16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

Unfortunately all black lights are not created equal. I have a black light and the hornworms glow bright green against the non-glowing foliage. I got a whole lot of the very hard to find small ones off last night. But this was my 4th UV light and the prior ones did not work. The "black light" bulbs (either incandescent or fluorescent) with the black coating - worthless except for fluorescent Elvis posters. The little LED flashlight the TSA uses to look at your driver's license? Also worthless - puts out WAY too much visible light. What you need is the type that you can use to make fluorescent minerals fluoresce. These are made from special quartz bulbs (glass filters out UV) and a fairly expensive black filter (again, made out of quartz glass) and a power supply - battery or otherwise. These will cost either a lot, a whole lot, or a really whole lot. I think mine was $80 Although I have seen UV flashlights now used for scuba diving at night which I haven't looked up so they may have decent LED ones now but the key is still the expensive filter that blocks the visible light and lets you see the relatively faint glow.

What you want are short wavelength ultraviolet lights. The LED ones don't get any shorter than medium wave. I don't have much experience using UV on hornworms, but this message thread intrigued me. I found a hornworm and tried my LED UV light on it with no effect.

After reading fotogreg's post I did some research. I use to have one of the mineral-grade UV lights when I was a kid. It was bell shaped with a flat filter that could be removed. It was AC only and cost 15 dollars. (Candy bars were a dime at the time.) You could remove the filter and smell the ozone being generated by the mercury vapor bulb. It came with a clear piece of plastic that you could use to filter out the short waves and see a dramatic drop in the number of things that would glow.

The take away from my first UV lamp is that shortwave filters are flat and cannot be bent. The filter is used to remove visible light. The filter is the most expensive part of the UV light.

The mercury vapor bulbs are mass produced to use in sterilizers. They are mostly quartz, but there is one made by Philips that uses borosilicate glass (Pyrex).

The mercury vapor bulbs produce ultraviolet light with a wavelength of 253.7 nanometers. This is bad for your eyes and will cause sunburn.

There are many mineral-grade UV lights for sale on eBay. They are usually low wattage with a small filter window. Another use for UV lamps is in a fixed mineral display. These will be higher power and designed to run for longer periods. There is one home-built lamp on sale that is 100 watts and described as a "UV death ray!" It uses the best UV filter available, the Hoya U325c.

I am considering buying a $45 UV lamp from this seller:
UV Lights Biz 2012

Note that these lamps become less efficient over time. (> 10,000 hours or so). The quartz in the bulb absorbs mercury and starts blocking the UV. The filter starts blocking UV, too, though a process called solarization.

Deebie

The tomato is still o the vine.

As a result of my cancer, I have difficulty in swallowing. It has just been in the last month that I have been able to eat really soft and smooth foods. I have getting all of my nourishment by a feeding tube and Ensure. It sure is nice to eat beans, applesuace, pudding,,mashed potatoes, cheese soup, and others. Every new bite for me is a new taste experience and is exciting. Two years ago, I weighed over 349 lbs. I got down to 180 lbs a couple of weeks ago. But God has other plans and I have been able to gain 9 lbs this past week. It is amazing how fast your body forgets how to swallow, and how fast it can come back. I am truly blessed to be able to write this today and tell others, I am cancer free and You can be too. I have great doctors at MD Anderson. Twelve rounds of Chemo and 12 weeks of radiation and we beat the cancer. The recovery has been slow but gardening has truly helped' My goal is to pluck a cherry tomato off the plant, plop it in my mouth, bite down, and experience that tomato explosion in my mouth.

I still get upset at myself at time but a little "time out" in the garden definately helps.

Please keep posting about your tomatoes,becuse I am so anxious to learn more. I did plant some herbs for my winter garden.

You will absolutely be eating that tomato. I simply will not accept less.

It's a great variety George and I'm glad you shared it with me so I could have my seed producers do the seed saving, and I could offer it to others elsewhere and I did send it for trial to a couple of places I think, fingers crossed.

Carolyn, who just checked Tania's site but no listing for it yet. It almost always taked a few years from when someone commercial can up th eseed production and offer a variety.

Thanks Carolyn,

It has been a wild ride since I first corresponded with you in March 2013. Her daughters are pleased with the attention that has been given to the tomato their mother grew and I can just picture the smile my aunt must have seeing what has been done so far. And we all owe you our thanks with all you have done in the introduction of the tomato to people outside of my area.

George in Colorado

Bump and more

I am also growing one of these.
I think the "cherry" in the name is most inappropriate. The fruits on mine are 1.5 to 2 oz and still not ripe yet. I planted mine way too late. The fruits are the size of Matina , Silvery Fir Tree and Bloody Butcher fruits. So NO cherries here.

It is a compact bush type. I like it a lot so far. But have to wait and taste the fruit. It make an excellent container/patio plant.

So this is the moments of truth. Let's see how yours are doing and do taste.

This post was edited by seysonn on Fri, Aug 15, 14 at 9:39

The Moment of Truth.

Finally I got the first ripe fruit from my HCR.

As I have said it before, the word "Cherry" here is most ridiculous. The fruit weight exactly 4 oz, bigger than Bloody Butcher, Matina, Stupice, Early Treat and it is 12 times bigger than Sun Gold.

Here is a picture. It is the red one in the front of Ananas Noire and CP next to some cherries.

In mid January this year we had 5' F. Is that cold enough to kill those little gizmos ?

