16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
Hi joflo
I would say it really depends. I am facing the same cold snap back to back nights as you except I'm looking at 40-42 F tonight after a high of 60, and tomorrow the same but barely 2-3 degrees warmer, here in 9a. I feel it will be ok but put a damper on the growth we really need. If I had an option to cover them, I would. That's because our cold snap has been caused by a set of two consecutive different cold fronts sweeping in less than two days.
The first one brought rain, and got the temp half way down, and nothing to worry about except maybe mold. The second one came in this morning and tonight's the night. The problem I worry about is temoperature is not all the story. We have a howling wind which is what happened since there are no clouds (not rain here) to moderate the cold sky tonight and the winds will continue howling.
The importance of covering is twofold. One is for temperature, but, if you are in howling winds 30 mph gusting regularly here today, the plants still will have moisture coming off their leaves and humidity causing condensation on them ... a very typical Florida scenario around 6 am when the temp bottoms out.Even if it is in the low 40's, with this howling wind, there is no guaranty the plants will be fine. Covered they will be fine. That said, I have no option to cover my set up today and will bear it, but if I had something I definitely would. Chill factor + condensation is very real and where it is all at for us.
Just thought I'd throw that out there. When dealing with winds, cold and Florida, blanket statements on temperature are not a good idea. I'm going to hang at light at each row end. When the plant is photosynthesizing dew will not condense in my experience I wish I had a light for all the plants, but the outer ones at the end of the tunnel get the highest wind.
I'm worried I'll be losing fruit set. I have at least 100 flowers that would have been set for pollination tomorrow, but I think this will be cold enough to ruin the pollen. Maybe a quick trip to Lowes for blossom set spray to use tomorrow...
The others have more experience when it comes to cold and what to do, but where I'm at the dew+wind is something I'm not sure fully translates from Florida.
One thing I will do is have is a gallon of nice irrigation water (about 65 F -68 F) gallons of irrigation water to slowly add plant by plant just as the weather starts warming about 9:15am to give them a good start. Since mine are in containers, that will help a lot. This one thing I know works from last winter if you have containers.
PC
Well, according to some of you, what I have is NOT Stupice.
ItâÂÂs HIGHLY unlikely that I made a mistake when planting.
I consider myself a VERY organized person.
But, I had in my garden purple and yellow tomatoes that I never planted.
I mean - technically - I did, but those varieties were not what I ordered.
Btw, both the purple and the yellow tomatoes were VERY tasty. I was never a fan of colored tomatoes. Now... I AM !
Now, as you can read above in a previous message, I posted a few links with pictures of Stupice from different seeds companies. The Stupice in those pictures look pretty similar to my Stupice. Please take a look.
Maybe there are different types of Stupice, I mean different shapes, different sizes, different DTMsâ¦
fusion_power and lindalana, thank you for your recommendations - very useful info.
Another strange thing that happened with my Stupice: it has grown full size and took 3 (THREE !) weeks to get red. Meantime, most of its "neibors" - medium / late season - were ripening nicely. Some (large) varieties took 3-4 DAYS (from full size green to red.)
This post was edited by Daniel_NY on Fri, Oct 31, 14 at 10:25
Daniel wrote:
Maybe there are different types of Stupice, I mean different shapes, different sizes, different DTMsâ¦
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I believe so.
Here a picture of what I got . I just picked them yesterday.
As you can see they are not round but lobed. Though you can find a round one now and then. The ones in this picture are about 1 oz. But I have harvested many smaller than half an oz.
Goodbye Stupice !
Siouxzn,
I think you are right. Fermentation change the color to light dull greyish appearance.
Fermentation produces a substance caled "Lactic Acid". Obviously, acid will etch and create a dull surfaces. That is how supposedly it destroys the pathogens and bad bacteria. That is how pickle is make, by lacto fermentation with salt..
A trick to speed up fermentation:
Add maybe a tsp of plain yogurt whey. It is like adding yeast to grape juice to speed up the process. a piece of rotten tomato will do the same. Rotting in this case is fermentation.
About Adding Water:
If you add chlorinated tap water, probably it will kill the bacteria responsible for fermentation. It is ok to add bottled water. This is the common practice for making pickle by fermentation also.
ah ok. good to know. I was worried that perhaps I ruined several batches. Also, I am bummed I did not hop in this particular forum sooner, I missed out on your seed swap.. :( (Although this year I do not have a ton to contribute). I look forward to next year where I can participate and send a good amount in as well!
:)
Yeah, Sure. I was talking about deciding based on personal experience.
This past season I planted about a dozen varieties, mostly for the first time. I am dropping about 5 of them and instead I will try 5 new varieties;
THREE MORE that I will grow them again:
-1- Cherokee Purple: Mostly for special taste, texture and color.
2-- Ananas Noire: To me the juiciest tomato, with the most beautiful, appetizing multi-color meat. It is a bit LATE MID season but I get to harvest a lot before the end of season.
