16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

What a nice greenhouse. Enjoy. (I have nothing to offer on how to grow in one, though). Children's hospital is lucky to have someone as dedicated as you raising funds for them.

Caryl

I'm in SE MA as well and I think with your set up you can definitely get them in that house fine. I mean with hoop houses I've made I'm setting them in the ground April 1st or so. I have to take internal precautions like covering them with fabric like weed guard but they live. You've got an engineered structure with heat. I think your plants will do fine. Light is a factor as others have said. Those Bonnie types you see are grown in Alabama I think. Their greenhouses are warm but they also probably have hot lamps above them. Don't for get fans and rotating the plants to make them strong. Don't know if this would be too expensive or impracticable but you really want nice looking plants use fabric pots. By impracticable I mean transplanting or the cost and weight of a final destination(I'd go with 30 gallons if I was planting at home). It's amazing the way the plants just get all bushy and healthy thanks to the self pruning going on below. Another consideration is to maybe sell the fabric pots with the tomatoes and even have a sample on hand to demonstrate(meaning you start a plant now and transplant it into a decent size fabric pot(10-20 gallons)for the wow factor).

Hi corpus,

Good move pulling it. Clearly the plant has a disease indistinguishable in symptoms and appearance from TSWV, so it really doesn't matter what it was from a practical point of view.

Think about this one not as the plant you had, since, in fact you never had it; it wasn't going to be a good producer no matter what and it would only have infecrted other plants via sapsucking insects sooner or later (And I hope this didn't happen).

jean, he'll have to call the Ozzie Ghostbusters at this point since unless I'm mistaken, the plant was pulled if you read the thread. Also, pictures are no way to confirm anything ... they are only indicative and vary since environments and genetics make life fun. What is important here is following the progression of symptoms which were in lock step with TSWV to be messing around, so the stunted plant was pulled.

corpus, just a suggestion, but if your plants are taking off, the season is still young. You can just root a roughly 15 cm side shoot (sometimes referred to as a "sucker" in the USA) and easily catch up with the season since you don't have a spare. I do that all the time (but never have places to put the plants ... right now there are three sprawling in a noodly like web (angel hair?) over my thick carpet, under a weak fluorescent light as I slowly realize it won't be happening for them).

Take the side shoot cutting from your favorite plant/variety you've got already in the garden and you may even come out ahead ;-)

Thanks for the feedback, and if you happened to take any pictures of the more advanced stage before you pulled the plant, you can always post them ;-)

PC

Here is a link that might be useful: Rooting Tomato Side Shoots

This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Mon, Nov 17, 14 at 4:33

Thanks Jean, yes, there was some doubt and I decided to err (if I was erring at all) on the side of caution.

PC, thanks for your advice! I'll try that. We call them "laterals" here. I didn't take any more pictures. The plant was perhaps half the height of the best others and wilting - I didn't hold out much hope for it.

Thanks again!

Fermentation leads to the seeds becoming much cleaner and they won't stick together afterwards, when dry. This makes them easier to sow.

Thanks PC for the summary. Saves us having to go watch the video. Blender? Wonder how many seeds get damaged or destroyed in the process? No fermentation? No disinfection? No thanks.

Only 24-48 hours drying and on plastic coated surface is not nearly long enough to prevent molding during storage.

Dave

Thanks.... will be sure to pay attention next time. first time trying in a container. Didn't think they would grow, was experimenting. House not upside down, neither is my plant. There is only one plant in the container.

If you click on any upside down picture, it opens up in another separate window where it is right side up.

Remember we all use different brands of computers or hand-held devides with various operating systems to access the internet, and with constantly changing technology they can 't all intermesh as perfectly as we would like.

