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hendi_alex
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2015 Tomato Plants

Repotted my first batch of pants today. Most have their first true leaves, and were moved from small group pots to individual 2.5 inch pots. They are under compact fluorescent lights about 14 hours per day, but are moved outside any time that it is sunny and over about 60 degrees. They have been outside during the day time for the past two days as has been very sunny and warm. Photo to follow in a few days, after the plants perk back up.

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digitS'
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Now, these tomatoes will be "I'll know them when I see them" varieties, right Alex??

You don't realize how much that idea appeals to me ... I get so tired of fiddling around, try to keep things organized. And, for what? So, that I can welcome back old veggie friends to my garden each year? How would it be different if they were the ones who made the decision to show up, or not?? Wouldn't that be a more meaningful experience???

Best of Luck, Alex! Enjoy those 60+° days :).

Steve

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hendi_alex
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Yep, each pack is a mix of many purchased seed packs. Labels are black slicer, large hybrid, green, small, cherry red, cherry yellow, determinate, Roma. This season's early emphasis will we on small salad, cherry, determinate, Roma. Later will be on black, large hybrid. The small varieties are planted early for quick harvest and long season. The determinate and Roma are planted early to get best production before the heat of summer and disease. The blacks and hybrids are planted a little later, to fill out the middle and later summer with large slicers. Mid summer, small tomatoes will once again get the emphasis as they make a more reliable fall crop.

My mixed seeds probably include a total of 30-40 named varieties.

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hendi_alex
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Day one after transplant from community pots. Only one plant seems to have suffered damage from the process. Normally the plants have a strong growth surge over the week or two after transplanting. The plants have now gotten natural sunlight for three days in a row. The plants will enjoy over 3 more months in pots before going into the ground in late April.

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erins327
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Hey Hendi_alex!

Right there with you! I uppotted my tomatoes yesterday. I always way over estimate how many my garden will grow, because I make room for mistakes or ones that didnt germinate. This year I'm on a roll and only had about 2-3 out of 30 not germinate. Matter of fact, I'm running out of indoor light 'real estate' now that I also potted my eggplants, peppers, basil and malabar this last weekend.

Here is my progress. Yesterday, out enjoying 75 degree weather.
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tomato seedlings feb 2015.jpg

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digitS'
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The season's first good exercise for the busboy and gardener, Alex!

Packing 'em out ... packing 'em out ... in ... out. Don't trip over anything!

:)

Steve

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hendi_alex
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I've mostly been leaving the plants in the new cold frame overnight, heated with 4 incandescent bulbs. We Are now in the midst of a very cold spell, so the plants have been moved into the greenhouse for probably about a week. The biggest plants are now over a foot tall and are in one gallon nursery containers. New photo coming soon. I've yet to plant peppers and eggplant but will likely do so in the next few days.

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lakngulf
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hendi_alex wrote:I've mostly been leaving the plants in the new cold frame overnight, heated with 4 incandescent bulbs. We Are now in the midst of a very cold spell, so the plants have been moved into the greenhouse for probably about a week. The biggest plants are now over a foot tall and are in one gallon nursery containers. New photo coming soon. I've yet to plant peppers and eggplant but will likely do so in the next few days.
Maybe it is just my older, thinner blood, but to me it is just colder this year. I have a few tomatoes started, but have them in a side room of my house that I keep about 45-50 degrees. I just can't see trying to keep the greenhouse warm this year. Once this cold spell gets through, I think I will get serious with tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. I always take a gamble on early Rattlesnake beans too. Start them in the greenhouse and put in the garden as soon as I dare!

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hendi_alex
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Quite a change since the January 20 photo of plants in 3 inch cups. Today those earliest babies are in 3 gallon pots, 44 plants in all. Plus have another six that are ready to go into 3 gallon pots and then have perhaps 20 that are ten inches to a foot tall in one gallon pots. Here are a few photos taken this a.m.

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Don't have many fruit, lots of bloom though. This will give our first ripe tomato, probably 2-3 weeks away.

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lakngulf
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Beautiful plants and fruit on the way.

When I tried to do anything indoor with tomatoes, I too got lots of blooms but just could not get the fruit to set. I tried to cross pollinate but really did not know what I was doing.

Good job on and early jump on the tomatoes.

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I tickle my blooms if concerned about pollination. Take index finger and tickle the bottom of each bloom, moving one to the other. Sometime when the temperature is too low for too much of the time, the blossoms are just going to drop. With our mild temperatures after the plants are blooming, that is rarely a problem. My plants have been almost continuously outside during the day for at least a month and a half.

