16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

Agree. We get lots of requests to try to do this every year and if you pull them all up with the search you'll find the answer is always the same - not possible.

It could easily be any one of at least 50 different varieties. Just gorw and enjoy it and don't worry about the name - call it what you wish.

Dave

Been there and done that with the help of Carolyn.

Just grow and enjoy it and don't worry about the name - call it what you wish.

Yes, I find it fun to give it a home-grown descriptive name rather than think of it as an orphan, and if you save the seeds do it with that name since if you're like me, unlabeled seeds usually get tossed. Hmmm ... Pale Indian Corn tomato ... or Sweet Jalapeño tomato ... Piccolo Corno di Toro LOL

I water my outdoor plants once, sometimes twice a day,..
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That tells me:
-- There is not enough soil in the container OR
-- The soil does not retain moisture.

-- When you water that volume of soil that often, the nutrients are washed down with the excess water coming out of it. I think then you should add fertilizer (@ 1/3 strength) every third time that you water, the way you have said.
JMO

Thanks Seysonn, yeah, I water a lot, as much for heat as anything, but I didn't think the nutrients would wash out since I'm watering from below. Guess that's not the case . . .

The last thing that put it together for me is that my young grape vines and citrus trees are absolutely flourishing, and neither of those need much in the way of fertilization when they're small. Meanwhile my tomatoes, which need a lot of fertilizer are struggling. I think I need a stable fertilization regiment.

Stupice (Tomato Fest). Days: 52

Green Zebra (Territorial Seeds) DTM: 75-80 days. I donâÂÂt grow it, so I donâÂÂt know.

Yeah, I'll zap many, but I do have a few keepers: Brandywine (Pink), Rose, Brandy Boy, ParkâÂÂs Whopper, Sweat Chelsea, and a few more.

The list of those âÂÂzappedâ is MUCH longer. ALL the bush tomatoes, most of the cherries and of course, most of the earlies that I grow this year.

I also want to try some new varieties next year.

I donâÂÂt know why - while TECHNICALLY being on time - most of my tomatoes are late and VERY late ??? And why many of my LATE tomatoes are⦠EARLIER ???

Today, Monday Septemebr 1, finally, FINALLY I picked up the FIRST Stupice tomato. (DTM 52 days.)

1.6 oz. good taste, but late, VERY late.

I already picked up most of my other tomatoes that have waaaaay longer DTMs.

So let me see:, am I going to plant Stupice next year ?

Errrrâ¦. Hmmm⦠lemme think⦠errrâ¦

NO, Stupice will NOT be in my garden next year.

very nice guys and gals! Unfortunately, my harvest has slowed way down due to tremendous blossom drop in July from 100+ degree weather. Harvest should pick up soon!

Ajsmama: didn't realize you were in CT as well! Southern myself.. I'm going to try to get to a market next year.. Do you have much success?

Lots of people north of the mason dixie line are having delays with early varieties this year. Here in Oregon I contribute much of it to very cool nights even though day temps have been warm to hot.
Even my early varieties are starting to ripen pretty good except for my Bush Beafsteak Det plant. It is rated as 62 days to maturity and not a single tomato is even beginning to ripen. It has several tomatoes on the plant but they are all green. Oh I transplanted it 90 days ago and have harvested several Brandywine and other long season varieties a few weeks ago.

Gregory,

You are right on the money about night lows.
Here in North Seattle area(Sammamish) our night lows RARELY stayed above 58F. Even when day highs were like 87F, the temps doped to under 60F. This is because of our very clear skies and low humidity. Now we are in double jeopardy. The day temperatures are going down as well.
My plants are loaded but ripening is getting VERY SLOW.

I don't think of CP as really sweet, I do like CP, BK, BW for bigger tomatoes. I like a tomato to taste like tomato - with some acid.

But I tried Sungold for the first time this year, that is really sweet and yummy! So is Black Cherry. My dad swears by Super Sweet 100 but I am going to have him try Sungold. He probably won't try BC.

