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I planted my tomatoes 4 weeks ago from 4" tall plants I bought at the Amish Garden center. Zone 107

My tomatoes are spaced 3 feet apart in rows that are 3 feet apart. I like to plant a row of beans between the tomato rows so I can pull up the beans after they are harvested this gives the tomatoes more room to grow.

I dig 10" diameter flower pot size holes 3 feet apart. I put a hand full of 15-15-15 fertilizer and a hand full of nitrogen fertilizer and a hand full of pellet lime in each hole. Fill each hole with about 3 gallons of water. I go eat dinner and return about 7 pm. The water has soaked into the soil in a circle all the way around each hole this will provide the plants with fertilizer all summer as the roots grow longer and longer.

Tomatoes have the ability to grow roots any where soil touches the stems so I plant the roots deep with only a few leaves sticking up above the soil surface. Throw in a hand full of soil first then plant the tomato plants. Pack the soil tight around each plant. Tomato plants grow about 1 inch taller every day.

Next I put on the tomato cages and a 5/8" x 8 foot long cement rebar to hold up the tomato cages when the plants get tall and heavy. Plants are usually 5 feet tall maybe taller. Our hot 100 degrees summer will stop tomatoes from growing until Sept.

We planted 6 different tomatoes this year. I planted, Big Beef, Beef Master, Beef Steak. Alice planted 1" cherry tomatoes. My Son planted Bradley and Early Girl.

Cherry tomatoes are 39" tall after 4 weeks.
Big Beef are 37"
Bradley are 36"
Beef Master 35"
Early Girl 35"
Beef Steak 27"

It is interesting to see the tallest tomato plants are in a location that gets full shade after lunch. The shortest tomato plants get full sun all day and full sun the hottest part of the day. The longest row with 12 tomato plants has plants that get progressively taller from east to west. Does Beef Steak tomatoes grow slower because they are slow growers OR does Big Beef grow faster because they are growing in a shady cooler location? Maybe Beef Steak are shorter because they are in the afternoon hot sun. The only way to know for sure is to plant several test rows of tomatoes with different tomatoes in each row.

All the plants have blossoms. Several plants have 1" green tomatoes. We hope to have ripe tomatoes in another 4 1/2 weeks. Yesterday I ran the tiller through the garden as fast as I could walk I only wanted to break the surface so all the tiny things that are starting to grow will die. This is a very low maintenance garden it took me 5 minutes to use the tiller that is the only weeding I have done in a month. Broken soil surface acts like mulch it helps hold moisture and keep out grass and weeds.

Corn on the left was planted 2 days ago, another corn crop will be planted next to it. Beans to the right of the tomatoes, bell peppers to the right of the beans, onions and potatoes to the right of the peppers, square then okra to the far right. Melons and sweet potatoes beyond the corn. Herbs between the 2 rows of potatoes. And a Bee Bomb in 1 corner for humming birds.

Beautiful garden. I love your technique of planting tomatoes. I also have two rows of tomatoes. I took a crazy approach to seeding and whatever tomato tasted well in the kitchen I pulled out the seeds. I also bought some tomato seeds. But basically I have a mix of different tomatoes and I do not know what is what. However, I have the same situation as you do. The tomatoes that are getting some shade in the afternoon are bigger. I even experimented and watered the smaller tomatoes with Epsom salt and the other I did not and it did not make a difference. Last year, I did not use mulch and the only tomatoes that survive and gave me great harvest were the tomatoes in a shade. They were totally unorganized bunch of tomatoes, but still I had tomatoes all summer long.

Your garden makes my mouth water, Gary! Question for you: do you see any difference in the color of the tomato plants between the ones that get more sun and ones that get less? Just curious as I'm trying to figure something out in my own garden.

KitchenGardener wrote:Your garden makes my mouth water, Gary! Question for you: do you see any difference in the color of the tomato plants between the ones that get more sun and ones that get less? Just curious as I'm trying to figure something out in my own garden.

I walked back and forth from one end of the garden to the other 4 times looking to see if there is any difference in tomato plant color. I finally pulled a leaf from a tomato plant on the East end it gets the most sun and compared it to the other tomato plants. I can see no different in plant color. That is surprising I was expecting to see the leaves that get 2 times more sun to be the darkest green color. The sun is getting higher in the sky every day the longest day this year will be June 21 the sun will be in a position to give the garden the most sun on that day. Too many trees may not be a bad thing after all. It will be interesting to see if the tomatoes that get the most shade are ripe. I am sure when temperature are 100+ degrees shade will be helpful. I use to have a black screen sun shade that I put up in summer for my tomatoes, they don't like it blistering hot the shade prevents sun burn tomatoes.

