move them into bigger pots now, they are 6" tall and the stems are very thick.

I will have to change my light setup, I have run out of room, I'm on my last chain link.

Hopefully I can do that Saturday.

Last night I was looking through the Tomatofest website and came across Mandarin Cross. Gary Ibsen says that he has de-hybridized it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomatofest

THe name Madarin Cross does not mean it's an F1 hybrid, and it was stable when Takii released it in 1964 as you can see from my link to Tania's website.

Perhaps Gary just assumed it was a hybrid b'c Cross was part of the name. Had it been a hybrid and folks grew it and saved seeds and planted out they no doubt would have seen genetic segregation and the appearence of other shapes, colors. etc.

As for his dehybridizing a variety that was OP and stable since 1964, well, what can I say. Yes, I know Gary, actually since about 1990. And I have no idea what he ended up with as the result of doing what he did, Looks the same to me as what others show for the original OP.

Carolyn

Thanks for the extra info.
Were the plants that had BER more root bound / in the smaller pots?

Im working on the theory that something prevented the buffering of the soil from rebounding from a ph change. Once things root bind in a container it is very easy for them to be exposed to pockets of soil that have no buffering agents distributed in them, and worse still, may have a pocket of low ph materials.

I had a tomato plant that had BER on one stalk of the plant... at the end of the season I tracked its root into a unbroken up clump of peat... opps

TwinHerder,
wow, tracking it down to the roots! Sounds like some sort of CSI tomato investigation you had going on!!
Actually no, the BER didn't just occur in the smaller pots. In fact I think the first one to show any BER was on of the Early Girls in the 5 gal.pot. Only a few tomatoes on that plant had the BER and I was thinking it might have been do to drying out too much between waterings. Wish I had a drip system.
Harry

"G should spend some time learning about tomatoes and build a more useful website."

LOL! These sorts of semi-spammed postings of reputedly up to snuff websites can be fun in an evil way.

Are root knot nematodes or other soil dwelling nematodes a significant problem in the UK? (Agree posting here should cover it, but just curious)

PC

Grubby Me, I've visited discussion sites where people say things like that very seriously. I don't even blink twice anymore... ;)

I reuse duds. Nuke 'em. The un-reused ones show their little beady heads a year later when it's clean up time.

I TOLD you they'd take something as dead simple and reliable as a peat pellet and make it complicated. There is NOTHING wrong with them, just mismatches with media, season, climate, and techniques. So many otherwise intelligent people who have a favorite method seems to think that anyone who doesn't do it the same way is an idiot. Go figure.

Whatever works...

There are a few ways to cross the river...some use a canoe, and some use an ocean liner. haha. thanks to all!

Matina? Just a thought.

I grew Siletz and Matina (as suggested above) in 2014.

MATINA: A vigorous indet. Early -Mid season. Round red fruits, 1- SILETZ: Determinant compact: Early .. Fruit size 5 -7 oz.

I will grow Siletz again but Matina is not coming back.

Seysonn

I plant 2 tomato seeds per cel in the 6 packs, They all germinate even after 6 years. But maybe that's because I keep the seeds in plastic vials in the fridge.

I don't use a dome nor a heat mat and no lights. The result is a healthy stocky plant. First I soak in a bowl and change the water once or twice a day. When I see the beginning of a sprout I carefully plant them one each to a three inch pot.

I make my own seed mix. Usually roughly equal parts of DE, peat, compost, and bark fines. The mix varies depending on what I have around. I keep the mix wet until they sprout.

After being placed in the pots they are placed outside in full sunshine during the day and brought inside at night. After a week or two they stay outside if the temps are mid forties or above.

I use stainless steel trays. Plastic is too flimsy for me, difficult to carry in and out and sometimes they develop leaks which isn't good inside. Stainless steel has a much longer useful life. I use restaurant style full size chaffing dish steam pans and inserts. Perforated inserts can be used if you want to water from below by dipping the insert into a steam/water pan.

I tried a heat mat and ended up with leggy plants. I don't mind waiting a couple of extra days for the sprouts.

If you use full sun and no dome you shouldn't have any damping off problems. And you don't have to worry about hardening off because they are conditioned from day one.

I bought some horticultural oil. Will try this out since it is organic.

We will want to know the results.