I have Galinas yellow cherry that just started ripening and they taste very bland to me. I think Green Doctors are just ripe today, I have to try some. Ester Hess is very bland too, and Dr. Carolyn isn't doing anything (sorry, not you Carolyn, I mean the tomatoes aren't ripening!).

To my taste sweetness is not as critical as texture, juiciness and overall tomato flavor. I don't like a hard solid kind of dry texture. I basically want the kind of quality tomato that you cant buy in the grocery store.

Yeah I know, I usually like to transplant them a couple of times and bury their stem a bit deeper each time so that they grow more roots.

However these white spots started appearing on a couple of my plants a few days ago and I don't really know what is causing it.

Well. First thing first.

1- I would prune those lower leaves, anyway.
2- Repot, burying down more (another 5" or so)
3- spray with fungicide. I like Neem Oil spray: It is Fungicide and pesticide both in one. It is also organic.
Tomato plants , compared to other garden veggies, have very little pest problems. And once they get bigger I would not worry about pests but watch for bacterial diseases, both soil and air borne. Those are number one tomato killers.

Sue, please remember I offered you Estler ML seeds, you sent me your address and I have it written down,

So don't worry about Estler seeds.

I also offered same to Edie, since she's an Estler relative but did not hear back from her.

I won't be sending out your seeds until Fall since right now I'm so far behind on lots of computer stuff keeping touch with my seed production folks, getting more info about someof the ones being grown out this summer,and on and on it goes, and then I have medical appts to catch up on and I can no longer drive my own car, so that's messy right now as well,

The faster I go the behinder I get as is oft said and we must not forget my obsession with tennis either, the TV kind. LOL

Carolyn

I do remember your offer Carolyn, and I greatly appreciate it. I didn't know you were planning to wait until fall, but thank you for letting me know. I know how busy you are so if you didn't get to it I would understand. By the way, do you have a favorite brand of chocolate, lol?

My post will be shorter than yours. LOL

Another person who also contributed to Bob Ambrosesnewsletter was a coordinator of all theNJ expetion servies, a Ph. D withtraining, perhapshisnameis SteveMiller, andIknow that healsomoved tothe USDA station inGeneva, NY, asIjustposted about in another thread lessthan 5 minutesago.

SoIdon'tthinkMinnieZ waswithoutknopwledge of hybrids, and theonlywayyouhaveof determining ifyojuhave ahybridis tosave F2 seeds, plantoutalotofplants andseeifyouget genetic segregation,andIthink, yes, Ithink that was done, or WayneHiltonwouldnothave dealtwithMinnie onthat.

Also, whenMinniewashere at GW, andIwaspresent shewouldn'thavesaid that oneparent had beenlost for TT tosayto rogueoutplants/

IfyouknewWayneHilton,whichyoudidn't, it wouldn't have surprised you to seeproblemsarose whenhe subcontracted out for commercialproduction of her F1 hybrid.

You wrote:

(New breeding has probably advanced BZ (OP) well beyond the F1 from what we are seeing, and they still do not consider it stable (Unless the F* from Monsieur Boudyo has reached that point for a single specific trait).)

Your theory, not mine,

(I may have different thinking, since I also believe if the mutation is fixed and a consistent tomato producing multiple fruits is bred, that the new stable cultivar should be the beginning of as new subspecies at minimum recognized as different as broccoli is from cauliflower.)

Your idea,not mine,

(Perhaps when my great heirloom book arrives in the Male (smile), I’ll have a better understanding of hybrids ;-), but these are my thoughts as all-wet as they might be.)

Perhaps when the book written by Male arrives in the mail you'll quickly find out that NO hybrids are included in the book,(smile)

Carolyn,missing some excellent tennis right now and no time to edit so you can seperate the fused words yourself. LOL

Perhaps when the book written by Male arrives in the mail you'll quickly find out that NO hybrids are included in the book,(smile)

YES, that was the punch line of my joke which is why I smiled first! I get a few in there every once in a while ;-)

The rest of the fused stuff, are all plausible assumptions and tend to demonstrate more people were involved ... well, except one opinion, I prefer tomatoes over tennis anytime and anyplace LOL

It is a richer background on the subject. I take it that no pre-fiasco BZ F1 is still available for anyone new, and viable, and that Ms. Zaccaria for whatever reason sold, disposed, destroyed or held back every seed she saved from her breeding efforts for the lost parent of her singularly amazing claim to fame. Hmmmm.