--3-- Japanese Brown Trifele : Also not a traditional red/pink, this is a tasty tomato. I would not call it "BLACK". b/c It is a perfect "BROWN" tomato with a near perfect balanced sweetness and acidity.
I will Name a few in another post.
This post was edited by seysonn on Thu, Oct 30, 14 at 4:00
yeah, based on personal experience, this season I've grown about 80 new varieties, and generally grow 40-60 varieties. I have boatload of varieties that I liked and did well for me... problem there are so many new ones to try LOL
plus every year is different. This year soil test showed deficiency in Manganese, Sodium and Boron so same varieties from this year might go up another brix or two once it is fixed....
I don't know why your tomatoes cracked while in the frig. But as Dave said some varieties (with thin skin, IMO) crack more readily. I had both Sun Gold (thin skin) and unknow variety (thicker skin). The latter never cracked.
The simple solution to cracking, as I have experimented and is true is just pick them as they turn color(say 50%). Then leave then in the room temperature (65F to 75F ?), on the counter, in the basement ... They should get nice color without cracking .
I had to top them. Or they would grow to 8' tall.
Daniel made a very good point about the height. If you can't deal with an 8-12 foot tall plant, which is perfectly normal for most indeterminate varieties, then you may want to re-evaluate the support system and the spacing you are using before next year. Either that or just stick with determinate varieties.
Dave
Daniel,
Your garden is going like Energizer Bonny. hehe. Good for you. Some of my plants are live and well but nothing near yours.
I am waiting for a nice sunny day to clean up and call it "a season". I am working on my 2015 plans now. " What To Grow, What Not To Grow". @ your recommendation, I will grow Brandy Boy, for sure. I know it is a hybrid . So I got to get seeds.That will be probably the only hybrid I will grow.
Thank You Lubadub,
Here is more on seeds and how to make crosses. however, I do not know how to leave the url under a click. so you will have to do a google search for this topic. It is available online for free. you can download the pdf off the screen.
google search for pdf of
Breeding Organic Vegetables
a step by step guide for growers
nofany.org offers it free online
if someone can do the url properly then do it. for those coming now skip down and see if someone has it posted easier to find.
Posted by Deeby 9b (My Page) on
Sat, Jun 21, 14 at 16:47
Someday researchers will say, "Wait ! We were wrong ! New developments show..." and everyone stocks up on TUMS..
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There is no secret about TUMS.
TUMS:( I read on the label)
Active Ingredients : Calcium Carbonate, 1000 mg.
..............
Witch's Brew: Calcium Acetate ( dolomitic lime + vinegar >>> CO2 + Calcium Acetate + water)
Note: Vinegar = 95% H2O + 5% Acetic Acid.
My Conclusion:
Calcium ( in ionic form of Ca++)can be taken up by plants, regardless of the source. Foliar spraying/feeding can bypass the root system for a nearly instant satisfaction.
I grew about a dozen varieties this past season. Not a single tomato was lost to BER. But I did use fertz with Calcium and also used Calcium Acetate (my own brew) later in the season on tomatoes and peppers. I will do the same next season.
TO EACH HIS OWN.
I am all Organic. and if I need something to save the crop, I lose the crop and choose to be all Organic and just do not grow that crop in the future. I see nothing wrong with losing a crop to not poisoning myself the land and all things around me and the water below ground. this world has no opportunity to survive the excuses of the EGO. The intellectual mind of the EGO will destroy and kill everything. The EGO can never choose love over conflict and destruction. Wake up. observe your own mind at work. the human mind is the PROBLEM not the solution.
My father 65 years ago used to add milk to the tomatoes. If we kids had any left over milk we would add water to the glass and pour it onto the tomato garden. he said it was good for the tomatoes. that it was fertilizer for them. as a little kid I believed him. what did I know.
I do know his father grew tomatoes before 1900.
Now I have to investigate another person line that grew same F2 seedlings because her line ended up being far more BW with later maturing date but very delish, winner in taste by my opinion.
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The F2's I grew were midseason and the one Jeff stabilized was also midseason, so I have a problem seeing what you describe as being later maturing like BW. How much later than either of the two parents since all the various BW's I've grown have been late midseason, not late season, which for me is over 80 days, roughly.
Taste? Subjective as always,''Was it red and PL?
The others you know also worked with just the BW X Stupice cross?
Just curious on the above questions,
Carolyn
My friends selections of 2006 and 2009 years, grown by me this year were about a week earlier than Maya's and all of them were what I call early midseason. My friend gave some of her F2 seedlings to another friend who got her selections growing for few years and from her I got this later midseason, more on large BW size at about when regular BW will start for me. Am thinking in that selection very little was left from Stupice genes and quite a bit from BW... is this possible that as line continue to develop, less and less of one parent left and more and more of another comes out?
Last year all my tomatoes got infected. I am growing champion II from seed this year. Did not use pesticide to keep white fly at bay (after all is not virus resistance developed to avoid using pesticide against white flies?). All champ II got the virus. Worthless
If you read the blurbs, it is only intermediate resistance, not immunity. You MUST protect the plants to some degree or they will always go down with TYLC.
