Planting out tomatoes and other veggies thread 2017

I’ve read about those NAR tom’s, they are huge fruits, but have a good flavor too. Please keep us updated on how they and the BW Sudduth do. Is that strain a more productive BW, and is it a red fruit?

I understand your frustration about not being able to get stuff planted in the garden. I guess you guys have been hit by both lots of rain and cold weather?

We had horrible BER last year on a lot of our tom’s, especially the Roma types. The bigger beefsteak types didn’t seem to have that problem as much. I imagine it was because our plot was very low in calcium, according to the soil test we had done this year. Plus, the fruit just tasted kinda blech. So, we’ve thrown down lots of lime on a lot of our plots. Something like 200lb on our 2000 sqft plot! Our soil pH is very low, about 5.0 on the plots higher up on our hill. Good for blueberries, not so much for veggies.

I agree Bob, I prefer the pastes especially these bigger ones. Prepping medium sized fruit is a pain. The pastes were the easiest to process, and also had the largest yields.
I still need to evaluate Striped Roman, and Cows Tit.
Keepers for me were
Romeo
Polish Linguisa - late season. These came into production when the others were winding down.

Opalka - Some have reported problems with BER, but I didn’t see any

3 Likes

Ditto on the Romeo tom’s. If you have any extra seeds, I’d like to try some, if you don’t mind. But, it will have to wait until next year.

I’ll check to see if I have any any extra Striped Roman seeds, if you might wanna do a swap.

Yeah, I have to dig through all my saved seeds, buried from 2 years ago, they are seeds harvested from 2015, but should be fine in 2018. No problem!
I saved plenty of them if I recall correctly.

1 Like

LOL, my hand. most are like the smaller ones. I think the big one might be a fused tomato, two tomatoes fused. It produced 2 that big.

1 Like

I am growing Polish Linguisa and Romeo from your seeds Drew this year. I’ll make pictures of them as they go along. I also will save seeds in case if somebody wants to grow them.

2 Likes

Yes, that would be cool. Since I killed many of my plants, at least I can look at some tomatoes!

I’m growing this one based on the Seed Savers Exchange description. Hoping it’s a good one as I’ve had BER issues on other paste tomatoes, especially striped roman – Yeesh!

I’m not sure on the productivity, if I recall from the reading I’d done (and that was last year during the tomato growing season so…) it’s my understanding that the strain was essentially developed by some gal who their family just kept saving the seeds of only the biggest and healthiest Brandwine tomatoes and I think after reading it came clear that a lot of folks felt like it had maybe a slightly better flavor than some other Brandywine’s (?) But it’s classified as a pink, and I’m pretty interested in seeing what it’s all about.

That’s to bad you had problems. Striped Roman is supposed to be a good tomato. I don’t usually have BER issues, maybe a few at most, if any. Not sure why? Just dry here I guess?

OK guys, I have a different problem with my tomato and pepper transplants. Remember when I first moved them to cups, the leaves and branches were curled under? It was determined that they were too wet, so I let them dry out for about a week. The plants seemed to get better, and uncurled.

Like I said, I hadn’t watered them until yesterday. I didn’t drench them like before, just enough to get a decent drink, very little water came out of the drain holes.

However, I’ve noticed over the last few days, that the leaves and branches on a lot of them are now swept upwards in a somewhat tight pattern. Here are a few pics.

Is it this happening because of them getting too dry now? I watered them last night, so they shouldn’t be dry. Also, the leaves are looking a bit pale, so this all be because they need a little fert? I have some liquid fert that I was considering using on some of them to see how they react. Maybe it’s a stress reaction to all that light and little nutes?

I’m planning on planting these out in a couple weeks. Any comments or suggestions? Thanks.

how close are the lights to the tops of the plants?

they are right on top of the plants, i actually had to move the lights up as some leaves were getting singed a bit.

The red/purple tint to the leaves is usually a sign of P deficiency. It may be due to the moisture fluctuation, or possibly a low temp thing, or just the soil needs a bit more P.

Tomatoes are pretty sensitive to moisture levels, especially when small. Recently I thought my toms has gotten some disease because the tips were drooping here and there; turned out that with our warmer temps I just needed to water a bit more (the tips came back a few hours after a watering). I’d try keeping them at a moderate moisture for a while with only a bit of drying and see if that helps. Also hitting them with a small amount of fert which contains P might help too…

Thanks. I won’t wait too long before watering them again. And when I do, I’ll give them a bit of some liquid Medina fert. I figured they’re prob a bit starved for some neuts. The seeds were planted about a month ago, so they prob need it. Next year I’ll go back to my regular soil mix, this one has been a pain.

Next year, I’m doing my seeds in soil not sterile peat. My tomatoes had a bad case of P deficiency and I can only hope they improve now that they’re outside - especially now that it’s gotten warm

Just got done planting seed potatoes. My wife is working today, so I told her I’d finish what she started last night. I ended up doing 5 rows: a couple rows of Kennebec, and 3 rows of Red Pontiac. She planted some Beauregard sweet taters and some onions last night.

It’s very warm here today, already 88 and the day’s not done with. I had to come in the house a couple times to cool off and refill my Powerade/water jug, I’m on my third refill! It sure is steamy out there, my shirt’s about soaked thru already. Tomorrow could be record heat, they’re saying close to 90.

I got my 50 strawberry plugs from Nourse this morning, and was considering planting them today, too, but think I’ll wait until Friday, when it’s supposed to be a little bit cooler. No use planting them today, and have them get fried over the next couple days.

Well, guess I’ll get some lunch, and water the fruit plants, they prob could use a bit on a day like this.

Well I just yesterday put my peppers and tomato out yesterday. I don’t know if I should be posting it here or not since I am not putting them in a plot but keeping them in containers. But here’s a couple of pix of them. Don’t know if I have to shade them and gently bring them out into sunlight or not. They have been in my basement growing under a 2’x4’ light which I bought a couple of months ago and has eight 4ft. T5 bulbs in it. I’ll be giving some of them to neighbors across the street and next to me soon.

Peppers and Tomato

More peppers

2 Likes

Yeah they need to be acclimated to outside, it’s not just the sun, it’s the wind too. Be careful you could hurt them badly. The lighting is strong, but nothing touches the sun.

Just curious- and PLEASE don’t take it as me being critical of your methods- goodness knows I wou’d never judge or criticize someone else’s technique- but I’m wondering why you don’t have those in the ground by now? For me personally, the longer I keep plants inside and under lights, the longer it takes to harden them off and get them to overcome transplant shock, not become too leggy, and so on. I’ve very often planted tomatoes and peppers that were only 4-5 inches tall, and they always seem to do better than if I’d left them in a cup or tray longer. Especially indoors. If you really are sure you don’t want to plant them at that small size, it seems like it would be better to go ahead and put them outside instead of inside and under lights. Outside they can be getting used to the sun and temperature and wind and so on, so when you do plant them they will recover faster.

Again, I’m just curious about your theory and reason for how you are doing it, not saying its wrong or that my way is better. I prefer planting them asap, even if its only at a few inches, but maybe you know something I don’t about why its better not to do that and to leave them inside under lights longer? Just curious.