Tomatoes can take one-off temps of 28 degrees and often bounce back with little ill effect. However, sustained temps below 45 degrees are devastating to them. Tomato plant biochemistry relies on rubisco which is part of the translocation biopath that moves nutrients and energy from the leaves, through the stem, and into the roots. Temps below 45 degrees pretty much shut down the entire translocation biopath though the most intense effect is around 35 degrees. So putting it in perspective, there are no surprises here. Tomatoes can take brief periods down to 28 degrees, but can't handle sustained cold temps.

All common tomato varieties die dead dead dead below 28 degrees. There is a small amount of variation, I have a few lines that can take temps lower than 28 but absolutely cannot take frost forming on the leaves. I got several lines of tomato and grew them in 2013 to evaluate cold tolerance. This included numerous Russian lines as well as several wild species from TGRC. The short story is that all of them die when frost forms on the leaves. The longer story is that a few of them are able to continue growing at temps between 32 and 45 which is deadly for ordinary tomatoes.

The best result of the 2013 growout was finding a S. Habrochaites line that is nearly immune to disease in my garden. There was also a S. Pimpinellifolium that is significantly better than any of my current lines for septoria tolerance. I grew F2 plants from crosses with these plants this year and plan to grow F3's next year in a search for better disease tolerance in a decent quality domestic tomato.

I went out last night, as temps were dipping to the mid 20's and I wanted to get the last butternut, and there were MORE TOMATOES out on that plant. The last of the few blooms it had with temps around 50 went on to become tomatoes, and looked really nice despite a dead plant with frost forming on them before my eyes, a few were even blushing!

How much heat does the ballast unit put out on that 400 watt unit?

Well Gregory123,

I took your advice and bit the bullet on the 400 watt light... It's way more than I was planning on or could afford.... but at least it's something I can use years into the future... and 'handles' this part of my veggie garden...

I just need to save up some moola for a couple 4' T5 grow light for each of the other two windows now...

Hopefully, this does the trick...

I am trying to decide if I am motivated to grow greens during the winter in our heated box - inside the GH. It works great - not too expensive - but does require removing the lid on hot sunny days (in the GH) and of course - watering. We can grow in this box all through the winter months. It is 30" wide X 96" long. We bury the cables about 4" under the soil and plug them into a thermostat that I set at about 50 degrees F.
The box contains the heat well during the night and the GH is warm enough (sometimes too warm) during the day that if I take off the lid - the plants do well !

AACK!!! Hudson, you're killing me!!! Now I have a bad case of the "I wants"!!!!
Edie

Thanks PupillaCharites

The larger/stronger tomato plants have bounced back. A few smaller plants and weaker cucumber plants on the outer edges of my setup have died.
I did a reservoir change on my Ebb & Flo reservoir tank, last night, and skipped the Flora Kleene process. This setup has around 10 tomato plants topping off around 7 ft tall. I have changed this tank before with no adverse affects.
Looks like I have a 30 dollars a gallon of FloraKleene for sale... LOL.

Thanks again for the replies,
Ban

Hi Ban, I hear you on the Flora Kleene stuff ... just like all of those whiz bang products, they are worth hanging on to and some time you may get some tough salt buildup in the hydroton or whatever you have in the EnF and it may come in handy...you never know (the astronomical cost $30 is another subject)

I used to take care of that problem, which was not frequent but is more common in desert climates, by just running water through the media pHed as low as ok for the plants. When you finish the growing cycle, you can just put all the media into a large tub, and just soak it good, dump the water and soak it at a pH of 4 or so, dump, and soak rinse. That's how I'd recycle it swirling it around with my hands to get the old organic matter out, and that saves a lot of money on buying the media. When I let the roots completely dry out in the rig, they came out more whole and easily compared to wet roots.

For DWC it was never an issue. I still have some strawberries running that I planted in two tubs nearly 14 months ago. They are outside and whenever it rains the hydroton gets rinsed, but if they were inside, I would just run a gallon of $0.88 Walmart distilled water through the pot,s like I said in the first post. You could use RO or Rain too. That's better than tap or well because it sucks the residues into solution more, and having it pH'ed around 4.8 for tomatoes is fine. It takes extremely little pH down to pH distilled water if it isn't already at low pH. The acid side pH dissolves the carbonates and phosphates which build up and leave a white residue.

