Kay&Kev
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Location: Rexburg, ID

My Tomato Garden 2014

Hello everyone,

It was sure depressing when my last tomato of the season was eaten, and I just can’t wait until I can start planting this year. I had a great gardening season last year. I harvested plenty of strawberries, carrots, onions, peppers, corn, and my personal favorite, tomatoes. This past year I wanted to find what was the best method for growing tomatoes in my area. I treated this year as a science experiment. Since it’s winter almost nine months out of the year in South East Idaho, I really have to push the season when I can. I researched plenty of methods for tall deep-rooted tomato plants and I tried out some of the methods I found. I made a video of my process that I’ll post at the bottom of the page. The methods worked and I grew a six-foot tall tomato plant. It produced close to 50 tomatoes through out the season. They looked similar to the thick big ones you’d find in the store. Let me know what you all think and I would love any advice on how to possibly grow bigger tomato plants with more fruit.

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rainbowgardener
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If you meant to attach a video, it didn't happen....

Sounds like you did great. I guess we always want to push the envelope, but if you grew a big healthy, productive tomato plant, then all you really need is to do the same. Six feet is not particularly tall for a tomato plant, but it does sound like it was quite productive.

If you have the possibility, it would be good not to grow tomatoes in the same spot they were last year. If your tomatoes never got any diseases, that's not so important (then you just need to replenish your soil, so it is not depleted). If you had septoria or any of the other fungal diseases tomatoes are prone to, then it is much more important not to grow there this year, because the disease can over-winter in the soil and come back sooner and harder this year.

Otherwise, once you have good rich soil and sufficient water, how big and productive the plant is and how big the tomatoes are is largely a matter of genetics, selecting varieties that are good for your location and are high yielding.

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Voices30
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rainbowgardener wrote:If you meant to attach a video, it didn't happen....

Sounds like you did great. I guess we always want to push the envelope, but if you grew a big healthy, productive tomato plant, then all you really need is to do the same. Six feet is not particularly tall for a tomato plant, but it does sound like it was quite productive.

If you have the possibility, it would be good not to grow tomatoes in the same spot they were last year. If your tomatoes never got any diseases, that's not so important (then you just need to replenish your soil, so it is not depleted). If you had septoria or any of the other fungal diseases tomatoes are prone to, then it is much more important not to grow there this year, because the disease can over-winter in the soil and come back sooner and harder this year.

Otherwise, once you have good rich soil and sufficient water, how big and productive the plant is and how big the tomatoes are is largely a matter of genetics, selecting varieties that are good for your location and are high yielding.
Rainbow,
If you recall I had that horn worm infestation last season in my tomato crop. I had a couple of 15 foot rows of tomatoes and I know that I have to get down in the soil to look for the pupae like you suggested. However, should I plant the tomatoes in a different spot anyway, like you are suggesting here? Obviously getting rid of the pupae is paramount, but should I move the plants to the other side of my plot anyway? Just for the sake of rotation?

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rainbowgardener
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moving your tomato plants to a different part of the garden would help against diseases.

Remember that what will emerge from those pupae is large, strong-flying moths. You could move your tomato plants two doors down the street and it wouldn't protect them from the moths laying eggs on them that will turn into hornworms.

What will protect against the hornworms is the braconid wasps as we discussed in that thread.

Kay&Kev
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Location: Rexburg, ID

Thanks rainbowgardener, for the advice for planting in a different location. I have never done and will try to this year, thanks!

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Voices30
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What will protect against the hornworms is the braconid wasps as we discussed in that thread.
And Sevin-Dust... HAHA I'm sorry I know how much you hate chemicals, but I really stand by it when it comes to a hornworm. I am not an evil person, and I do believe in letting things live as to not upset the natural balance of nature. But if I had the opportunity, I would eradicate the world of all tomato and tobacco hornworms!

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rainbowgardener
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I do hate broad spectrum insecticides. If you really didn't want to upset the balance of nature, you wouldn't use the Sevin:

"Animal toxicity: Carbaryl (the active ingredient in Sevin) is acutely toxic to fish. Carbaryl is acutely toxic to birds, although the dose required to kill most species is greater than that required to kill mammals, fish or insects. Carbaryl also adversely affects birds at lower doses by reducing the population of insects and aquatic invertebrates that the birds feed on. Unhatched and young birds appear to be particularly sensitive to carbaryl exposure. Earthworms are sensitive to small amounts of carbaryl in soil. In field studies, carbaryl treatment reduced earthworm populations by between 50 and 90 percent. Follow-up studies showed that populations took five to twelve months to recover and that the rate at which mineral soil was incorporated into thatch was significantly impaired during this period. It is toxic to frogs, shrimp, crabs, clams, snails, some aquatic insects, and many pond living creatures. Carbaryl is highly toxic to honey bees, certain beneficial insects such as lady beetles, and parasitic wasps and bees.

Plants: While insecticides are not usually assumed to have adverse effects on plants, carbaryl's use as a plant growth regulator (chemical thinning agent) makes effects on other plants unsurprising. It has been shown to decrease germination success, inhibit seedling growth, reduce photosynthesis, and reduce nitrogen fixation. Note that several different people have written in to helpfulgardener to say that their gardens died after being sprayed with Sevin. "
https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/vi ... 11&t=57653 (I wrote this, but the thread linked gives references where the information came from.)

do you grow squash, cucumbers, fruit trees, blueberries, onions? You will have to figure out how to pollinate them without honeybees...

and it seems particularly wasteful to use it against hornworms which are quite well controlled by pretty harmless things like Bt and Neem oil, not to mention handpicking and braconid parasitization.

If we could subtract hornworms from the ecosystem, we would also be subtracting the beautiful sphinx/ hummingbird moth, which is the only moth which can hover like a hummingbird and is fascinating (especially to children) to watch as it hovers in front of flowers uncoiling its 3″ long “tongue” to drink nectar. We would be eliminating a food source from the many birds that eat them. "all God's critters got a place in the choir" !! :)



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