Tomatoes in the ground
 

Finally finished up with planting all my tomatoes for the season. I've been working on this for two weeks and had to cover the ones I put into the ground probably prematurely two weeks ago several times. I'm hoping that any chance of hard freeze is gone at this point and I don't have to worry about it from here on out.

Varieties:
Hybrids:
Better Boy
Big Boy
Early Girl
Lemon Boy
DX-52-12
La Roma II
Viva Italia
Sweet Tangerine
Moscow

Heirlooms:
Mortgage Lifter
Black
Pink Brandywine
Red Brandywine
Brandywine
Big Rainbow
White Wonder
Amish
Black Krim
Green Zebra
Fourth of July
Rutgers
Mr. Stripey
Yellow Pear
Taxi
Chocolate Cherry
Rose Quartz

Peppers also went in with Bells in Purple, Yellow, Red, Orange and Green, along with Thai, Jalapeno, Cayenne, Habanero, Anaheim and Serrano.

Sounds like ingredients for a few jars of "Salsa" for the Chiefs tailgate parties! :-)

I planted tomatoes and peppers last week as well.

I love tomatoes, but can't grow them.

I'm curious about why so many varieties? I think I'd plant my favorite 2 or 3 varieties and leave it at that. Surely some of those you planted you consider inferior to others?

Lookin' like a FOOOL, with your tomatoes on tha ground.

How big is your vegetable garden? Are you planting multiples of each variety or just one of each? Do you sell or can them? I find that the planting part is easy but the taking care of them as the summer gets hotter is what we struggle with.

Damn man, you love you some tomatoes.

Sacco, do you save seeds from your heirlooms?
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We were given some heirloom plants that somebody had grown from seeds. We didn't have room for them in our beds, though, so I had to build a new, raised bed. They're doing very well, so far. But our topsy turvy plant is doing awesome. It looks a little crazy being upside down and all (it's trying to turn itself upright in order to get sunshine which it needs to grow), but it's getting big fast. Real fast.

FAX

On the one hand, you're working with nature, and on the other, you're fighting her.
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I've been fighting Mother Nature since the day I was born, Mr. Delano. It's friggin' war. She wants weeds to take over my lawn, make hair grow out my ears, and then slowly kill me. But I have news for her. I'm not going easy. Mother Nature can french kiss my butt. She is a relentless, mean-spirited bitch with nothing but death and chaos on her mind.

Therefore, if one little, crazy, upside-down tomato plant is going to upset her, so be it. Get used to it, Mother Nature. The stores are jam packed with topsy turvy planters.

FAX

I decided to try a topsy turvy this year after reading good reviews and my tomato plant in it is not doing well. Yellow leaves, buds are dying, no new buds. I can't figure it out. I thought it was that it was getting too much water so I cut back on that a bit and even moved it in to a spot with more sun, but it's still not looking too hot. What's the upside down secret?

I don't really know, Mr. stlchiefs. This is our first experience with one. We received it as a Christmas gift from some people who come over often, so we kinda had to use it.

All we did was put some potting soil mixed with some good dirt in the container, added some Miracle Grow stuff, and watered the living crap out of it (we've gotten a lot of rain here, too). It gets medium direct sun ... about 6 hours a day. It's doing really well, though. It just looks weird trying to turn itself upright and all. I think (and this is just a guess) that, because it's more or less a hydroponic type of contraption, more water is better than less water and that, of course, means it can take quite a bit of sun.

FAX

you didn't mention anything about fertilizer or what kind of soil you're using, stlchiefs.

potting/gardening soil and top soil mix. No fertilizer.

DAMN! i only got 4 roma plants.

Yeah ... I think the yellow leaves might be indicative of some kind of soil deficiency. It probably needs some fertilizer. We use Miracle Grow mixed with water. It works well.

FAX

ari stole my 'pants on teh ground' idea. dammit.

Plants on the ground.