This morning I notice something different. Now that the sun is higher in the sky it is farther north past the tall tree to the east of the garden. The plants on the West end of the garden are getting full sun sooner about 7:30 am instead of 9 am. The plants on the East end of the garden still don't get full sun until about 9 pm when the sun rises above the shorter trees. Tomorrow if I have time I will do a more accurate sun reading the West end of the garden is now getting sun about for 7:30 am to 1 pm while the East end is getting sun from 8:50 am to 5 pm. East end still gets more sun that the west end.

I'm following this with interest, Gary.

Sounds like you grow them like I do. I dig nice big holes and space a few feet apart as well on my lawn. I also plant deep as well. Probably a foot deep atleast on some of the taller cherry tomato transplants I bought. Seem to have nothing but good luck this way and only have to water once every few days. My plants get full sun from approx 11 am - 6 pm. It makes sense even though your cherries get less light they are still taller. The few years I've been growing tomatoes the cherry plants always tower over the regular tomato plants, maybe that's just me. Sounds like things are off to a good start for you anyways. I'll have to measure mine when I get home. I'd imagine the cherries are 2-3 feet after 4 week, the cherokee purple is a foot or so smaller. best of luck.

I notice the taller tomato plants that have the most shade also have moist soil. The tomatoes that are in the hot sun all day have dry soil. So maybe the moist soil is why the tomatoes plants are taller, maybe it has nothing to do with plants being in the shade. We were gone camping for 5 days returned home Sunday evening the garden was flooded, turns out we had several flash flood rains Sunday. The tomatoes are 54" tall but there is too much mud to attempt to tie up the tomato plants, maybe tomorrow. Tomatoes are loaded with blossoms I count 29 to 37 on several plants. Several plants are also loaded with 1" to 2" green tomatoes. There are no honey bees, my yard is white clover when I was a young kid the yard was full of honey bees now all I see are small size yellow and black bumble bees.

Cherry tomato plants in shade are still the tallest 62", plants are 20" shorter in the sunny end of the garden. 100s of green tomatoes from 2" diameter to marble size. I have not weeded the garden in a month there are no weeds, no grass. I ran the tiller between the rows as fast as I could walk when the tomatoes were about 20" tall. The loose soil on top acts like mulch. We had a big rain a week ago, it has been sunny, hot and 96 degrees all week. We are still hoping for ripe tomatoes by July. Alice is standing in the garden with the shovel so you can see the plants compared to her. I planted Blue Lake Bush beans between the tomatoes rows this year when they are ready to harvest I pull up the plants this makes more room for tomato plants. The longest day of the year is 9 days away the sun is almost at his highest already so the tall tomatoes do not shade the beans very much. I have not weeded the garden in a month. I ran the tiller through it fast as I could walk when tomato plants were about 20" tall. I do not use mulch or plastic either.

Hum I just though of something. When you grow seeds inside the house in plant trays they tend to grow tall and skinny in search of sun light. I wonder if my tomato plants that only get about 5 hours of full sun in the morning are growing tall in search of better sun light? Soil in the shade is not as dry as soil that is in the sun all day. It was 98 yesterday and today June 13 is going to be 100 degrees.

Today my garden got 4 feet wider. This morning I tilled in 1 more 70 foot long row. My son has 12 more tomato plants he needs to plant and I can use part of that row for more beans.

I put a yard sale kitchen stove outside on the patio for canning tomatoes and beans to keep the heat out of the house. This will save a little $$$ on the AC electric bill. I have a temporary extension cord to plug in the stove. It looks like we will be canning about 400 jars of tomatoes and beans maybe some corn too.

Here is an interesting observation. Left to Right, Beef Master, Big Beef, Beefsteak. Beefsteak is the old variety, Big Beef and Beef Master are both hybrid varieties. The 4 Beefsteak on the right about 4 feet tall, Big Beef are taller and Beef Master even taller. I think the tomato variety has move to do with plant size than fertilizer, rain, sun. It remains to be seen how well each variety produces, tomato size and flavor.

I know someone will ask, what are those pipes for? Those are my straight row markers I used them to plant corn in a straight line I decided it was faster and easier than pulling a string between several stakes.

Tomato plants are producing more and more every day. This is the harvest for today. Too many green tomatoes to count, about 18 look like they might all be ripe tomorrow.

That's a great looking garden Sir!

Regards,
D

Today I picked 18 good size tomatoes and 5 cherry tomatoes. Every day I pick 1 or 2 more tomatoes than the day before. We have been eating 2 large tomatoes very day and the refrigerator is full of tomatoes. It looks like we may need to Can tomatoes in Pint mason jars tomorrow. Storms have been hitting us hard every day tops of tomato plants are laying over hanging upside down along the side of the main plant. Tomatoes have no problem growing upside down. The tops seem to have more tomatoes than the bottom now.

