16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
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.
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....
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.
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.
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
Well, just an update. The plants survived that storm just fine, only lost one growing tip...nothing bad at all. However, it is non stop humidity, rain, and disease.
I think we did go like 9-10 days without rain but that was an exception. Of course, I didn't spray fungicide during that time, I had second thoughts about continually using daconil. I think I'm losing the battle though and will have to use it this season for the first time in the 5 or so years I've been growing tomatoes. I know I should have used its as a preventative, but with as often as it is averaging rain I would have literally been spraying every 3-4 days or more often and I just would not have felt good doing it that often.
So now I have a whole bunch of tomato "trees" haha. I am being really good about trimming off diseased leaves. I know I currently have early blight, a little septoria, and possibly bacterial spot/speck. Either way, my plants are stripped of bad leaves and hoping it will buy a few days til the rain eases off again and I can spray. I also need to fertilize, which hasn't been done in a month... I had actually planned to fertilize Saturday but due to the rain my efforts would have been washed away and diluted out.
Heck, we had probably 2" of rain Saturday and then today we are already up to 1.5" with at least 2-3 more days of heavy rain to come. Ugh, this is one of the wettest years we have had in awhile.
On the bright side I think all of my tomatoes have flowers and probably 75% of them have fruit! I also have a lot of pepper flowers and fruit too. I am working on a blog loaded with pictures and once I get it fixed I will post a link so I can share pictures. Here's to hoping this weekend will be dry so I can do some spraying and fertilizing.
Dawn
Thanks for the update Dawn. I was wondering how your plants were doing. The daconil available to home gardeners is a very dilute version compared to that available to commercial growers. If you feel uncomfortable using Daconil all the time though, you could rotate it with some organic fungicides like copper and serenade. I think we must be in the same weather pattern. We had no rain last week and this week is forecast to rain everyday. Most of the heavy rains are going around us though. And right up to you ;-(
Jennie
Hello again, everybody! Sorry I never got back to this thread, but fall of 2012 & most of 2013 turned out to be pretty trying times in my life. No need to go into details, things are slowly improving now, so all is good!
I haven't even tried to grow any tomatoes at all since I last posted here, but I've found everyone's comments very interesting and helpful. I may plant a couple this fall, we'll see. I think I'd really like the Cherokee Purple, doubt if I will find any plants of it for sale in the fall, though. I've only seen it available in the very early spring.
Again, thank you everyone for your comments!
Rusty
Grow -life,
That is a success story, indeed.
I did something similar and extended my season by roughly 45 days.
Traditional plant out is between Mothers Day and Memorial day here. I started planting out on 8th of April, right around our LFD. I don't have VISIBLE fruits yet ( except on a dwarf) but loads of flowers and buds, some already set. So I am shooting for ripe fruits by July 4th.
Sey
The early maturing varieties I'm sure helped. Beaverlodge is always way ahead of others for fruit set, supposedly they can set frut without pollination or something like that. The plants load up with fruit early, which sits green, waiting for warmer weather. The Glaciers don't set fruit so early, but when they do, they ripen faster. in the end, it's a tie. Both are determinates and I'll switch them out to another variety for late summer and fall production, when the GH film goes back on the hoops. The cover is off now.
Well, a 14"x14"x12 is about 8 gallons. That is on the borderline for a full size plant (det or indet). I could grow 2 miniature dwarfs in it too.
Other than the soil volume there is a big issue managing all the foliage on an about ONE square foot area.. To me bigger container offer a lot of convenience to the grower in terms of supporting, watering and fertilizing.
I can grow a tomato in 3 gallon pot but I have to stand by it to attend to its needs. haha . I don't have time for that.
Sey
Sorry for your situation. I hope that it is short term.
Flooding happen all the time in the spring time mostly,
That is why having a well drained garden soil is valuable.
That is why some of us spend efforts, time, money to build raised beds.
When I moved to WA, I figured out that in my situation raised beds are MUST.
So I built my beds, filled them with purchased material at a cost per square foot of about 2-3 bucks. So for 150 sq-ft I spent roughly $400. , not counting my time and labor. On top of that I cover my beds with black plastic and just make a cut for each planting hole. I'll remove the plastic some time in July .
I add a lot of pine bark mulch and small nuggets to the soil mix., in addition to compost and manures.
So if you have a low laying land, maybe raised beds can offer some solution.
You can also do few other things:
== slope the beds a little, if possible.
== provide channels for the runoff water to go, if possible.
++ Make barrier so no runoff water can get into your garden.
== make your garden series furrows and hills. So you plant on the hills and they won't get flooded.
I have, personally done all of these things in the past.
Sey
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.