FAX

yea thats what I'm thinking. No new bud site?! sounds like it needs fertilizer stat. stlchiefs, you'll need something high in phosphorus to promote more bud sites. Get something thats 17-17-17 or 20-20-20 kind of fertilizer. Yellowing leaves could be anything to nitrogen, calcium, or potassium deficiency.

A little whale oil and it'll be right as rain.

Some people say that egg shells help a calcium problem. I've never done it because I couldn't get the chicken to just stand there by the plant long enough.

They say that bananas have lots of potassium. Maybe you could jam a big banana in your topsy turvy?

FAX

haha you got the right idea FAX!! Also ground up coffee beans are a rich source of nitrogen. Great organic alternative.

Grocery store tomatoes are red and awful.

Dead bodies help create the best tomatoes. If you do not believe me, go ask Cameron Diaz or the black A.D.A. from Law and Order: Criminal Intent.

Tomatoes, at least for me, are the easiest thing to grow. (I've never grown a corn plant worth a shit for 20 years.) But they are also what I concentrate the most on in my garden.

I like trying several new varieties every year in addition to the standards. The DX-52-12 is the defacto standard here in the mountain west. It's an improved version of the Moscow (which, in itself, was a hybrid lab variety) developed for the higher elevations, sandy soil and shortened growing seasons here in the Rocky Mountain region.

I do save seeds from the better plants and put into the ground several from the best of the seed starts. I also order a few new varieties of heirloom seed packs every year. You never know which one ends up being your favorite. Might as well try as many as you can in order to get that end of the rainbow, pot of gold if you can. So far, for me, the Green Zebra has been my favorite. Doesn't can for shit, so you have to eat them fresh, but holy mother of all things tasty, they are good.

I'm trying Mortgage Lifters this year based on the favorable comments that this strain has received here, although from what I hear, they don't have the acidity to preserve properly. Sounds like a good fresh mater though.

I like trying a lot of varieties simply because they are so different in terms of taste, acidity, etc. They all cook different, can different, etc. I make a ton of salsa every year (I'll make five or six batches in a season using 100+ tomatoes in each batch), make my own BBQ sauce from scratch, and just through using tomatoes in everyday cooking. I try to can an immense amount of tomatoes just by themselves so I can have that taste in cooking deep into the winter months.

I hate mass produced hydro store bought tomatoes. Bad scotch, bad tequila, bad tomatoes. It's easy to tell the difference between bad and good with such things.

I have some heirloom seedlings ready for planting... its gonna rain tomorrow so it'll be soon after that. I'm gonna dry farm them... lowers the yield & fruit size, but ups the flavor many-fold:

Brandywine
Pink Brandywine
Yellow Brandywine
Black Krim (from the Black Sea in the old Soviet Union)

The Krims are awesome. Stunning ****ing tomato. They are one of my staples at this point. You should branch out from the Brandywines though. All of the varieties are very similar in taste.

My Brandywines have been my best producers over the past three years, almost doubling the output of the hybrid varieties, and I've saved seeds from a Brandywine/Old German cross pollination that happened three seasons ago that is, for the past two seasons, been incredible in terms of the fruit flavor and output.

I dont have as many as you do, but I have 12 plants and the varieties are
Mortgage lifter
better boy
brandywine
sweet girl
sweet 100
goliath
Got them in about 2 weeks ago. Looking good but its been cool and lots of rain.

could be fungus, not enough sun,not enough water, bonemeal & 3-13 for fertilizer.

Common tomato diseases.

http://aperfectgarden.net/Tomato%20Diseases.htm

How do you keep the cross true?

Nice to hear you have some of the old true breeds .. damn hybrids don't produce plus the seeds are dead .....

hybrids dont produce? i beg to differ.

we've got blooms on all 4 topsy turvy plants...grew a lot while i was gone last week. if we could get some sun and warm weather, they'll really go to town.
sec

Thanks.

ive eaten salad out of the garden since last thursday.

i put out two lima bean starts that the kid brought home from K science class. Thinks he is big shit.

