Tomatoes 2021

[Dirtmechanic]

Well the seeds are started. Here we go again. What are you planting?

 

[Artichoke Lover]

In about 2 weeks I’ll be starting be starting seeds for:
Matt’s Wild Cherry
Yellow Pear
Red Jelly Bean Hybrid
Black Cherry
Honey Comb Hybrid
Roma VF
San Marzano
Beef Master Hybrid
Beefsteak
Burpees Early Pick VF Hybrid
Cloudy Day Hybrid
Big Daddy Hybrid
Early Treat Hybrid
Burpees Long Keeper
Homestead 24

 

[Alasgun]

@Artichoke Lover, that’s an impressive list! I like growing tomatoes and can see my self involved in an experiment at that level; however due to the attention required by the rest of the stuff, i’ll stick with one or two Celebrities.
One well grown plant provided us with all the fresh eating and canned sauce we can use in a year and allowed us to give away plenty as well.

 

[seedcorn]

In about 2 weeks I’ll be starting be starting seeds for:
Matt’s Wild Cherry
Yellow Pear
Red Jelly Bean Hybrid
Black Cherry
Honey Comb Hybrid
Roma VF
San Marzano
Beef Master Hybrid
Beefsteak
Burpees Early Pick VF Hybrid
Cloudy Day Hybrid
Big Daddy Hybrid
Early Treat Hybrid
Burpees Long Keeper
Homestead 24

Do you plant that many varieties or sell plants?

 

[Artichoke Lover]

Do you plant that many varieties or sell plants?

Plant! Tomatoes are probably my favorite vegetable to grow as well as being the one we eat the most of throughout the year. I’ve had a lot of difficulty growing them do to disease from our hot humid weather. So this year I’m experimenting to see which varieties hold up the best as well as planting my old standards and a few novelties like the yellow pear. Last year my plants managed to catch early blight, verticillium wilt and anthracnose before they finally succumbed to late blight in July. This year I’m planting in new soil and testing out several more disease resistant varieties. In hope of a better crop.

 

[heirloomgal]

Plant! Tomatoes are probably my favorite vegetable to grow as well as being the one we eat the most of throughout the year. I’ve had a lot of difficulty growing them do to disease from our hot humid weather. So this year I’m experimenting to see which varieties hold up the best as well as planting my old standards and a few novelties like the yellow pear. Last year my plants managed to catch early blight, verticillium wilt and anthracnose before they finally succumbed to late blight in July. This year I’m planting in new soil and testing out several more disease resistant varieties. In hope of a better crop.

Matt's Wild Cherry - yum! One of my favourite cherry tomatoes! In my climate we don't have much challenges with tomato blights and things of that nature, but one of my seed sources here in Canada tells me that currant type tomatoes have excellent blight and pathogen resistance. She grows in BC, where blights are a real problem and can wipe out an entire crop in a bad year. Last year, she lost everything, which is probably about 200+, except for the anthocyanin tomato varieties. Apparently they all kept going when everything else died. I've grown a number of anthocyanin tomatoes, and didn't find them all that tasty, but there are a few that were excellent. Xanadu Green Goddess, Cosmic Eclipse, Dark Galaxy are all really good tasting and the antho gene in them makes them have a really long shelf life. They can sit around for weeks and not succumb to rot. I think Matt's Wild might have some resistance built in too, perhaps, since it has a bit of wild genes in it. I grew last summer a semi-wild variety called 'Petit Moineau', a bit smaller than Matt's, and it was super good too!

 

[Dirtmechanic]

In about 2 weeks I’ll be starting be starting seeds for:
Matt’s Wild Cherry
Yellow Pear
Red Jelly Bean Hybrid
Black Cherry
Honey Comb Hybrid
Roma VF
San Marzano
Beef Master Hybrid
Beefsteak
Burpees Early Pick VF Hybrid
Cloudy Day Hybrid
Big Daddy Hybrid
Early Treat Hybrid
Burpees Long Keeper
Homestead 24

Oh you are gonna bee a busy bee!

 

[Dirtmechanic]

Plant! Tomatoes are probably my favorite vegetable to grow as well as being the one we eat the most of throughout the year. I’ve had a lot of difficulty growing them do to disease from our hot humid weather. So this year I’m experimenting to see which varieties hold up the best as well as planting my old standards and a few novelties like the yellow pear. Last year my plants managed to catch early blight, verticillium wilt and anthracnose before they finally succumbed to late blight in July. This year I’m planting in new soil and testing out several more disease resistant varieties. In hope of a better crop.

I will tell you now that I have had my best long term success against attack with regular spray of oil based fungicidals such as pre-formulated thyme oil products. I have learned that the enzyme slurry product of fungi cannot penetrate that man made odd barrier. I believe this has something to do with the incredible surface area the matte surface of a tomato leaf has since its rough as a microfiber towel and things like spores easily get in the nooks and crannies. I surmise from what I read that the oil based barriers are chemically inert for the purpose of a fungus trying to penetrate by dissolving cells or changing their chemistry to zombify them into unlocking the doors to the plant. The problem of course is do not choke off the transpiration, but if stomata open and close on a cycle then its not terribly difficult to spray it when its little mouths are closed. I have also learned to be wary of the plants such as grass and trees that harbor the fungi across winter only to erupt when warm times come again. Short and sprayed grass helps slow early blight, where tall weeds or grass help it overwhelm all possible victims.

 

[Alasgun]

Around here we’ve had our share of tomato problems, never enough to wipe out a crop but by late fall the plants would be pretty ugly. Usually we’ve gotten enough sauce etc that it’s no big deal and we just call it a wash, move on.
last year i did some reading about folks using salicylic acid (aspirin) to treat tomato problems. Well, being a bit geeky; i went on line and found numerous highly technical articles detailing research with tomato, cucumber and bean’s. These are the main crop in my greenhouse so i was happy it pertained across the board. Now when i say “highly technical” im talking articles that i can only pronounce half the words in a sentence!!
Then the geek in me went looking for a pure form, wanting to avoid what ever else may be in a common aspirin, and easily found U.S.P grade salicylic acid in 4 oz packages!
these articles explained that this stuff is actually a plant hormonal exudate and how it stimulates the plants natural defense’s to ward off various pathogens.
Armed with this tidbit i went back to the original aspirin articles to learn about dosing etc and settled on one 1/16th teaspoon in a 5 gallon size planting hole, spread evenly around the sides before transplanting the tomato into the hole. the article discussed using a foliar spray at first flowering as well but my stuff was entirely clean and i blew that part off.
At seasons end i can say with certainty i saw dramatic improvement on tomato’s and beans. Cukes still need some tweaking.
Here’s a picture of one Celebrity plant, 12 ft. Wide, 14 ft. Tall and 8 ft. Thick from front to back. This picture was taken in early October. As you can see, it’s still pretty clean! It was transplanted into the greenhouse April 15th.
I will continue using this method another year before drawing a firm conclusion but hey, it looks pretty good to me.

 

[flowerbug]

we are at the mercy of the greenhouse people that we get our starts from. so far they have done mostly ok for us. i'm still wishing for a return of the previous beefsteak varieties we used to get since they seemed to to better longer into the fall than the ones we've had the past few seasons but even with the earlier end of the season we've still had a good harvest. the plants look really beat up by the end of the season, but the harvest is still good and that is all i can ask for especially since we don't spray or do much fussing around with them other than weeding and watering.