tomato advice

[pippomky75]

Wow you are living my tomato dream! Thank you great advise! do you strip the leaves from the stems before planting?

 

[so lucky]

what @flowerbug said about determinate vs. indeterminate varieties bears repeating: Some tomatoes come on all at once, for a bountiful but short lived harvest. Others stretch out ripening over a couple of months. If you want a lot of tomatoes all at once to can, plant a lot of determinate tomatoes.
For me, the heirloom varieties do not produce well. If I wanted to can a lot, I would look for a hybrid determinate medium sized tomato.

 

[pippomky75]

I got this idea from @Ridgerunner. I used cow panels, 2 of them long makes 32 feet. Make it a double row and you got 64 feet of tomatoes. They are spaced 18" to 20" apart-just enough to scoot my butt between them. The 6"x6" holes are easy to reach through to pick tomatoes.

I prepared the soil with lots of sheep manure. Then I laid cardboard down to help with weed control. I cut holes in the cardboard with my machete, dug a hole for the seedling and put in a table spoon or three, each, of Epsom salts and bone meal. I stir it in the dirt, then plant the tomato seedling. From them on out, just water.

I also make chicken poop tea with fresh poop and a half bucket of water. I let it set a few days, then pour a cup or two in a one gallon watering can, top with water and water the plants with it.

My very favorite tomato is Cherokee Purple. I plant it every year. Good fresh, canned or dehydrated. For the 2017 garden I also planted Rosso Sicilian tomato for sauce and paste. It did well and I was pleased with it. I made sauce and spaghetti sauce.

https://www.rareseeds.com/rosso-sicilian-tomato/

@Carol Dee's favorite is Mortgage Lifter (Carol I have seed for you) I grew it for 2017 and I like it, but I still like Cherokee Purple better.

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Between this and the dance I'm bound to get a few! is the sheep manure dried? or fresh? I love the cage- that's smart thinking.

 

[pippomky75]

What bay said should work. I do much the same. I add chicken coop cleanings in the fall, plant through brown grocery bags (in place of Bay's cardboard) and cover with straw around my started tomatoes. Keep consistant moisture -- the mulch of bags or cardboard help with water retention -- and that's about it.

The straw doesn't attract your chickens? how do you keep them out of the garden?

 

[Farmer Connie]

My ancient tomato dance;

#1-You must be properly dressed

Wear a floppy garden hat
Dirty falling apart garden shoes are a must
Torn T-shirt with stains
Worst blue jeans you own

#2 You have to play the right music-LOUD

Dancing Queen
We Will Rock You - by Queen
Saturday Night Fever - BeeGees
American Woman
Superstition - Stevie Wonder

Build a fire in the middle of the garden after dark
Dance fiendishly around the fire, playing music and whoop-whooping

Sacrifice a store bought tomato to the Garden Goddess. stab it with a steak knife and throw it in the fire.

That ought to do it!

 

[Farmer Connie]

For the life of me, I can not find the photo files!
I think it might be on a back up disc. Anyway- We string train Tomato vines. Have an aircraft cable horizontal strung tight above. Dropped down vertical are mason's twine stringers attached to the cable above to a stake in the ground.
As the vine grows, gently train it (twist) around and round the twine. One year they grew 10' tall with the introduction of our pig poo seedlings. To pollinate, just take a long broom stick and twang the strings like a harp playing motion while walking down the lines.
This is the only pic I could find. I will dig thru the cd's/DVD roms later and see what I can find.

 

[Smart Red]

The straw doesn't attract your chickens? how do you keep them out of the garden?

My chickens free-range, I fence my veggies in. For the occasional infestation of Colorado potato bugs or squash bugs I will let two hens in for a while. They tend to business and the infestation is cleared up organically. Otherwise, the chickens are out of the garden. Gardens and chickens DO NOT get along well if I expect a harvest for myself.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The straw doesn't attract your chickens? how do you keep them out of the garden?

Fence. You either fence the chickens in a run or you fence them out of the garden.

I suggest you get a soils analysis. Talk to your extension office to see what it takes. Here in Arkansas it's free but Nevada might charge you. Here if I tell then what I want to grow they will tell me what I need to do to adjust the pH and how many of what nutrients I need to add.

Some years a variety may do really well or not do well at all. I think a lot of that has to do with the growing season. Mine can change every year. But the best place to start on your search for varieties is what do others have success with around you.

In Nevada you might have another big problem. Tomatoes tend to stop setting on when the temperatures get hot, either really hot during the day or never cooling off a lot at night. If I can get mine out early enough I often get a pretty good harvest before it sets in really hot, but then production drops off. I still get a few to eat on during the summer but not a lot. If I can keep my indeterminates alive during the summer I usually get a tremendous fall harvest if I can beat the frost.

 

[Farmer Connie]

Gardens and chickens DO NOT get along well if I expect a harvest for myself.

We hang red Christmas balls on the lower part of the vine to keep them from being attracted higher up to the Toms.

 

[Smart Red]

For canning you do want a determinate variety. I rather like Rutgers for its uniform size, red shoulders, open-pollination, and consistant plentiful-ness at canning time. There are other good varieties, but I prefer to save my own seeds so Rutgers work well for me. Plants can be started 2-3 weeks apart for a longer harvest season right up into nearly fall.

I still need those indeterminates for daily use. The often get canned or dried, but usually last only long enough to reach the table.

As for your question about stripping the leaves at planting. I do remove all leaves that would touch the ground although with the straw it's not really necessary and I tweak off the leaves that start growing in the leaf nodes for the first few weeks to a month because I like being able to see the tomato stems above the straw. By the time they start setting tiny fruit, I just let them take care of themselves.