Took your advice about expanding my variety (although I do love me some Brandywines). Picked up Stripped German & Pineapple. Don't know anything about them - just saw two plants for sale & grabbed 'em. Don't even know if they do well in wine country... we get some hot days in the summer, nights are cool with fog rolling in from the beach in the morning. Don't wanna confuse the poor plants. Those Krims from the Crimean Peninsula in Russia love it here... dunno how something called "pineapple" will do...

Both. The pod is a fruit the plant is a legume, which is considered a vegetable.

Should you have blooms this early or should they be removed?

yes. if the climate is right you could have tomatoes by now depending on what zone.

Here in the KC area. I always thought you knocked the early blooms off so the plant can continue to grow but maybe I am doing it wrong.

Some plants are like some animals and people
they just expire for reasons only known to them and God
no emotional attachment needed just replace the plant

...

We had one of those upside down plants last year. Our growing season is real short, and we have too many trees to allow any spot to get enough sunlight.
We got two tomatoes off of it last year.

you pinch the runners off if they are an indeterminate variety and you dont have alot of room. Some people do this anyway because they think it will give them heavier tomatoes.
Ive seen it done but never used this method.

video-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgmJDwjUZwU

yup.

OP, Hybrids and Heirloom Plants


When reading about gardening there is often reference made to the terms "OP (Open Pollinated)", "Heirloom" and "Hybrid". These terms are often misused and more often misunderstood. The problem comes mainly from the fact that except for the term "OP", the other two have no absolute definition. I will explain.

Let's start with the term "OP" or Open Pollinated. Plants that are "OP" will produce fruit with seeds that can be regrown to produce plants like the parent plants. The only requirement is that the pollen that fertilizes the plant must be from itself or another plant of the same variety. Using a tomato as an example, when an "OP" tomato like a Marglobe produces tomatoes after being pollinated by itself or another Marglobe the seeds within that tomato can be used to grow another generation of Marglobes like their parent plants. This allows you to continue to grow a certain variety of plant by collecting seeds from it. This is true as long as the flowers of an "OP" plant are pollinated ONLY by plants of that variety. Another type of tomato's pollen in a Marglobe tomato would produce a tomato with seeds that if planted would grow up a plant unlike a Marglobe in some ways since the seed would have characteristics of both parents for the most part. This is called "Cross-Pollination" or crossing one plants genetic code with another. Plants produced by cross pollination would be called "Hybrid".

"Hybrids" are plants that are created by "Cross Pollination". In other words two different varieties of a plant are grown in close proximity and the result from pollinating each other is a new variety of that plant. So if you grow two different "OP" plants in a small enclosed area, the result would be seeds that showed some characteristics of both parents, not an exact copy of either parent. "Hybrids" often produce a seed that is sterile and will not grow. "Hybrids" that do produce a viable seed may or may not produce a plant that is even like either of the parents. Genetic crossing is an inexact science and trial and error is the rule not the exception.

"Heirloom" plants are "OP" plants that have been grown in their variety for long enough period of time to be declared "Heirloom". The term is not a scientific term, but instead a gardener's term used to describe a certain history of the plant. It was coined since many families of older days would pass seeds down from one generation to another like they would pass a ring or piano down. The seeds are prized possessions of many families. An "Heirloom" plant has to be an "OP" type seed for the obvious reasons but the time it has existed and grown is debated. Some groups only consider it an Heirloom after 75 years while others have settled on 50 or even as little as 25. The point is that Heirloom is pretty much synonymous with OP, but with the added point that it has been around a while.

