16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
1. Don't get discouraged. Even experienced gardeners have bad years. Like the Montgomery County master gardeners this year.
2. If growing in containers, use big ones. Like really, really big ones. Five gallon buckets with a single plant are a minimum. I used whisky barrels for my first (containerized) attempt this year and my best guess is they were 25+ but it was still a lot of work compared to my usual in ground tomatoes.
3. Compost. Over the long term, you can improve your soil and meet a lot of your fertilizer needs with composting. And the do post bin attracts earthworms.
4. Read and think. That way you learn from others. And day dreaming and thinking about and reading about gardening is part or the fun.
5. Try something new and different. The world of tomatoes is vast and the only way to get a sausage shaped tomato with stripes is to grow it yourself. So why not try some of those instead of or in addition to yet another globe shaped red one?
6. Carolyn137 is a minor deity where tomato growing is concerned. Learn from her. :)
7. Tomatoes look like small plants when they start out and when you see them in the store. But they get enormous really fast, especially the indeterminate varieties. So give them a lot of room.
8. Tomatoes are like depressed people. Some good support is essential.
9. Be prepared for questions and imitation by your neighbors. Since I started gardening again, there has begun to be a tomato jungle in my neighborhood.
Have fun! This is a great hobby, so don't worry about it too much.
Grow some other things too. Nothing compliments a fresh grown tomato like some freshly grown oregano or basil. The only plant more fun to grow than a tomato (in my opinion) is a pepper plant. And if your tomatoes have a bad year and disappoint, then you will still have your other crops. That way no year is ever a total disappointment.
Angie
Plant Disease > Seedlings: Damping off Disease > Several methods to stop your seedlings from rotting and falling over such as: chamomile tea, horsetail or seaweed sprays.
picture.I just weighed 3 largest from my yesterday's pick. Came up with :
2 lbs 7 oz = 39 oz or average 13 oz. I get a lot of 8 oz to 12 oz. from my CP, Ananas Noire, and Pineapple. The rest are mostly under 7oz. But then I get more of them.
I am quite happy.
> And since you and grubby made such a big deal above about where my photos were fromâ¦
I didnâÂÂt make a big deal; I simply explained that your 4 photos were NOT uploaded from your computer, as some were thinking from your confusing first post.
And yes, your post WAS confusing, because out of 6 people who posted here, 4 were confused; they though itâÂÂs possible to upload more than one picture from computer - which is not possible. They though there is aâÂÂtrick.âÂÂ
Michael wrote: > I'll have to try your preview trick Dave, thanks for that!
seysonn wrote: > I have tried doing that trick. But won't work.
grubby_me wrote: > Yep, the preview and add trick is totally fake.
And I wrote: > There is NO trick⦠[ I knew that AFTER I tried too the trick. ]
> But since photos play only a minor secondary role on a discussion forum anywayâ¦
Well, some would like to post pictures in a sequence, and being able to upload more than one picture from the computer, is useful / faster for some.
> ...minor secondary role... ?
Sometimes a picture IS necessary to help somebody who asks a question. See posts when people who want to help, request pictures.
This post was edited by Daniel_NY on Thu, Sep 18, 14 at 20:33
GW is waaaay behind the times when it comes to being a user friendly forum... It is the only forum I belong to that you have to use a picture hosting site to upload photos.
All my other forums keep track on the discussions that I have contributed to and I can click on an icon to bring all of those up front. In other words, I don't have to scroll through every thread and try to remember which ones I am active in. Having to preview your post first is a waste of time since they just recently got an edit function.
After posting a reply, I almost always have to refresh my page... and on and on it goes.
And count me as another person who thought Digdirt's post was misleading.
If there is a meaning in the name, when I hear "PINEAPPLE" tomato, this is what I think of. There are some bi colors that are also carry the name "pineapple". This is just part of the mish mash of naming convention in tomato world. CONFUSING!
The three close friends that made the original movie Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978) had no experience growing tomatoes.
The project was started because they considered the tomato the most innocuous thing present in the household. One guy disliked tomatoes and did not eat them at the time ... but now eats a lot of Caprese salads with tomatoes, another made nothing with them, and the third, the director, John DeBello had no recipes for them, but knows every tomato joke under the Sun because he likes 2nd grade level humor:
I donâÂÂt have any tomato recipes. But at this point, IâÂÂve heard every tomato joke every told. The intellectual level of tomato jokes is usually about second grade. HereâÂÂs one of the oldest, though, along with the chicken crossing the road: WhatâÂÂd one tomato say to the other tomato?
Ketchup.
All were military, and one had a friend or relative that called something used in target practice "the killer tomato". About the only link these three had to agriculture was that they had a liberal arts education, worked in sports, and the link ... they went to UC Davis (probably has the largest genetic resources of tomato in any one place in the world, but they probably had no clue about it) and made their prototype short of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes for a class on films, when trying to think of the stupidest title possible.
PC
Here is a link that might be useful: Oral History
Good luck lucille, my climate is the same as Galveston's, and my sun intensity the same as Houston. We will both be hoping together for something to show for fall. Houston's winters are 2-4 degrees F cooler, meaning frost in early December, so if you already have mature plants you are in great shape.
I started from seed 5 weeks ago and my fingers are crossed with you that we have no early freezes, our frost date being around Dec 24. Hope to be counting tomatoes along with you!
PC
I'd lean toward the stray seed theory as well.
If you like, go ahead and save seed and regrow next year.
Also, unless you have bees buzzing around your tomato plants, your chance of cross pollination is 0, no matter how close adjacent plants are.
Good luck!
Lee
I let them ripen on the plant to a day or two before eating. I use some fertilizers that I like to think the fruit will consume somewhat in the 24-48 hours, after being picked, so I don't eat them right off the vine until I go more organic.
