Tomatoes for 2023

[flowerbug]

... With no sign of a freeze in the extended forecast, I'll have to begin taking down everything when/if it dries out.

the powdery mildew, deer and groundhog have done their thing here and then we had a few mid-30s nights that also took down the peppers. so there is nothing out now other than a few turnips that fed the deer. i'm trying to scramble to get gardens put up for the winter when the ground finally dries out enough again to get a shovel in them for burying garden debris and shucked bean shells.

your garden recipe of feeding with leaves, grass clippings, sulphur, wood ashes and powdered charcoal chunks is really about as good as it gets. here we use a mulching mower on what little of the grass that remains and there are only pine tree needles and cedar tree debris for browns and not greens. so any greens i get are usually just what weeds pop up in the gardens.

this past year we were really overrun by grass in almost every garden that had blown in from the south field. the grass was a type that set seeds rather quickly so i could not use much of it for greens plus i probably had over 20 extra hours a month this season i spent weeding due to that invasion compared to a more normal year. even the gravel pathways were sprouting grasses.

hopefully next year will not be a repeat as the south field is now overgrown and hopefully the grasses and weeds there will keep more things in place and not blowing like tumbleweeds.

tomato planting next year i'll be rotating into a different garden even if things went well with the repeat planting this year in the same garden as the previous year i want to do some more leveling and amending to both gardens this year and it will be nice to have beans back in that garden next season. certain kinds of weeds are easier to deal with in bean gardens than in tomato gardens and it would be nice to get them smothered better next year by the beans.

 

[Branching Out]

Has anyone tried taking a late season tomato cutting and rooting it indoors for overwintering? The two best tomato plants in our garden are still looking green and healthy, and I am thinking of trying to keep a piece of them so their amazing qualities might continue to develop next year.

 

[flowerbug]

Has anyone tried taking a late season tomato cutting and rooting it indoors for overwintering? The two best tomato plants in our garden are still looking green and healthy, and I am thinking of trying to keep a piece of them so their amazing qualities might continue to develop next year.

no, mainly because i have nowhere indoors to keep them. i'll be interested to hear what happens.

 

[Zeedman]

Has anyone tried taking a late season tomato cutting and rooting it indoors for overwintering? The two best tomato plants in our garden are still looking green and healthy, and I am thinking of trying to keep a piece of them so their amazing qualities might continue to develop next year.

I wish I had tried that. There was a cross in my "Elfin" grape tomato which had sweet, thin-skinned cherry-like fruit, but with the meatiness of the grape tomatoes. DW & DD both loved them; but since they were a cross, I made no effort to save seed. A cutting would have enabled me to carry the line forward. There have been a few pepper crosses as well, that I would like to have saved.

 

[heirloomgal]

I have made cuttings at the beginning of the season, when plants got too leggy, so I lopped them all off and re-rooted them in water. Worked like a charm. I've never tried to do it end of season. But I'm sure it would work for you if they had supplemental light. You may need to just keep chopping at the plants to keep them manageable until spring.

 

[R2elk]

Has anyone tried taking a late season tomato cutting and rooting it indoors for overwintering? The two best tomato plants in our garden are still looking green and healthy, and I am thinking of trying to keep a piece of them so their amazing qualities might continue to develop next year.

Yes. I prefer to do root layers but have done cuttings. It's the only way I can keep the discontinued Northern Exposure going from year to year. I have rooted the cuttings by either putting them in water or by putting them in potting soil that is kept damp.

Watch for problem bugs on the plants you bring in. They may not be bad enough to bother the plant in the garden but when it is isolated inside they can become a problem. Aphids and spider mites are the main ones.

 

[ducks4you]

Has anyone tried taking a late season tomato cutting and rooting it indoors for overwintering? The two best tomato plants in our garden are still looking green and healthy, and I am thinking of trying to keep a piece of them so their amazing qualities might continue to develop next year.

Nope, but I Did bring in the pot with the two grape tomatoes that were producing. I have it on a table in the basement that gets full west sun every day.
I hope to get it watered and vibrate the flowers to see if I get winter tomatoes from it.
I will keep you posted!