Now for the confusing part. Some heirlooms are actually Hybrids in a technical sense. The Marglobe tomato has been around for nearly 100 years now. It is technically a Hybrid since it was created in 1917 by the USDA by crossing a Marvel tomato with a Globe tomato. The offspring of this cross produced a viable seed that grew a copy of itself with characteristics of the parents and a few extra good things that were the result of genetic crossing. The Marglobe was the first tomato that was resistant to Fusarium and Verticillium Wilt. Quite a big hit back then and since then the Marglobe has been parent to many tomato varieties with good disease resistance. In fact the Marglobe is the United States' most popular canning tomato for about 75 years now. The Marglobe and many other plants were developed by cross breeding, but since they were able to reproduce their kind generation after generation, they have been called "OP" now and since they have done it for a while many are also now considered "Heirloom".

Summary" "OP" means you can save the seed and then regrow the same crop as long as it was not cross pollinated.


"Hybrid" means a cross breed that will probably not produce seed that would grow a plant like it came from and more often than not grow any plant worth growing.


"Heirloom" is basically an "OP" that has been around long enough to pass the test of time.

Bonus Info:

You also hear a lot of reference to "GMO" seeds. This refers to "Genetically Modified Oranisms" or plants that were produced by splicing the genetic material of various things (Not always plants, but frogs, goats, bacteria, virii, insects, etc.) by laboratories into plant genes to change the organism in ways to obtain changes that one could only dream of before. They have used frog DNA from a frog that doesn't freeze even at 0 degrees to make some plants more tolerant of low temps for example. The sky is the limit with GMO technology, and the highs and lows of potential successes and failures are seriously debated.

Nice write-up, MOhillbilly... thanks. I'm just a mater newbie who got sick of the storeboughts with the tough skins and the no-flavor. I figured the Heirlooms were around before we cross-bred & GMO'd tomatoes into the abominations that we buy in stores today. And now I know... the ...rest... of...the ...story...

Thanks, Mr. MOhillbilly. Fascinating stuff. I learned a great deal.

After reading that, it strikes me that I have no idea what these "heirlooms" are that I planted. The girl told me that there were several different varieties, so I guess I'll be cross-pollinating the entire group of plants and creating something that won't grow from seed next year. Or, maybe it will. I'm going to save some seeds to try. Any best practices on how to save tomato seeds?

FAX

You rock Mo. Good article. Rep.

I'll use a paper coffee filter to save the seeds. Squeeze the tomato and the seeds into the filter press it out and let it dry. Peel it open when you want to start the seeds in subsequent years.

My garden is going berserk with all this rain. I can't wait! I just add organic material and plant... pH is the most important part of any garden. If the pH ain't right the nutrients aren't available to the plants no matter what you try to do.

Mines goin crazy aswell though i wish itd dry out just long enough for me to till again. Forcast doesnt look good so screw it, ill just plant what i have left wet.

I got my beans in last week when the soil had barely dried and then it was another round of days of rain.

We are using mushroom dirt in our garden for the first time this year. Last year some neighbors of ours used it and had an amazing garden, their vegetables were gynormous.

We don't have any weeds and already have a few green tomatoes. A few days of sunshine and we should have some ready to eat. I picked some arugula yesterday, this mushroom dirt is amazing and fairly inexpensive considering we didn't have to add any fertilizer outside of the dirt.

Know anything about the Mortgage Lifters? I picked up some of these this year, but hadn't heard of them before...any info would help--Thanks

tilled lastnight but the east side of the big plot was still clumpy(downhill slope). looks like blue skys from sat. on so i didnt wanna push it.

heads up

http://www.tomatogrowers.com/

I got some tomatoes, bell peppers and jalapeños in. This is my first go around with the garden so I'm very much a n00b.

It's an old hog pen, so there should be decent fertility there. I tilled strips where I would plant and left the portions that will not be planted. I layed in some composted cow manure in before I tilled. Then I laid some dripline in. After all that, I put hay down over the whole thing to keep weeds out and moisture in.

