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grrlgeek
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Days to Maturity for Tomato, Pepper, Eggplant ?

I'm trying to limit my stupid questions to only 1 a week. Hope I'm not already over quota!

Can you help me understand what the seed packet means when it states the Days to Maturity?

I believe I understand that most direct-sown things start the clock at the time the seedling pokes out of the ground. If I'm incorrect, then I need to recalculate a few succession plans.

But how about the things usually started indoors? I started seed on Feb 1st, 15th - retries, and 28th - last chance plus a few add-ins. Seedlings were up 7-10 days after sowing. All went out together for hardening, regardless of start date, and that was completed April 5. None came back in more than twice after that date, and then only to the garage from midnight - 7am when we had a brief cold snap. Depending on the plant, they were planted out on April 5-8 (tomatoes), April 19-23 (peppers), and April 26 (eggplant). Some plants planted out are, obviously, more mature than others... but everything is flowering, and I have little tomatoes and (some not-so-little) peppers all over the place.

I also recognise that the advertised DTM is an approximation. But then, so is everything. :lol:

I'm trying really hard not to make this question sound like a word problem that begins, "if a train leaves Chicago traveling at......" but it's not working. So here goes:

If the seed packet says a variety will be ready to harvest in, say, 75 days, when do I get to eat a tomato?

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rainbowgardener
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Days to maturity is usually defined as time from sprouting to first ripe fruit, but obviously that can be affected by a lot of variables, sunshine, temps, etc. Also sometimes I have seen DTM defined as from time of transplant.

Thinking about how long you have to wait, this tomato development time line may help you:

https://web.archive.org/web/201012180503 ... s_Timeline

This shows the development of a Big Beef tomato that has a listed DTM of 73 days. This timeline starts with Day 0 being when the first flower buds start to show (NOT when the seedling sprouts or when the plant goes in the ground). From the flower bud to ripe tomato is 57 days. From when the first tiny tomato formed to a ripe tomato was 42 days. From when the fruit was full sized to when it was ripe was still 18 days.

So you still have a ways to go!

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feldon30
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This is the tomato timeline I've personally experienced:

[0-7 days] Plant tomatoes in ground. After a few days, they start to take off.
[8-21 days] Tomato plants are growing really fast now with noticeable growth each day.
[22-30 days] Tomato fruit start setting
[31-45 days] Tomato fruit start to reach full size
[forever] Tomato fruit are green
[the next millenia] Tomatoes start turning color.

;)

imafan26
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That is a really helpful timeline Feldon.

Me, I just wait.

Cooler weather slows things up considerably on peppers and tomatoes so days to maturity can be longer. If you are doing transplants instead of direct sow, and depending on when and how you transplant, sometimes transplants get set back a week or two as the plants get settled in and spread their roots.

For the most part I know I will start to see peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes between 70-90 days after I plant them.

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rainbowgardener
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I generally figure it is four months from planting a tomato seed to eating a ripe tomato, +/- a little depending on variety and the weather. More like 5 months for peppers, which I start earlier and eat later. That is why we start them indoors. Only some of us like imafan would ever get any harvest, if we waited to start the seeds until it was warm enough outside.

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feldon30
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If you wait in Houston, you get zero tomatoes. You have to push the boundaries and deadlines to get any crop at all! It's funny how different climates are. My SO wants to retire to the Phillippines. I think I will have to air condition a greenhouse a few days twice a month to give my tomatoes time to set fruit. ;)

imafan26
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That is the drawback in planting in cooler weather and in pots. In cooler weather the plants grow very slowly. If you don't pot them up in time or they don't get the right light, they either stunt or get real lanky. Where you have short seasons, you have to time everything to make sure your plants are healthy and ready to set out by your planting date.

I do start my seeds in community pots to save time and space in the garden, but I do start them outside on a bench and I usually have something in the garden growing that has to come out before they can go in. I always start a few extra seeds and pick the best ones to plant out. I do wait for warmer nights when growing peppers and eggplant, but I can start tomatoes anytime. It does not always pay to do that though because while I can grow tomatoes in December, I will have significantly more issues with mildew and fungal diseases in the rainy season.

If you are in Southern California you may be in zone 9 or 10 which may get cold at night but not have a lot of freezing weather so you have a relatively long growing season.

In general tomatoes are the least fussy about temperature they will start in the 50's but they do better in less wet weather and longer days. Peppers and eggplant want night temps consistently in the 70's unless you use a heat mat. They should continue to produce until disease kills the plants or you have a frost.

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grrlgeek
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So much excellent advice and info - thank you everyone!

I am taking a lot of notes on actual events, but also making notes on anticipated results to have something to compare to for future years. One of the greatest lessons (hard-learned and slow in coming!) is PATIENCE.

We are, in southern California, but we're in the high desert where the weather is predictably very cold (low 20's nights in winter and rarely over 45 for the high, and very hot (100+) in summer. In between, it's just wacky. We get touched by the monsoon humidity for a few weeks in July/Aug, but only mildly. In the last couple of weeks we have had some daytime highs hitting 95; today it maxed out at 59. The nights stay cool until June, but nothing under 44 for several weeks now. Last night was a cold one - 46 when I left for work at 4:50am. There are often days in May when we use the heater and the air conditioner on the same day. Then we have wind. I don't worry about air circulation. I worry about making sure every plant is tied to a pole! Last weekend it was gusting at about 65mph, with 30mph sustained. Three days of that. Again today.