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digitS'
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Those are fine looking plants, Alex.

Tickling blossoms? I wish hybridizing had proven so "fun" for me. I didn't realize that I'd never really noticed how small tomato flowers are, until I had to mess with them with my awkward digitS'.

I had kind of a thought. What if 90% of what we value with hybrids is simply hybrid vigor? We all learned about that in high school. I mean, what's with tomatoes and self-pollination?

Steve

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hendi_alex
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Tomatoes are more wind pollinated that bee pollinated. Mine really almost never have a problem. Overly cool for a prolonged period or overly hot and the blossoms may drop. When in the greenhouse, just the air movement from the fans is usually enough to give fruit set.

Usually less than half, maybe less than 1/4 of my plants are selected for hybrid vigor. Many are heirloom or other old fashioned kind of plant. I'm growing relatively more hybrids for the hot, disease ridden part of the summer, so hopefully they produce through that period when so many plants give up and die.

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Ten day weather forecast looks good so started putting tomato plants in the ground about 10 days early. Kept the ten theme going as 10 plants went in their permanent locations. Will put 8-10 plants in the ground per day until all are planted. The garden will have four general groupings of tomato plants: slicers, salad tomatoes, Roma's, and determinate. Roma's and determinates are for drying and processing. Slicers and salads are mostly for fresh eating. Slicers are a mix of hybrids, blacks, and other heirloom varieties. Salads are a mix of plums, cherries, and larger 1.5 inch round varieties. Determinates are a mix of very reliable 'celebrity', heat tolerant varieties, and heirlooms. Photos to come!

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The plants started going into the ground around April 10. The frost free date is April 21, but the long range forecast looked good, so jumped the season a bit. We have a chicken coup with three large chicken runs. For spring through summer they have been shut out of the smaller two front runs, and are confined in the about quarter acre larger run. The larger closed off run is being used to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, and watermelons. The smaller is being used to grow corn and squash. Hopefully the chicken manure and constant soil churning by the birds will make these great locations for gardening. No leafy veggies or root crops will be grown in the chicken run area. Here are some photos of my tomato plants. We have three main growing areas: the chicken run, containers on a concrete slab, and in ground beside a rubber lined planting box area.

[Click on the photos to see the full view.]
The chicken run tomato plants:
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Container plants on slab:
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In ground plants beside membrane lined planter box area.
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Here it is only a couple of weeks past the frost free date, and many of our plants are within a few inches of the top of the five foot cages. Most plants are loaded with good sized fruit. We have been harvesting a trickle of grape tomatoes since mid April, but in another couple of weeks the fruit should really start to flow. Am so looking forward to that!

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Good photos of a great garden, Alex. This can't compare but just shows where my tomatoes are on a recent May morning. It shows the frost on the roof of the shed I built several years ago, against my back fence in the neighbor's yard:
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If I walk thru that door, I look out into the attached hoop house and here are the tomatoes (and several other things :wink: ):
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Yes, I have covered the central path with flats of things for the overnight hours. There are peppers, eggplants and zinnias, etc. in with the tomatoes. This morning is one of the few that I haven't had to have heat in there :).

A neighbor will take about 100 tomatoes, another about 60. The over-the-fence neighbor may want about 4 ... The remaining go in my garden or are sold.

Steve

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hendi_alex
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This may be the best start to the tomato season ever. Not quite as early compared to earliest ripe fruit production, but way more pounds of near mature fruit ready to start turning.

We have over 50 plants and most have several large clusters of nice sized fruit, depending upon the variety.

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This is why we are doing it isn't it, Alex?

It just takes an eye on a prize like what you've got there ...

:D

Steve

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For the past few years we have had gorgeous tomato plants in the second week of June, with most of them dead or dying by early to mid July. This year I stepped things up, figuring that I needed to have my main crop of ripe tomatoes coming off by mid June. That way if the plants die, the main crop of tomatoes will still make. I can't begin to describe how well that strategy is working! Plus, there has been an unanticipated consequence. We have over 50 plants that are just loaded with mature tomatoes that are ready to start turning and we are a good month away from the onset of disease season. What I had not counted on was the degree to which the second wave of tomatoes would set. The second wave is now half size or better and the third wave has quarter and bigger sized fruit as well. So it is looking like we will get at least wave one and wave two to produce high quality tomatoes and right now I give a better than 50:50 chance that the third wave of tomatoes will get full sized before the plant come into the stress of July heat, humidity, and disease. It is looking like our best potential season ever. On the chance that heat and humidity would be somewhat depressed in July, the harvest will be off of the chart!