It's the best I can do. Any suggestions (midstream)

feedsacks/newspaper under the mulch. Did you check the PH on your patch of dirt?
manure nutrient chart
well shit that didnt work, give me a sec...

http://www.rainyside.com/resources/nutrient.html

All the damn dirt in the damn county is pretty basic. It's at my parents house, which is down in the valley, the dirt is pretty goddamn yellow, and just overall shitty, but like I said, we raised hogs on the dirt for I think 5 years, so hopefully that will add some value to the dirt.

yikes! wouldnt count on it. doesnt sound like very loamy soil. You cut a ribbon?

planted an herb garden m'self.LMAO
AK-47
Northern Lights
Purple Haze
White Widdow
and a cross bred mix of Jack Hore/Kush

Most of the soil around is silt loam, but it is pretty alkali. I guess it probably isn't terrible, but the yellow dirt is kind of shallow.

I looked on our mapshots program and it is Bridgeport loam.

I may be overstating things. Compared to the dirt out of the valley, this dirt isn't all that good. But most of the dirt in the county is very good dirt. I'm not all that worried about it. Mom has had a garden down here for years, and she makes it work.

Are you thinking the dirt is going to be iron deficient?

thinned out the baby bok choy last night. It was really good with bacon pieces and garlic in the bacon fat. First from the garden this year.

without knowing what any of that means i would assume after running hogs on it that long it would be calcium deficient and high in nitrogen.

To be fair, we quit running hogs on there in 95, I think, so it should be mellowed out. And the composted manure we put on composted for a year (IIRC), so it isn't hot.

Did you put any fertilizer down?

We put composted cow manure down.

id still throw some 3-13 or 3-17 on each plant. Teaspoon each. JMO.

I'm not familiar with those products. Fill me in?

commercial grade fertilizer the 13/17 refers to the % amount of phosphorus, nitrogen, potassium in the mix. its what damn near everyone uses north to south. If you knew your PH level you could add or detract what was needed to make the soil more or less acidic as needed, between 4-7 is the basic guideline on soil ph.

edit- had a truck. But anyway this will explain ph better than i can. if you dont wanna screw w/ it just sprinkle a teaspoon of 3-13 around each plant and abit less 3-17.
i paid i think 10$ for a 50# bag and spead it over the yard and garden then kept some in reserve for spot fertilization. This is how i learned to do it from dad & grandpa.

http://soil.gsfc.nasa.gov/soil_pH/plant_pH.htm

I won't amend or fertilize my soil... stuff just grows crazy huge around here. Its old but undisturbed black adobe that is so rich in nutrients that plants often exceed 2X their advertised heights. If I amend the soil for better aeration, roots find it too easy to build an extensive network and plants get all gargantuan and unruly. I also withhold water as much as possible to get plant size down to manageable. I abandoned some hybrid-tea rose bushes 12 years ago along the back fence... never sprayed or pruned or watered 'em. Now they are 8-ft monsters covered in blooms. I figure tomato plants would grow too big like all the other plants do... so I'll treat 'em mean & hope they don't go humongous on me.

I get it. That's the same shit we apply to our farmland in liquid form. Except it is listed as N-P-K. Do you get that from the co-op or what? I guess I haven't seen any plant stores carrying commercial fertilizer.

EDIT: I are dumbass. Looked at some osmocote, and it is similar. I'm picking up what you're throwing down.

I'm not concerned about Phosphorous. Conditioned cow manure has a ****load of phos in it. I would be nitrogen deficient if anything. I may put down some osmocote I bought if the plants start looking nitrogen deficient.

Thanks for the help, Mo.

Nutrients are only available in the right conditions. That's easy to fix. If you can grow huge veggies w/o amendments you're lucky. I wish I didn't have to think about how to grow anything. I'd just sprinkle seeds and feed 100s.

Dang. I'm starting to feel really sorry for my topsy turvy tomato plant. He's growing like crazy, but he's twisting himself all around trying to turn his leaves right-side-up so he can get some sun. He's ... all contorted. It's like he's being tortured. I don't think this is right.

FAX