16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

Gardening teaches patience. I planted a pear tree and waited 6 years to see the first flower. Now this tree will most likely out live me :-)

Potomac Pear

Kathy, you already have plenty of fruits on the vines. Most of them should get ripe in about 3 weeks.
I am still looking and looking to see some fruits on my beef steak types. Mine takes much longer to set and grow.. PNW weather, you know !!!

Sey

The first of my tomatoes to fruit was the non potato leaf Brandywine. Not sure if I mislabeled or the wrong seed was sent. Whatever it is, it's the earliest of all my plants from seed.

Aunt Gertie's

Fused...

I know my insects pretty well, but this description does not clue me into anything in particular.

Nope, I'm in Pennsylvania, but we got some cow manure that was from Texas and these buggers were in it. The adults look like small ear wigs and where their pincher is is red, the middle part is black and their head is red. That's as close as I can get to what they look like. I've bought and applied some predatory nematodes that are supposed to go deep in the soil so I pray to God that they can control these evil bugs.

I will try to get a picture if these little nematodes don't work. I hope they do so these bugs go back to the level of heck they came from.

Thanks everyone! :)

Hey PC, thanks for the kind words in your other post. I love Cherokee Purple. Great flavor & productive in my garden. This one easily maxed out my 180z scale...lol :-)

Growing Black Krim for the first time.

Am growing Margaret this year as well and so few of my friends. I think it will be impossible to completely be sure to say, yes, it is same plant. I suppose one can grow them side by side...

Thanks Hudson, I hope the twins do well, but they are pretty small still. The fruit set around May 18 for the two. It would be so cool if mine stayed green till the end of June for a 14 oz entry, beautiful or not. Centexan's 18.3 oz is a nice big mater that's there to set sights on. Now that the contest is extended I think some new Southern growers could have a chance to start in a month, and northern folks will have a better chance too, like those near the Great Lakes and PNW.

Great on most massive harvest from a single plant! Anyone who counts/weighs their tomatoes and keeps it straight over the whole haul from one plant deserves an honorable mention! What starts as an easy enough sounding task somehow is as hard as doing New Years resolutions ;) I can see why you made it counting them (and not weighing)!

PC

caryltoo,

I also grow sweet corn, beans, potatoes, peppers, cucumbers, onions, zucchini, squash, and cantaloupe. We do a lot of canning and freezing. The last 2 years have been pretty thin on canning tomatoes so I hope to make up for it this year and get about 60 quarts in. I am a little behind on the garden as a whole because I have been putting in 80 to 100 hour work weeks since March. That is over for awhile now so finally maybe I can finally get some more stuff planted.

Your plants do look great! And good to know that they can recover after one frost! Thanks for the update.

Thank you both! I just wish I had taken a photo of the plants after they were hit with frost so you could see how bad they were. They lost all of their foliage and half of their stems. They are tougher than I thought they were.

I used Neptune's Harvest and Big Bloom (FoxFarm) and I was happy with both products.

I also used copper and I was VERY happy.

I think fabric mulch is the best to control the water intake from the rain.

Yes, you need dripping irrigation, which controls accurately tomatoes' water needs.

Straw mulch allows MUCH MORE water intake than fabric mulch - which most of the times is not good.

Bummer on fusarium wilt. It is a tough one. I lost large plant to it last year.

Check the stem at the soil line. Damp-off has been much more common this year thanks to the wet cooler weather many have had. Look for the pinched in browning of the stem right at the soil line or just a smidge above it.

Dave

thank you digdirt2 and Seysonn.. Damping off! never had it in the garden.. only on seedlings planted in potting soil instead of seed medium. The reason I think it's got something to do with water getting to roots is that all through the rain they were standup and healthy.. next day is clear, and they wilted. Thanks so much everyone! Still trying here.. put a little pellet gypsum in soil and swirled it around. Next, I'm thinking sand....

Well all of the tomato plants have grown dramatically in the past week so I've snipped off any leaves (or branches) that had damage with no ill side effects.

Mine seem to have more of those spots this year too. I was thinking it had something to do with the cooler, wet spring......but I don't think it's a big problem.

I am know to be in "Prune IT !" camp. But early on, I only prun the leaf branches to few inches off the ground. A lot of time I just cut half of those branches. At this stage I want to give my plants more power to do photosynthesis and grow bigger., mostly upward not sideway.
But I have very different restrictive treatment on the side shoots that keep popping out of every leaf branch node. I let them grow for a while (half pencil thick) then nip them. Then later on if I see a leave branch is yellowing or they are too crowded out, I lighten them up to provide a better air flow under the plan. I think stagnant condition under the plants, combined with lots of rain and high humidity can be a haven for mold/bacterial growth. They need moisture, and die in dryness or cannot thrive. I find this one of the benefits of pruning. YMMV

PRUNING UNDER THE TRUSS ?
I think it means pruning the side shoots/suckers NOT leaf branches. UNLESS they are too close for comfort, touching the soil.

Sey

I prune only the NECESSARY:

• Branches touching the ground
• Yellow / brown leaves
• Leaves to improve the air flow

I also prune Brandywine plants to 2-3 stems.

Other than that NO pruning.

Make sure you have real estate.

The frame bellow is 16 ft. wide x 12 ft. high.

Plenty of space for toms to grow.

Last year tomatoes grew 15+ ft. high.

That explains it Daniel - hope you will continue to participate in our threads while you are taking a break!!

Yeah, well...

Meantime missing the whole thing.

The yellow tomato in the picture bellow was super-yummy.

The only problem is that I NEVER planted color tomatoes.

This year I planned to have many color tomatoes, but...

CRW cages CRW cages CRW cages oh and did I mention cages? :) Lots of posts with pictures here about them. Much more expensive alternative - Texas Tomato Cages - also lots of posts with pics here about them.

Dave

I make cages out of 3/4 PVC pipe. They last forever and are very sturdy. And they're a lot easier to work with than CRW. No gloves or wire cutters needed.

Here's what they look like in action.

Here's a link in case you're interested on how they're made.

PVC tomato cage page

Sounds good thank you...will do that for sure

You could also just let them keep growing without support. They will bend down and keep growing. With your setup, I'd put some sort of padding at the top to keep the vine from kinking.

I use cages made out of PVC pipe and I just let them grow out the top and back down to the ground. No need for padding. I've had plants grow up the six foot tall cage and back down to the ground.

That's a lot of plants. You're sure to have a jungle. Hope you can find all the fruit!

Good luck!

BUMP IT.

I even forgot about my own posts here. and brought up the subject in another thread.
So here we are, not to cause distraction in BrBy contest thread.
I consider John's F11, and Mike's F10 versions OP for all intent and purposes.

BTW: My BrBy F1 s are growing and ready to show fruits. I have a lot more seeds left but I will save some F2 and I will take "goodgrounds" seed offer. So I can grow 3 versions the next season. That sounds like a fun project under the sun, in the garden ground.

Sey

I grew one of my F10 seeds last year. I didn't do a side by side comparison with an F1, but the F10 produced the tastiest tomato of the season.