I picked enough tomatoes to can 10 pint jars of tomatoes today. I washed, sliced, and boiled the tomatoes in 2 pots then hot packed 10 clean pint jars I was finished in 35 minutes. Boil 20 minutes then turn it off. After dinner removed jars from warm water, dated them, put them in the pantry. Total job less than 1 hour, I did not need to stand watch them boil or watch them cool either. 2 boil pans and 2 water pots speeds the job up.

About 30 ripe tomatoes and too many green tomatoes to count. 28 tomatoes plants with tomatoes and 2 younger plants with no tomatoes yet. About 15 to 19 tomatoes per plant that adds up to 476 tomatoes. Tomorrow morning I will pick tomatoes. I might can tomatoes again Fri or Sat I hope to have 100 ripe tomatoes by then. Beef steak tomatoes sure are good we have been eating several every day.



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This mornings tomato harvest. 36 tomatoes and about 30 or 40 cherry tomatoes.

Great harvest! I'm well behind that, but I just got my first 7 large tomatoes yesterday, but those sunsugars are going crazy! 1 1/2 qts. in 2 days, from just 2 plants. Soon, I will have almost (but never really) too many! lol

It is only 84 degrees but the humidity makes it feel like 120, it feels hotter than Arizona. My knees are covered in mud I have been crawling in the garden looking for tomatoes, I found about 100. 6 good size tomatoes an a bowl full of little tomatoes. The storms just keep coming every day. Weather man say every State west of the Mississippi river all the way to Canada will be over 100 degrees next week. TV weather man says triple digit temperature for us all next week, how nice. This large tomatoes weighs 15.8 ounces. 1 tomato is enough to fill 1 pint jar but this one will get eaten first.

I picked a few tomatoes today. Smallest is 1 lb. The largest is 1 lb 8 ounces. We ate the 1 lb. tomato in a salad for dinner it was very good. It has the flavor of Beefsteak but when you slice it you can see it is not a true beefsteak inside. This is called Big Beef. There are 25 to 30 of these on each of the 4 plants and they are all going to be ripe soon.

Whats the trick to gettig all the tomatoes, my planta only have one or two

I learned something new by accident this year. My trees to the west have grown 50 feet tall and shade the west end of the garden after lunch. I planted east west rows, 8 tomato plants to each row 3 ft apart. The whole garden gets morning sun but the west end of the garden starts getting shade about 12 noon. By 2 pm the west half of the garden is in full shade, by 6 pm the whole garden is in full shade. The whole garden grow progressive taller from east to west. The west shady part of the garden has moist soil with very green plants, the east end of the garden has dry soil and dry sun bleached looking tomayo plants. This observation leads me to believe tomatoes like shade during the hottest part of the day. Tomato plants are 7 feet tall in the shade and tomatoes are big as grapefruits.

Todays tomato harvest is 31.6 lbs. Beefsteak, Big Beef, Beef Master, Cherry tomatoes, Rutgers, Early girl. The 2 largest tomatoes are Early Girl 1.3 lbs. and 15.4 ounces.

I picked 31.5 lbs. of tomatoes. I gave about 9 lbs of tomatoes to my Son. After washing the tomatoes I slice them 4 times around the core. Throw the cores away then put all the cut pieces in 3 pots to boil. Bring to a boil skins, seeds and all 5 minutes. I use a measuring cup to fill the mason jars 1/2" from the top. Put on the seals, screw the rings on tight, place in pots of warm water. Bring to a boil 20 minute then let the jars cool down naturally for 1 hour. Rinse, dry, label, put the jars in the pantry. We have 23 more pints for the pantry.

We canned 14 more pint jars of tomatoes.

Tomatoes are still doing good in this 95 degree hot weather. It finally rained last night after 12 days of no rain. We have 71 pints of tomatoes, time to do 20 quarts of tomatoes this should be enough to last until July 2017. We will have stew, chili, soup, sauces, all winter. Now we will enjoy eating tomatoes and cooking with tomatoes until November.

Wow, that's amazing, Gary! Beautiful! and a lot of work. I know you told us somewhere how many tomato plants you have, but I don't remember. Can you say again?

@shelbygt: RE "Whats the trick to getting all the tomatoes, my plants only have one or two." Something is definitely wrong! My tomato plants are really struggling with temperatures consistently in the 90's (sometimes high 90's) for two solid months and very little rain in there. (Tomorrow we get a little break and have three days where temps are 88 or 89!) And with all that stressing them, it made them vulnerable so most of them are also fighting septoria. So they have mostly shut down production. Even so each plant has between six to a dozen tomatoes on it.

