16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
I had always heard that Starbucks is absolutely terrible for the environment. Okay... it's been very many years since they established their business and my memory is faded on the facts, but what they do and add etc is harming land.
I am a MAJOR coffee drinker and a place I worked at provided starbucks for free to drink as we wanted it while working. After drinking this s!@# for a couple weeks my body has rejected it.... it makes me sick in the stomach and for the past 12 years + anytime it is offered to me my body gives an alarming NO to not drink it again. In meanwhile I can drink any other brand by the loads.
Bed is 10-12" deep.
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12" deep is ok , as long as it is filled to the brim.
It seems that the bed is not full. If the bed is made 10" deep and 2" of it ie empty, there can be a problem. I woul conside 12" soil depth to be ok.
In hot weather deeper soil can protect the plants' root from heating up. I think the state of your plant shows NOT ENOUGH soil depth and volume. You could get by with that if you did not have scorching weather..
So my suggestion is to fill in more soil AND mulch the top.
My forecast is a bit more temperate. Low to mid 80s for the next four days with upper 70s after that. Where I live it's not uncommon for us to go from June to August with no rain at all. I think we're somewhat under the influence of the rain shadow up here in Whatcom County. I'm picking a few saladette sized tomatoes every day and my SFTs are coming in fast and more of a small slicer size. I have a good blush on my first Black Krim as well, and faint blushes on a couple more. This weather seems just about perfect for my tomatoes. They really didn't like when we were pushing 90.
Just off the east slope of the cascades (Okanogan River Valley), I think we've had a record number of highs above 100 degrees. Most of my tomato plants are having massive blossom drop, with the exception of my cherry tomatoes, Early Girl, and Opalka.
This post was edited by nugrdnnut on Sat, Aug 2, 14 at 14:27
Several possibilities come to mind. Needless to say the week or so without water and attention doesn't do any plant any good but many in ground plants will bounce back from that if all other conditions are good. Bouncing back from it when in a container is a double challenge.
This catches my attention: there is also a mixture of goat & rabbit poo I got from a farmer so it should be good on fertilizer.
That isn't necessarily true. Plants in containers can only benefit from those sources of nutrients if there is an active soil food web of bacteria in the container to convert them to usable nutrients. That seldom exists in a container. And even if it does those nutrients leach out of the container with watering and have to be regularly replaced. The plant needs feeding.
Plus you don't tell us the size of the container or what it is growing in and those are important factors too.
Dave
Thank you for the response digdirt. I am growing it with Miracle Gro Garden Soil until I come across something better in a container that is roughly a 1.5 feet long, 11 inches wide and about 6-7 inches deep (estimating). This is my first go with gardening so its a big learning experience.
Here ya go, I got out the windex and cleaned up the screen!
Giant Belgium has always been one of my fav tomatoes, and usually one of the largest and most productive.
But Alas, Laurel was sposed to grow one and send me the plant this year, but I got an email from them that the plant did not survive.
The "Kicker" is , I saw a Giant Belgium plant at Orchard Supply but I passed on it as I thought Laurel was sending one~~~so none this year.
I like the taste, but I have a "very diversified palate" when it comes to tomatoes.
I like the Giant Green, which I think most folks would say has a lot of acid, but at the same time I like Cuostralee and Kellogg's Breakfast, ~~~which to me, has little acid.
Probably, except for the Green Giant, I got the most tomatoes, as well as the largest, from my Giant Belgium tomato plant.
Gary
I would leave them on. You can lightly tie them to the cage if you want. Otherwise the bent branching will be fine. UNLESS they are broken badly. Then , of course, if the number and volume of the branches are overwhelming, you can cut some of them,. This happened to my ML about a week ago too. I did exactly what I just told you. And the plant is doing just fine.
I leave the water for the very few smaller pots that have saucers outdoors, most don't have them. They evaporate or the water gets drawn back up in a few hours. Since it's so hot they have to be watered every day and the water is never there for very long. If you had a cool rainy period, where the water remained standing for days, it would be different.
I no longer see the point of even having the saucers.
Because in extremely dry hot weather that water in the saucer will be quickly reabsorbed by the plant.
There is no one method fits all times. Wet cooler weather with lots of rain, yes you may need to empty the saucers. Hot and dry weather, no as the plant will use it within a short period of time.
Think of saucers as a poor-man's form of self-watering containers. We leave water in self-watering containers for short periods of time, right? So for much of the summer heat the water can remain in the saucers just note how long it takes it to disappear. If it is still there 24 hours later, dump it.
Dave
Besides the green shoulders, it's lacking the concentric cracking normally seen around the stem on BK.
What was the source of the plant?
The small black spots are minor damage of some sort; you may need to cut a bit out on the inside.
Some varieties are worse than others but I even have episodes of cracking in my high tunnels where plants are esentially covered and the critical factors are more controlable. I find that running circulation fans for an hour each morning to dry plants (and fruits) goes a long way to minimize cracking. However if the weather turns from dry to foggy dampness every morning your only recourse is those crack resistant varieties. I've never seen a Rebelski tomato crack.
Also, Cherokee Purple and Black from Tula have ripened and I have a huge Brandywine OTV about ready to pick. The Black from Tula was a 12" plant in a 4" pot, and it was one of the first to ripen, so I was wrong about the 4" pots, though for the most part, the ones that were that size are not ripening like the ones that were in bigger pots. I love the blacks! I also believe they do better in colder climates. I wonder if there is anything written to back up that theory. I chose a lot of Russian varieties when I moved to MT, instead of growing all of my favorites that did well in CA. One thing I do that might increase the vigor of my plants is that I try to not let them experience temps below 50 degrees F. If I can't do that, then at least 45 degrees. And planting out a little later does not slow them down; in fact, later planted ones often do better than those I try to get an early start with (unless I can keep those early-planted ones really warm).
The average time listed on the tags of my plants is about 75-90 days til they start to produce, but I'm pretty sure thats the same time that it is supposed to take these plants to produce from ungerminated seeds. The DTM is pretty much a parameter defined by time from transplant to first ripes. One important modifier of this is weather conditions. For MY typical weather, I add about 2 weeks to the advertised DTM to establish a more realistic time period. With optimal weather and nutrition the putative DTM time frame can be much more nearly approached and sometimes the actual DTM can be fewer than the putative DTM.
Reggie