My neighbors notice the ripe tomatoes more than the green ones and they say, "Oh! you have nice tomatoes." It's important PR here. If there is no color, no one notices as much, and then they think the plants are too messy for their chemical lawn culture neighborhood.
But the effect of seeing ripe tomatoes on the plant makes everyone feel happy, and think "yummy", including too many creatures that get to eat too, always, it seems on the early morning of the day I'm going to harvest them, and I always harvest arounf 8:30 AM ;-( But the neighbor thing is important.
I know you likely have this figured out, but I had a similar experience this year when we turned from 20,20,20 to 9-15-30 we send that through drip irrigation. Each plant only sees about a quart of water each week.
I have to purge lines and always end up with a gallon of concentrated solution. In this case I filled the 5 gal bucket with water to dilute it and poured it over the last 4 plants in the row. They recovered within the week. My point? In my case I wasn't giving enough nutrients or water.
I had the same problem. Tried some fung oil and this may have helped a little. We kept getting a lot of raining humid days this year. I trimmed off all effected areas and disposed of them. This helped for a while, but has finally taken over even into my cherry tomatoes and zucchini... Any thoughts to prevent this next year???
I don't have a hipboard/ribbon on yet, that will be in the spring. I'll have to run ropes from baseboard to baseboard until then. Yes, I read in manual to use short (relatively speaking) pieces so if 1 breaks you don't lose it all.
My groundposts have 7/32 holes in them - PO (nursery) had nails stuck through and hoops sitting on top. They took the plastic off over the winter and I guess weren't worried about wind - the hoops must have been bent by rain collecting in loose plastic?
I don't know what kind of drill bit and how much torque you need to drill through galvanized steel hoop (sorry, I don't know how thick)? DH breaks drill bits going through wood, I can't imagine asking him to drill out 44 hoops (going through both sides of both ends of 22 hoops). I was thinking just putting a tek screw into each hole, so 2 going into 1 end/groundpost, from opposite directions?
I won't be leaving this up during the winter either. if we get strong winds (this summer kept having warnings but never saw any), the tunnel has about 1/2 mile to the south to go before it hits my uncle's house. I'm hoping it wouldn't clear the knob of ledge with the apple trees right at that end of it though, or the CRW fence around the main garden on the other side of the knob, or the blackberry hill the other side of that, or the stone wall and trees on the property line, or my uncle's pond ;-)
I don't think wind from the south would lift it with the knob there, but we have a rise to the north and a lot of trees before you get to my house (about 500ft as the crow flies NW). Trees to the east and my pond to the west with more trees behind it.
Yea if you take off the plastic in the winter that should save you from the snow issue.. Suprisingly with just an average sharp metal bit and an 18v hammer drill you could get right through the steel.. Although if you tek screwed each side I'm sure you'll get away with it (perhaps someone with more experience like Bmoser could confirm this).
It sounds like you have some decent wind breaks too, so I wouldn't be too worried.. Nice property huh?! That's great..
@lindalana - started my batch of tea finally, she's foaming up nicely and smelling wonderful! Lol can't wait to see how it finishes.. I will be honest in saying that I was a little impatient .. Although the compost has cooled to outdoor temps there are still some solid pieces of organic material that haven't decomposed so I had to pick through those.. That's what I get for adding material towards the end of the active phase .. Should've left it alone lol .. Now I'm either gonna to have to remove those pieces, or heat the pile back up..
Daniel wrote
Well, seysonn, we'll talk about pruning vs. no pruning in a new thread that I'll start soon.
---------------------------------------
That is interesting. I have been in this game for years. I have my opinions and never insisted that I am right. But this thread is not about pruning although it might have crossed over.
Topping end of season is altogether a different thing, as I have tried to explain in my opening post.
Look forward to your thread.
seysonn
You can have all the calcium in the World, but if your growing medium is or gets acidic, as peat does, your plants will be unable to utilize it.
I do agree with seyson that some tomatoes are prone to BER. Specifically those include paste types.
Hi Dominick,
I have no need to supplement with calcium. suncitylinda is right, though, in that if you use a lot of peat you will have a soil on the too far acidic side. Use of agricultural calcium nitrate is not addressing the acidity, nor is it a replacement for a pH adjuster like lime, but rather it is used simply as a calcium fertilizer, which in another point she makes, will not necessarily treat BER.
Since I garden in self-watering containers, I do not like to add pH adjusters just for the sake of adjusting pH, as it amounts to fixing something that isn't broken and that usually leads the wrong way ;-)
The reason I do not supplement with calcium is because I get more alkalinity than I need from my tap water, and it tends to build up. No need to pay or do any work with a calcium supplement. That said, if you must add a calcium source pH adjuster, dolomitic lime is the way to go in a container, for chemical reasons, and better than most other non-miracle promising economical calcium products, when used in moderation.
My bottom line is that if the tomatoes grow vigorously and the feed water is alkaline, the tomatoes do just fine with my acidic soil which tends basic as water is run through it.
Controlling pH is like driving. Some people over correct all the time and make a job out of it, while others subject the plant to greater swings. I'm in the latter bunch, and my plants will tell me very obviously when they get sick and and adjustment is needed to get them moving again, which has never happened.
I'm sure there is plenty of good advice to have in the Container Gardening Forum (see link). Keep in mind, many of the people giving advice think everyone has the same soil mix and irrigation water composition they do. This is far from the real situation so you mileage *will* vary.
Happy growing
PC, raining again, still ten days forecast of rain, rain rain. On the bright side, rain tends to drift the pH acidic, which both dilutes and slightly acidifies my pH since my containers get auto-filled in the rain ;-) Yay!
Here is a link that might be useful: Container Gardening Experts