Have a look at this yardenman. Ponderosa is a large ribbed beefsteak reportedly bred by Henderson as a pink tomato in 1891. It was a standard with few seeds and made great slices for sandwiches: snippet from Victory Seeds scan of 1914 Burpee catalog for Ponderosa:

The reason is wasn't even more successful even though it is so great was that the ribs made it hard to deal with when everyone was going smooth. The original heirloom Henderson's Pink Ponderosa Tomato variety is on sale at Trade Winds Fruit for a buck a pack, and Burpee had picked it up

Victory Seeds scanned the 1898 description from another seed company for another heirloom called Ferris Wheel, which it sells:

Dr. LeHoullier who pours over and collects these catalogs, speculates Ferris Wheel might be a selection of Ponderosa and the descriptions look pretty convincing that they are. Victory Seeds sells Ferris Wheel.

Two great heirlooms to grow! Many of today's commercial tomatoes have some Ponderosa left in them, but only a little itsy bit.

PC

I ordered it from Trade Winds. Thank you so much for finding it.

Let us take the lower estimate here.
With 50 container filled with about 20 gallons each it will be 1000 gallons of potting soil. Ready made commercial potting soils cost upward of one Dollar per gallon.

That is why I make my own mix that costs me about $0.35 -0.45 per gallons. Last year I make about 10 cu-ft. which i am going to reuse them by some refreshing.

Another point is that a tomato plant can live with half that much soil. ie. 12 gallons happily.

Seysonn

Not all of my planned containers will be 25 gal., just for the bigger varieties. Some of them will prob. be more like 10-15 gal. I work in tree care/ landscaping and I have 5 or 6 truckloads of compost/ potting soil mix that was destined for landfill I got for nothing. I have access to as many free nursery pots of most any size. If I didn't have all the free materials, fuhgeddaboudit. I'm going containers this year because I need to rotate nightshades out of the garden for a season or two and I don't have other ground to grow them in.

After a couple of years of trying different catalogs, I tend to use Tomato Grower's Supply for my tomatoes and eggplants, Johnny's for just about everything else, and Park's/Burpee for a couple of flower seeds I haven't seen anywhere else.

I also really like Territorial and Seed Savers.

I've also noticed that the catalogs seem to be coming out earlier every year. I like that. If they arrive before Christmas, I stuff them in my bag and read them on the plane while heading off for the holidays.

I like territorial when ordering a large amount of seed for their flat rate shipping and I have always been pleased with the quality. For trying a new variety pine tree is good for their cheap small packets. For specialty stuff I like southern exposure seed exchange and seed savers. I probably do too much, but that's the fun of it.

Looking good, Green . Thanks for posting.

I have the seed for it to grow 2015.

This post was edited by seysonn on Sat, Jan 10, 15 at 23:56

And who was the person who introduced Druzba in the US? Yes, me, read thelink below and it gets another vote from me as well. ( smile)

But there are others , round red ones only now, that I like and they might include:

Bulgarian Triumph
Red Brandywine, only the true RL one
Break O Day
Lida Ukranian
Red Barn ( flat globe)
Bulgarian #7

...... to name just a few and round of any color tend to have mid sized fruits, not as large as beefseak varieties.

You can find info about all the OP ones that folks mention at Tatiana's superb website if you don't know them where she has traits of the varieties, comments from others, pictures, seed sources and histories when known;

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Main_Page

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Druzba

I went to the J & L Gardens website, and actually found "Pink Ruffled", for sale there, under that name.

But the description for "Pink Ruffled" mentions this tomato name...

Violaceum Krypni-Rozo (supposedly a Latin name meaning "Violet Krypni Rose") "krypni" doesn't seem to be a meaningful word in any language, but "kryp ni" IS two words, in Swedish: kryp=insect & ni=you - so, a loose translation could be, purple rose bug or purple bug rose, or Violaceum Kryp ni-Rozo.

The photos of this tomato, do NOT look like the heavily pleated accordian types, but more like a round, pleated, drawstring pouch, that are 8 oz in size, much larger than the 2-4oz size, in the other description.

I will have to grow out the seeds I have, and see what size they are, as well as if the plant is indeterminate, and fruit ripens late.

What do you think about this theory, that "Pink Ruffled" IS or may be Violaceum Krypni-Rozo?

As you can see from the link at the bottom I was the one who introduced that variety to the US after getting the seeds from Norbert in France in 1992 after a huge trade between four of us and Norbert.

What I think is that it's yet another large pink that has ribbing/ ruffling, call it what you will.

I can't see that there is ANY one variety that was called Pink Ruffled from the get go, since there are so many large pink ribbed/ruffled ones.

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Violaceum