In mid January this year we had 5' F. Is that cold enough to kill those little gizmos ?

They tend to just go dormant, not die, when exposed to cold. Live fungus spores have been found in the arctic. :)

Dave

Another lucky Cross.

BTW, have you some kind of disease problem with that plant ?

sey

I have to cut and paste so I have a reference point and don't have to go back up to your original post.

&&&&&

(This volunteer tomato grew in my garden close to an area where I had previously grown Sungold, Gold Medal, Chocolate Cherry, Black from Tula, Japanese Black Trifele and Riesentraube tomatoes. I'm guessing it is either a rare cross between two of those or, perhaps, a reversion of the Sungolds? I guess it could have been planted by a bird from some distant neighbor. I would like any input you might have. The skin is almost translucent, pineapple-y yellow. They are shaped like miniature Gold Medals.)

If it were a natural cross between any of the dark colored ones or Riesentraube, the F1 could not have been light coloroed since the dark ones and Riesentraube ( red ) have colors genetically dominant to light colors.

Anyone I know who has had volunteers from Sungold F1 or from saved F2 seeds of the hybrid have gotten orange or red cherries. Red b/c the gene(s) for the flat truss trait are red. So I don't think a reversion of Sungold, which has many parental inputs, not just two parents.

Other than a low flying bird, that leaves Gold Medal and Sungold as a possible cross.

Small fruit size is dominant to large fruit size.

I'm judging the fruit size of what you have by looking at your finger, and fruit size is much smaller than what one would suspect for Gold Medal, yet larger than anything Sungold sized.

The fruits you show have no coloration consistent with the gold/red bicolor of Gold Medal/

And since small fruit is dominant to large fruiit, it could have been a natural cross between Sungold F1 and Gold Medal. I don't know the genetics of such bicolors like Gold Medal, so I'll suggest that it might be possible that the genes for the coloration of Gold Medal were not brought forward.

One way to tell is to save seeds of what you show, put out as many plants as you can next season and see what you get.

Other than that there's always the low flying bird theory, as you know. LOL

Carolyn

I don't think we can make generalizations about pruning and training without considering the plant's genetics and the infinite variation of tweaks employed by each grower. I'll never find out though because I'm pretty sure a 30 foot high cage would earn me a visit from the county lawn code inspector!

Anyway, if you want to look at World records, look at the overhead sprawl "technique". Wilber's record on pounds is long broken. 32,000 "golf ball sized tomatoes" were harvested by just one vine at Disneyworld. I would estimate a golf ball tomato to be an ounce, so that is 2,000 pounds from one plant. A ton of Cherry tomatoes on your plant. Different growing method and delicious enough to serve to guests of the theme park.

This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Fri, Aug 22, 14 at 0:54

If I understood correctly, Mr. Wilber's technique is NOT about having a 29 ft. high cherry tomato. Is about the "18 branches method."

I don't see how you came to that conclusion from the link you posted. The "18 branches" is only mentioned once in the article and even then it is a minor mention, last on his list of pointers. There is far more info on how to build a cage, feed and water, and control pests than about any pruning.

The article focus is about growing world record tomatoes in a barrel and offers very little of value to the average gardener. That probably explains why the methods in the book, published many years ago, never really caught on.

Dave

Seysonn... thanks for the encouragement and instruction.

Edie... thanks for sharing your experience with ARGG and Big Zebra. The GZ is one I may have to look at growing!

This is one of my favorites. Mine started out soft and sweet from top to bottom. I'm getting near the end of my harvest now and they are ripening unevenly.

As I said above, I also like dairy in my tomato soup, but I do not add the dairy until I am preparing it to eat. What's canned is all vegetables and herbs! Everything I put in it can be canned, so long as a pressure cooker is used. And this really is a Harvest forum topic!

My apologies for not posting this in the Harvest section. I actually looked under "cooking" and "recipes." Still finding my way around here.

The soup turned out great. Made a test batch with two cups puree, 1 cup chicken stock, and 1/4 cup cream, among other ingredients. Then canned the puree (added lemon juice). Mmm...fresh tomato soup this winter.

Having a 1 in. Brandywine tomato fruit at the end of the season, for me, is a kind of offence to the variety.

Pickle them!

No, Daniel. I was responding to the OP's post.

finally those tomatoes have small fruits... at 7 ft. high, nothing lower... now they are 9 ft high.

But, is it better to alternate products ? Or it's better to stick with one product ?

Anybody...?

For actual seed starting I like old egg cartons (washed and rinsed, of course!). I get seed-starting soilless mix and get it soaking wet with warm water then scoop it out of the water and squeeze it to the consistancy of a wet sponge, then put it into the egg carton and kind of smooth it into each egg cup. I put one seed in each cup and cover it with a bit of the mix and close the lid. Then I put the carton on top of the refrigerator if it's just one, or on top of the water heater if I'm doing several at one time. I let it go for about 3 days and start checking. When I have 2 or 3 seedlings pop through is when I move it under lights and let the rest of them come up as they will. After the first set of true leaves, using a plastic spoon as my "shovel", I transplant to 16 oz cups with holes poked into the bottoms using a soilless potting mix. That's what works for me, others may have suggestions that work better for you.
Edie

there was a recent thread on seed starting here. I know some people do but fridge can be way too humid. There is no need for it in my experience specially if you will be using it for next year. Closet with stable room temp works just as fine.