Your tomatoes sound great! Must be a pretty tough set-up to deal with plants that big. Here's a picture of strawberry roots damaged by chlorine in tap water after a res change:

(chlorinated water damage from res change of strawberries)

Tomato is less sensitive to chlorine than strawberry but if there is very little organic matter in the solution, they can get punched too if chlorine is not dissipated. Like your situation, I lost some of the plants at the edges, where the bubbler was not very efficient.

Good luck. I'm so caught up in tomatoes I've neglected the strawberries, no res change since June 3!

PC

This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Thu, Nov 13, 14 at 11:34

Hi Silvia, maybe they're kind words but you make it easy, over a Sungold Caprese salad LOL. The thread got so big, I'm reading it in pieces so forgive me if I say something you've covered. To tell the truth, I just keep coming back to look at the pictures ;-)

When/how are you going to pull your plants this year? Do you take them to the end, or as you say force a break to lessen carrying any disease (and I say enjoying Christmas).

I think we're going to have an early frost this year since that's the way it's been going. It'll definitely get us up here, but hopefully you'll be insulated around 3 hours to the south. Three hours, hmmm. If things work out I might just crash your April party!

I'm actually going to try the mix with spinosad and neem, because you suggested it... The spinosad alone is worthless but I've never used neem, and need to look more into it, since it gets such good reviews. I have a highly refined horticultural oil called Sunspray that I've used for mites successfully which may be an ok swap, so I'll read up on the difference to be sure.

I started keeping single vines, and you're right about that. At this point, I am letting the plants put out everything they can. It's not because I am happy with that, only because every single flower counts here and pruning and waiting as the Sun falls further won't get a few last clusters in. So it used to single but now they are an intertwined mess with lots of yellow ;-) October was a great month in general as it always is, but the party will be over as quickly as it started. September was a total rainout which delayed everything and why transplant date was Oct 3.

Hi labs ! Yes a sort of summer fabric would be just what the doctor ordered. Sounds like a project for next year spring/summer. But for extending the season, the plants now couldn't take the hit in loss of light. Sometimes I think I should just get a grow room inside the house with silver wallpaper and a huge electric bill :-(

Cheers!
PC

EDIT... about Citrus, nope that's not our source here but I bet it is a big deal around Indian River... we're too far north except for an ocassional pet tree in the yard for fun. There are two trees within 500 feet and later I'm going to sneak a look at them both just for fun. Better not to ask, since it might not go over well, if I say can I inspect your lemon and orange tree for leafminers I have on my tomatoes ;-))))

This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Wed, Nov 12, 14 at 11:58

Hi PC, looking forward to you crashing the party in April.:)

I don't have an exact time to pull the plants out but I still have them in January, I use the tomatoes for the parties at my house around Christmas, the big tomatoes are just ripening now...

January tomatoes from past seasons, with snap peas

With phyllo dough and feta cheese

Silvia

if you are looking for plum sized paste tomatoes, Tatiana website has this.
Also lots of hearts are usually quite meaty and have few seeds

Here is a link that might be useful: paste

thanks Carolyn,
i'm going to go with dix doight de naples and try out a few plants of the libby's pride and mama leone. the martinos roma did produce red fruit plants were very healthy just that at frost the plant was loaded with un ripened tomatoes and my production was down that year. my grandparents were from Benevento there variety was very vine like sparser foliage and shaped very incosistantly most like small boxy hearts. I tried a odd variety od costuluto one year called pisanello very tall viny plant. the sauce was out of this world, but they were hard to maintain and not very productive. the san marzano when I planted it. was deceased proned and more fruits with blossom end rot and other ailments. not worth it. I see another type of heirloom called piramide. might be worth a trial run. the chico 3's I planted last year were beautiful almost all without ber.