 

[digitS']

I have thought several times about noting 2023 garden mistakes, while inviting others to share their mistakes ... . There were obvious ones like allowing too many weeds to grow. Of course, being a "Garden Master," according to Nifty, I hardly have much of a list of mistakes to list ... .

Mistakes in the tomato patch were obvious. One was inadvertent, altho @R2elk warned me that I might not be pleased with Lemon Boy Plus. The flavor was really good but the darn skins require peeling and, the size was considerably smaller in my garden than some of the seed companies claim. Park lists them as 5 to 7 ounces and that was fairly accurate. Tomato Growers 8 ounces and larger certainly failed to show up.

Another mistake was not growing a longer keeping variety that could be harvested green and ripened indoors. That was all on me. Something like Thessaloniki has served that purpose in the past. I was saved by a very late frost but I could have taken better advantage of the growing season. It would have worked well with Thessaloniki because it doesn't develop much of an early crop, anyway.

Steve, vowing to do better

 

[R2elk]

I have thought several times about noting 2023 garden mistakes, while inviting others to share their mistakes ... . There were obvious ones like allowing too many weeds to grow. Of course, being a "Garden Master," according to Nifty, I hardly have much of a list of mistakes to list ... .

Mistakes in the tomato patch were obvious. One was inadvertent, altho @R2elk warned me that I might not be pleased with Lemon Boy Plus. The flavor was really good but the darn skins require peeling and, the size was considerably smaller in my garden than some of the seed companies claim. Park lists them as 5 to 7 ounces and that was fairly accurate. Tomato Growers 8 ounces and larger certainly failed to show up.

Another mistake was not growing a longer keeping variety that could be harvested green and ripened indoors. That was all on me. Something like Thessaloniki has served that purpose in the past. I was saved by a very late frost but I could have taken better advantage of the growing season. It would have worked well with Thessaloniki because it doesn't develop much of an early crop, anyway.

Steve, vowing to do better

I tried Big Beef and the new improved Big Beef Plus this year. Big Beef outperformed Big Beef Plus. Guess they have a different definition of improved than I have.

 

[heirloomgal]

I have thought several times about noting 2023 garden mistakes, while inviting others to share their mistakes ...

I think this is a great idea, because mistakes are where we can make gains of all kinds with adjustments and improvements. I love the idea of never giving up trying to improve garden technique and strategy. My list of tomato mistakes is probably long, and somewhat repetitive; as someone who tends to rush when I work, I would do well to think more carefully about all the things that need to be considered before jumping right in with boots on.

One thing that continues to elude me is the *perfect* way to support tomatoes. I've tried lots of ways - stakes, 4 foot hog wire cages, regular cages, sprawling - and all have benefits and drawbacks, none are perfect. I always wind up with tomatoes on the ground no matter what, though sometimes that's from having too many plants and not getting around to picking as often as I should. I don't like cutting the plants, ever, but this always means that there are branches that hit the ground with the weight. Then the slugs can have their way, or the chipmunks. Supporting tomatoes on uncut vines has been easiest with the hog wire cages, but the fruits can be hard to reach, and often grow within the wire holes causing some fruits to be wasted. Those big cages also cause me to space the plants much farther than I'd like to as well. I still feel like there is so much room for improvement with the tomatoes.

I'm also guilty of growing too many things. The eagerness of 'the new season' vibe gets me every time and soon enough I'm buried in transplants. I could use more self discipline for sure. More limited plant numbers would help me care for what I'm growing better, as opposed to doing only a fair job on 'the masses'. That said, I too need to start more seriously growing some more long keeper type tomatoes. I have neglected experimenting with this group, aside from the blue black tomatoes I've grown. I bet Black Beauty would be a good long keeper.

And I wish when I first started gardening someone had told me NEVER PLANT MINT IN YOUR GARDEN. But there isn't much to learn there, since that's a done deal. I'll just have to manage my mistake now and keep the damage as minimal as possible.