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