That's probably something you've discussed at some point, but after being the Champion of NJ and investing so much into it, regardless of what others did, that she would at least not have had some seed to re-establish the parent line doesn't add up. But I guess life changes and crap happens, priorities change, people sign papers, and that loss might be as unbelievable as it is true.

PC off to tend some tomatoes

But that does not mean that one cannot grow heirlooms in greenhouse.

I'm assuming you mean with good yields. If I were in the OP's situation, this is how I would think about it, but upfront this is pure opinion.

If I ask commercial heirloom growers they are going to say you have to pollinate them if the air is still. If I were to ask mass producer greenhouse growers, they would say, we can't afford not to pollinate if the air is still.

So either way you are going to be told to pollinate since they can't afford to let a crop go un-pollinated. That would leave me with asking a plant scientist and using my own rusty wiles.

So I ask the scientist and after distilling her complete explanation, I walk away with the impression that in still air I need a tomato that does exceptionally well self-pollinating in still air. There was then a long explanation and controversy as usual where no one agrees much, but the gist of it was, for pollen to concentrate around the stigma, you need:

a short-style tomato.

Then I look up my favorite heirlooms and find most of them are long style tomatoes and cross pollinate more easily than the crop of commercial varieties, and need more effort to pollination.

Crap, I think. Well, at least this explains a big stereotypical difference between heirlooms and high-yielding commercial varieties. That's right, "high-yielding". Generally when a tomato is a high yielder, it pollinates easier in controlled conditions - and this frequently relates to the length of the style.

So, all I need to do is go look for any high yielding tomato. Trouble is most are not the heirlooms I want. So at that point I would just get a good quite large beefsteak, my favorite, and make it my business to go in the greenhouse and hand pollinate a few flowers whenever I could knowing the ones I got would be big ones so my per flower pollination efforts would be amortized. Yeah, I'd go with Mortgage Lifter. If I wanted to go with an intermediate tomato, Stupice has had mixed reviews (who better than seysonn) but seems to give a large yield.

Then, reality would set in, and I would realize I kept missing flowers because I was late for work, etc., and I would decide to grow cherry tomatoes which I understand generally have short styles; many prolific cultivars to choose from; and just leave them be to do whatever they could. Some of the sweet ones might be great, but honestly I really prefer heirlooms and still would want something a little bigger.

Other options: You can significantly boost your production by putting a fan in your greenhouse if it is a hobby size one and you don’t mind some air inside. Put it on a repeat timer for just 10 minutes max around 11 am. Another option: walk through your greenhouse with a stick and tap the plants a couple of times and you will boost your yields.

In the end I would set up a trial with the heirloom (yeah!) variety "Santorini". Flavor, multipurpose, history, downright gorgeous, short-style and larger than your typical cherry.

Since I am sure every point I've made can be argued either way, I hadn't suggested a variety, but this follow-up post would be the "old college try" And Santorini is an awesome place!
PC

Here is a link that might be useful: Santorini (The real deal)

A Canadian Coop manager gave a presentation where he stated that Trust is the most offen grown greenhouse tomato. However over my many years of growing various varieties I've had more success with cheaper seed price varieties like Big Beef, Country Taste and First Prize. Pollination is not that big of an issue if you use string line for support since just regular clipping of growing plants seems to provide enough plant movement for fruit set.

Although I grow well over 200 varieties, mostly heirloom, in my greenhouses if there was one defining criteria which I were to look for in a GH variety it would be Leaf Mold resistance. I didn't do anything special this spring and had ripe fruits by late May. I sell lots of heirloom tomatoes and sell them early so the lower yield is justified by higher price but I need heirlooms to look like heirlooms so I grow few Mortgage Lifter or other "Red look-alike" heirloom varieties. A few heritage varieties like Mr. Ugly, Conestoga or BrandyMaster will yield better and still offer heirloom-like qualities.