There are some varieties available now that have more stacked resistance genes. Four genes are in current literature ty-1, ty-2, ty-3, and ty-4. Check the Florida breeding program for some details.
One of the new resistance mechanisms is plants that repel whiteflies. Combine this with some of the virus tolerance genes and we should have tomatoes that grow and produce regardless of whitefly presence.
The Florida breeding program is working on this but may be a few years away from highly resistant plants.
> You can't save whole threads, only posts in the threads.
Yes, you save POSTS, but when you click on clippingâ title it will open the ENTIRE page - with ALL the posts, not only the one you saved. Which I like very much. I mean, it's good to save a specific post, but if it doesn't link to the thread where it belongs... you'll have to do a search in the forum to find the thread. So, how is right now it's ok.
> So yes, with the above links I can save any post from any of those threads
I tried again, but I still can NOT save posts from those links in Firefox, which tells me: : âÂÂNoScript (an extension / add-on for Firefox) filtered a potential cross-site scripting (XSS) attempt from [http://forums.gardenweb.com]. Technical details have been logged to the Console.âÂÂ
ItâÂÂs strange because I can save MOST of the posts, while SOME I can not. That XXS should apply to ALL the pages, imo.
Luckly I CAN save posts in Internet Explorer.
Weather permitting in zone 7 it is fairly common. We have had an unusually warm fall down here over the past several years and tomato blooms develop well into early November. Further south, even later assuming plants are healthy still.
When possible to move those plants under cover ripe tomatoes can be served for Christmas dinner here. :) Doubt it is possible in NY unless you have a greenhouse.
Dave
Tomato plants, being genetically a perennial, do not have a sensor for seasons. I started pinching all buds/flowers starting lat August on my plants. Because I new that those buds are not going to make it. I was right. My plants are loaded with fruits initiated before end of august but are not ripening, EXCEPT a handful of Sun Golds. . I picked some as big as 10 to 18 oz (Ananas Noir, Cherokee purple) and smaller varieties with slight hint of color, just yesterday , Hoping that they might ripen inside . I have hundreds more that are green, no chance to ripen. Incidentally we have had a goo fall weather. Our lows now going down to about 45F and highs around 57F.
I gave up on pinching by the end of September. Even now some of them are flowering, while almost half dead. They just don't get it. Dets seem to be a bit cold sensitive.
Aaron,
My garden here in Green Bay had many great tomatoes, but I thought Martino's Roma was tasteless, mealy and dry. The bush was first to attract a leaf disease which spread to other Martinos and to other nearby varieties. They were very small fruits, which tended to drop to the ground easily even when they were green. I also thought my other roma, Polish Linquisa was tasteless, dry, mealy, and the fruits cracked a lot after rain. I guess I am done with romas.
1. Best tasting - Black Krim
2. Most productive - Large Red Cherry
3. Earliest producer - Large Red Cherry
4. Largest - German Johnson
5. Ugliest - N/A
6. Tallest (plant) - Large Red Cherry
7. Most prone to disease - Large Red Cherry and Amish Paste
8. Prettiest - Box Car Willie (see picture)
PC, I can't agree with the cut and paste at the top of your post.
I've only taken cuttings of suckers, best known as lateral branches, from plants already in the ground that got damaged by critters or yanked out when my farmer friends hired man was cultivating.
I just take one lateral branch, jam it in the ground next to the damaged plant, make a wee moat around it and keep it filled with water until I see new growth,
And what grows and forms a new plant has always been identical to the plant habit of the damaged plant, not leggy, not lanky. After all, what's being done is cloning so I wouldn 't expect to see differences
My season is too short to take cuttings for Fall plants.
Carolyn
I grew 3 plants in containers started from suckers. I think the parent plants maybe alredy had a little blight at the bottom when I harvested the suckers and so the new plants did blight out sorta early. I pulled 10-12in suckers and put them in large size Styrofoam cups in potting soil and kept them wet in the shade for about 5 days and then hardened them off for three more(sun). The red-yellow gave me 4 almost identical 20 oz fruit in a cluster and that was that. A Cherokee Purple made about 5-6 10-12 oz fruit. The Bear Claw produced about about 6 tomatoes blemish free and about half as big as my garden ones....maybe 12 oz. Next yr I plan to have six late ones and maybe grow from seed to see if I can beat the blight in containers. About ten yrs ago I gave my Dad a sucker plant maybe 16in tall late and it grew some large wonderful tomatoes..Mr Stripey variety. He picked 3 20 oz tomatoes Thanksgiving week and took them with him to the W.Va mountains for deer season. His friends were amazed.
Ripening tomatoes in late Oct in Northern NJ is not going to be easy. Temps are barely passing 60, and there are very short days... not enough sun.
There might be a frost on Sunday night... I'd recommend bringing the tomatoes inside to finish ripening... it may go faster.
Freeze warning tonight... bring them inside.