Will adding more soil reboot the days-to-maturity?

[jemsister]

Hey, guys. First of all, this is my tomato box right here (the big wooden one in the middle):



I was advised to add more soil--fill it all the way to the top. Which I would like to do (I wanted to originally, but I ran out of soil money).

I planted my tom on April 28. It received some major cold damage on May first, and had to be pruned down to the stem, but it did come back. Anyway, I think of May first as the day of planting, since it had to be pruned that day.

Anyway, it's been four-ish weeks since then, and the tom (his name is Scruffy--yes, I named him, lol) is now 16 inches tall (roughly).

So back to the original issue at hand. Someone suggested that I fill the box up the rest of the way for more soil depth. If I do that, I will have to prune off the bottom branches for obvious reasons, reducing the plant down to about half its height. Is this going to set the harvest time back four weeks? We have a very short growing season here, so I don't want to have the tomato mature only to die before producing any fruits. Supposedly a Sungold will mature around 60 days (according to the label), so if today is the first day rather than May first, would that push the harvest date too far out? Theoretically it should start producing in July, but since it doesn't get super hot until then anyway, should I expect to harvest in August either way?

ETA: I should add that I live in Northwestern Washington--technically zone 8a, but it usually stays below 80 here in the summer, and we only get decent sun from July through maybe mid September. May and June are usually pretty rainy.

[gixxerific]

It will more than likely slow down an bit. Due to pruning as well as the burying. But burying it will make it produce more roots along the stem, which is one of the reason it is slowing down. The plant is putting energy into producing roots. But once that has taken place the plant should rocket forward do to more available food for the plant. Maybe you notice when you pot up plants they shoot up all of the sudden, they are in new fresh soil with more food, they are in heaven.

As far as making your date I can not say, this would have been better done weeks ago.

If it were me I would do it.

Dono

[jemsister]

Yeah, I wish we could have done it weeks ago. =/ It ended up being less full than I'd wanted, but I blew my stash. I hope I can talk Hubs into another couple of bags of soil. It would help with supporting the plant stakes as well. Then maybe I could rig a more suitable cage for it.

[gixxerific]

Really looking at your pic it's only about 3 more inches to the top anyways. That won't be problem. You could even mound it around the stem to save on soil.

[jemsister]

That's not a bad idea. It's payday. Maybe I can nab one more bag of soil and see how far that gets me. Would be cool if it helped Scruffy and the support system all 'round!

[applestar]

I wouldn't worry about the temp.
When you get the chance, check out the Winter Indoor Tomato thread
https://helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewto ... 15&t=48807
They were blooming and fruiting at low 60's though more so and larger fruits closer to 70.

As for the cost of soil, has anyone suggested making your own compost yet? Free "soil" from kitchen, yard, and household waste.

[jemsister]

I was considering compost, but I have the disadvantage of not being sure where I could put the pile. Also, should it be a pile or in a bin? I read about mixing the proper amount green versus brown, and I have plenty of green, but very little brown. Do coffee grounds count as brown? I could use that as a starter at least, mixed with grass clippings or something... I'll check out the composting forum. Thanks for the link, BTW! Gonna check it out.

[rainbowgardener]

Yes, do check out the composting section. But no coffee grounds are a "green." The terms brown and green are unfortunate because they don't refer to color (manure is also "green"). Greens are nitrogen rich and tend to be soft and moist. Browns are carbon rich, mostly derived from trees directly or indirectly, and tend to be harder and drier. In the composting section is a greens / browns thread with lots of ideas. Common browns include fall leaves, sawdust, shredded paper, straw. I save lots of bags of leaves in the fall to feed in to my compost pile a bit at a time as the greens come along. In the summer when the fall leaves are used up, I buy one bale of straw, which lasts me until the fall leaves come around again.

Bin or pile doesn't matter much, except that your pile does need some kind of cage/ containment system. The composting works much better if the materials are held in close proximity and not allowed to spread out. Where I am, I have to have my compost materials well caged, with a lid or else the raccoons and such drag the kitchen scraps all over the landscape, while having a big party with them (what it looks like anyway ) Other people say a three sided open bin works for them. There's lots of plans around for DIY compost bins, many made with wooden pallets you can get for free.

Or if you don't mind spending the $$ (eventually) you can buy one of the earthmachine type plastic ones. Some of those are tower shaped with a very small footprint as far as taking up space.