Time For A Little Update:

On Sept 17, I wrote "
IDEA, is idea for an experiment here. Is that understood ?
I don't like to get into lengthy discussions on details of genetics.
But you did not say anything about cloning ?
If I plant 3 clones, what will happen ?

Subsequently I isolated two bud, not nearly to open yet. I covered them with tight nylon tulle, that no even smallest insect

Isolated flowers

So then I gave them time to flower and finish all sexual activity. Finally I saw husks formed in the tulle.

Removed the tulle and marked them ( by tying a piece of the same tulle:

Here are some pictures.

I Think, probably this late in the season that temps are going down to 50s and 60s those husks won't be filled but nevertheless the flowers have been self pollinated and fruits formed.

So this experiment has proved 100% to me that tomatillo is in fact both self pollinating and self sufficient, just like tomatoes. I am sure that inter pollination within a SINGLE plant by wind or insect can improve the odds.

CASE CLOSED !

HARVEST

With the frost in forecast, yesterday I harvested some husks near full. But since my plant started setting much late in the season and due to cool temperatures afterwards, the husk did not get real full. Amazing thing is that I found some flowers on the plant. The plant still looks healthy while all my my tomatoes are dead and gone.

Here is a picture of my harvest. Ten times more are left on the plant which are half full or even smaller

I'm not in PA, but chilly Canada.

I started my tomatoes from seed at the end of March and had a very good growing year.

I would definitely suggest that you try some early varieties like Bloody Butcher, Stupice or Matina.

I LOVE Cherokee Purple but I read on the forums that Indian Stripe is just as good, but more productive, so I tried growing it this year and it is my new favourite!

Other good ones were Anna Russian, a pink heart, Eva Purple Ball, a pink, and Black Early.

Linda

bmoser,
not too far from Valencia at all. Probably 45 min to an hour, maybe. It might be a tad closer than the place I got my Ghost peppers from (Started from Seed Greenhouse in back of New Brighton).

Never hurts to get a good variety of opinions and info.

labradors,
I grew Cherokee Purples this year. Production was so-so and they were a little small, but the taste was excellent. The greenhouse/farm I mentioned above grew them and they did well for them.

I've read a little about the Indian Stripes. I might give those a try next year.

Bloody Butcher and anna Russians are actually both on my short list for ones to add next year. Was considering the Matina as well. The others you mentioned, I've heard of but haven't looked into them. Will definitely do that.

I call them "mini Roma"

seysonn:
There is a variety named Cherry Roma which is also sold under
the names Baby Roma and Mini Roma.

I grew "Baby Roma" this season, they looked just like your picture
and were my best tasting tomato variety this year.

norval, thanks for the feedback. So you confirmed my taste judgement. I was going to use them in an Italian dish. I did not care for its raw taste. But when I tasted a couple, I was pleasantly surprised how good they tasted. Never expected from grocery store tomatoes.

Seeds are saved.

Just noting that Monsanto bought out Seminis but Seminis is not a single company for there are 5 different companies that comprise Seminis and the one that's of interest to most US growers is Petoseed.

That company was started by John Peto who left Burpee many years ago and took seeds with him for Teddy Jones, which was one parent of Big Boy F1, bred by Dr, Shifriss at burpee and also a parent of Better Boy F1 bred in CA where John Peto moved to.

Carolyn

Carolyn, Seminis is a global company headquartered in Oxnard or Saticoy if direction hasn't been taken over from St. Louis yet. Some of the acquisitions that comprise it have been merged and blurred to varying degrees. More than 5 acquisitions formed Seminis.

Seminis Home Garden was spun out of Peto, but Home Garden has been a tiny part of the company (If I recall, basically a one man show). Asgrow is another big player for farmers.

This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Sun, Nov 9, 14 at 0:33