Another part of this year's strategy has been to include about a dozen determinate tomato plants, with the though being that the plants would set the entire crop well in front of disease season. Those plants are heavy with fruit and will make a bumper crop. The plants could die now, and still at least 40-50 pounds of tomatoes would ripen.

The third aspect of fighting disease is also underway. I've cut suckers from my most prolific plants and am rooting them as replacements for when the early plants get into trouble. The suckers root in about a week and while rapidly growing in a morning sun only location, seem to usually be resistant to the diseases gotten by the mature full sun plants. Hopefully these succession plants will give us a harvest into September and October, perhaps as late as November. If so, we would have accomplished getting fresh tomatoes for 8 months.

Will post update photos from time to time.

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Decided to make an adjustment with my full sun container tomato plants. Even as planted in 25 gal to 35 gal containers, the plants still suffer from irregular water stress, constantly moving between dry and overly wet. I decided to make an adjustment this year. The plants are full sun on the east, but are partially shaded after noon or 1 p.m. This double layer of shade cloth with be replaced with a more appropriate 50% as soon as it can be ordered. The top third or so of the plants will be given full sun all day long. The shade cloth will protect most of the plant from the harsh afternoon sun and also of importance, will shade the black containers and the soil from most direct sunlight.

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Amazing as always, @hendi_Alex :D

I really like that every year you try something different to improve and your growing techniques. I think we all need to do that. :wink:

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Trying the shade cloth is not without its risks. The cloth with act as a barrier to wind movement and may cause even more moisture throughout the bottom part of the plants. It will be interesting to see whether this adjustment is a net positive or is a negative as relates to disease. I've read that the shade cloth can decrease the temperature as much as 20 degrees, and I would think that would be an offsetting factor as relates to the combat of disease. Will update later as to how the use of shade cloth seems to be working out.

My in ground plants are really doing great this year, thanks to my chickens for their manure contribution and for the loan of their main run area. My rows in there run east to west. One advantage of that is that each plant shades the other from the afternoon sun. My container plants run north to south. May have to look at that in the future.

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Good Job!

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Trickle has now become enough to stay ahead of our daily needs. Another week or two and we will be stocking the freezer!

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Banner year so far. The tomato table is totally full, even after freezing about eight pounds and giving several big ones away. The table usually gets this full around the first week in July. Just hope the disease continues to ignore the plants.

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:D Love it! What are your plans now? Canning? dehydrating?

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Nowhere close to anything like that, Alex :) !

I set out 4 more plants last week - filling my designated, 2015 tomato patch. Plants had all flowers removed. (One Bloody Butcher had several small fruits taken off.)

Some of the plants have recovered and begun to grow. The ones in backyard containers are doing the best. There were some bad winds and a couple of hailstorms but the damage, beyond transplanting shock, has been from fleabeetles. I also found 3 potato beetles on the plants. Sprayed with spinosad a few days ago.

Now, they have some hot days ahead of them :? ! There may be afternoons in the 90's and some high temperature records ...

Steve

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hendi_alex
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I plan on freezing about 50 pounds and drying about 35 pounds. The rest will be eaten fresh or given away.

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Beautiful! I won't see a sight like that until mid-late July or maybe even early August.
Enjoy! :D

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lakngulf
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Ahhhh Nice! Do you think you could ship me a few of those big ones in the front? They would be nice in a mater sandwich.

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Those are already in the freezer! I used to give all the extra large ones to a friend, who seems to like all things big. The medium to medium small fruit suit the wife and me just fine. Now I keep most of the extra large fruit, as they make the prep for freezing so much easier.

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Great looking tomatoes! I hope mine turn out as well as yours.

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digitS'
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Earliest ripe tomato this season. Earliest ripe tomato ever.

Bloody Butcher. Often with the earliest fruit in my garden ...

We are having record heat. Triple digitS' tomorrow and Sunday, and there have been other record days this month. I have never had ripe tomatoes in June!

I wouldn't have tomatoes now but I missed the developing fruit when this Bloody Butcher was set out. The plant is growing despite my failure to trim fruit and flowers off when I moved the plant outdoors. The plant will soon be 4 months from seed.

Steve



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