I guess I have several obstacles that can lead to setbacks, but like it or not, the plants have to learn to live with the stress. I've only lost 2 so far.... and that was to my dog... but a few are very angry with me right now.

I wrote a big note in my journal that for EVERYTHING I did this year, I want to add two weeks on the calendar, and do it later next year. The cold has been my worst enemy - seed starting, damping off, purple seedlings, tough-love hardening off..... everything. One of my strongest tomatoes, I realised today, and the ONLY one that isn't tied to a stake, has weathered the wind and cold like a champ. It is one I started a month later than the others (Submarine Blush - thank you juliuskitty!). My challenge in waiting however, is getting production before the temps hit 100 and stay there for 2 months.

Not that this isn't fun. 'Cuz it is. :-()

While I wait, I make spreadsheets. It relaxes me.

Cheers,

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applestar
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Sounds about right. One of the perils of this forum is that you get LURED into starting seeds because gardener's in more temperate areas start posting about their seed starting and started seeds way before you really should be starting your own. ...and it gets too tempting to resist. :lol:

But gardening is a learning process and I think the journey is as rewarding. And the vast compendium of experiences under different scenarios makes it so easy to apply various techniques in your own garden and experiment.

I love what you said about spreadsheets. I completely agree. :wink:

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rainbowgardener
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"One of the perils of this forum is that you get LURED into starting seeds because gardeners in more temperate areas start posting about their seed starting and started seeds way before you really should be starting your own. ...and it gets too tempting to resist. :) "

Oh yes... this is exactly what happened to me. I ended up starting my tomato seeds at least a week early and I KNEW it was too early, my patience just got broken down, by reading about everyone else's tomatoes. Next year I will grit my teeth and hang on longer!

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jal_ut
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I thought that a 72 day tomato was supposed to give you ripe tomatoes 72 days from the time of setting the plant in the garden. Never really worked for me. Took more like 100 days. I think it depends a lot on the growing conditions and climate.

tomc
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I can't prove this. But a very long-time grower of peppers insisted (to me) that night time temperatures below 50°F set his plants time to ripe fruit back a day for every night it was cool. He was less emphatic about this impacting tomato, but that was also his expectation.

Just how this sort of bear hunts depends on where your plants are. At elevation in CA this could well apply. My old garden was in the Mondanock region in NH, it sure did there...

lexusnexus
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feldon30 wrote: [forever] Tomato fruit are green
[the next millenia] Tomatoes start turning color.
Ain't that the truth.... :lol:

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grrlgeek
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rainbowgardener wrote:Days to maturity is usually defined as time from sprouting to first ripe fruit, but obviously that can be affected by a lot of variables, sunshine, temps, etc. Also sometimes I have seen DTM defined as from time of transplant.
This is truly the crux of my dilemma.

I trotted out the seed catalog from Territorial. In the culture information, it discloses that their DTM is calculated from date of transplant. It still bugs me that it directs me to sow indoors in a range of 6-8 weeks before last frost, but regardless of which side of that timespan I choose, the clock still starts at transplant. Anyhoo, ceteris paribus, a 75 day tomato should be ready on June 19 from a 05 April plant-out.
rainbowgardener wrote:So you still have a ways to go!
You're not kidding! :hehe:

Not all the suppliers specify "from transplant" but I went ahead and used the transplant date to calculate when everything should be maturing. It will be interesting to see how that compares to the Big Beef experiment. I like that methodology, and wish I had kept track of the dates my plants flowered. If I grew the variety again, I could better plan a spaghetti festival.

To make things even more fun, my biggest tomato, and the first fruit to set, just happens to be the latest maturing variety I have, promising salsa in an eternal 86 days. And I hope I can tell when it's ripe - because it's: Green Sausage!
20140506-first-greensausage.jpg
20140506-first-greensausage.jpg (45.33 KiB) Viewed 1815 times

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applestar
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Looking good! If I remember correctly, green sausage is a yellow epi (skin) type so it will turn somewhat amber colored when ripe.

Some growers pooh pooh DTM. I think it's important to note the location of the seed source. It will take longer in a colder region garden to mature than in a warmer region garden. Some people say growing days based on temperature is more accurate but it's not as commonly used.

For example, Territorial with their cool Pacific Northwest summers probably would list longer DTM. It's a good idea to look at variety info from different sources.

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jal_ut
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a 75 day tomato should be ready on June 19 from a 05 April plant-out.
Not going to happen. Perhaps from a June 1 plant-out date when its warmer? Who can plant out in April?

In this area June 1 is plant out time. Even then as I said earlier a 72 day tomato takes close to 100.

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feldon30
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jal_ut wrote:Who can plant out in April?
I planted 3 tomato plants on April 15th.

In Houston, I planted most of my tomatoes the first week of March and started getting ripe tomatoes the 2nd week of May. ;)

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rainbowgardener
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James, you have a much tougher climate than many of us! Sometimes I have planted tomatoes in mid April; this year it wasn't until about the end of April. And they aren't as slow as yours either.... It's amazing what you accomplish in your short growing season!

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jal_ut
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Getting a decent tomato has definitely been my most challenging goal. I have tried all kinds of tricks, and varieties. Once in a while I get lucky.

Image

This is what I am likely to get. Not huge maters, but at least they are red. :)



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