You should start your own thread in the Tomato section: https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=15

Post a few pictures of your plants, including close ups of leaves, overall of plants, and the soil, and as much info as you can about the conditions they've been in (e.g. weather, hours of sun), how they have been treated (e.g. watering, fertilizing, any spraying), and what your soil is like. I looked up your weather, high 70's and 80's. Perfect tomato growing weather! I'm betting some of the tomato experts around here can help you do better!

I picked 29 lbs of tomatoes today. Notice in this first picture there are 13 tomatoes on the left side of the photo these are Big Beef. These turned out to be early produces and large size tomatoes. They are suppose to be beef steak type tomatoes but when I slice them open they look nothing like beef steak inside but they do have the very good flavor of beef steak tomatoes. This has been one of the best produces this summer. I have 4 plants.

The group of 26 tomatoes in the center of the picture are Beef Master. These are suppose to be Beef Steak type tomatoes too but when I slice them some look like beef steak and some don't but they do have very good beef steak flavor. These have also been one of the best producers of tomatoes with large tomatoes. I have 4 plants.

The tomatoes at the far end of the photo are real Beef Steak tomatoes according to the label on the plant tray but they do not look like beef steak slicing tomatoes but they do have good flavor. I have only harvested 2 tomatoes from these 4 plants all summer until today. I harvested 9 lbs of tomatoes today. This is one reason I never plant all 1 variety of tomato you can never trust what the label says on the plant trays and you never know if they will be good producers either.



This next picture shows the BEEF STEAK tomatoes on the right side 22 tomatoes here wt 9.148 lbs. I am glad I was not counting on these plants to supply us with tomatoes we would not had many tomatoes at all until today. These 4 plants are loaded there must be 15 lbs of tomatoes on each plant.

I have a total of 12 plants in 1 row, Big Beef, Beef Master, Beef Steak. The majority of the tomatoes we have canned came from 8 plants, Big Beef and Beef Master.



The next rows in the garden are 4 cherry tomato plants. 1 plant either died or got crowded out by other plants. These 3 cherry tomato plants are big producers they make about 4 to 5 lbs of tomatoes every day. I give most of these to my son.

The next row of tomatoes belong to my Son, Early Girl and Rutger. My son planted his tomatoes 2 weeks later than I planted my tomatoes. Early girl is making a lot of good flavor large tomatoes, one of the largest tomatoes in the garden is a 1.3 lb Early Girl. Rutger is doing well making a good supply of tomatoes. There are 4 early girl plants and 4 rutger plants they have been producing about 6 to 10 lbs of tomatoes every day. So far so good heat it not bothering the tomato plants very much this year.

I have 4 more tomato plants called Jet Star I planted these late some time in May they have 14 tomatoes that are almost ready to pick. I picked 2 ripe tomatoes today but I have not sliced or tasted them yet. I have grown these before they are also suppose to be a beef steak type tomato but we will see for sure tomorrow. These are an orange color tomato I don't remember Jet Star ever being orange color in the past.

I have 2 Beef Steak tomato plants that I planted from seeds they are loaded with green tomatoes. I think these 2 plants should be making ripe tomatoes soon maybe 2 more weeks. They both appear to have about 15 lbs of tomatoes on each plant.

I have a 6 foot row of tomato seeds I planted a few days ago they should be up and ready to transplant in a few more weeks perfect timing with cooler weather tomatoes. After tomato plants struggle through this 95 degree weather they never totally recover so the new plants will do better. We sometimes have tomatoes for Christmas dinner if I can keep frost from killing them.



Okra finally took off I got a good harvest of okra for the first time today. Up to now harvest has been 3 or 4 pods every few days. Once okra takes off it will be a nightmare to eat it all, soon it will be making 40 pods every day.

When I plant tomatoes I dig a hole about the size of a 10" flower pot so I can plant the tomato plants deep and take advantage of having the full length of the stem become one large mass of roots. Tomato plants have the ability to grow roots any place soil touches the plant. I put pellet lime and fertilizer in the bottom of each hole. I use a small hand full which is not much. I pick up some fertilizer then shake out what I don't want leaving about 1 tablespoon of fertilizer in my hand to throw in the tomato hole, same for pellet lime. Some times I add nitrogen and sometimes not, you don't want much nitrogen with tomatoes. This year I used Urea not having much experience with urea I was afraid to use much so I used a very small amount about 1 teaspoon if you actually measure it with a kitchen measuring spoon. Fill the tomato holes all with water then return a few hours later when the water is gone. The fertilizer goes into the soil with the water. I don't want the tomato plants to come in contact with any of the fertilizer so I put about 2" of soil in the hole just to cover the spot with 15/15/15 fertilizer. Plant the tomato plant deep, fill the hole with soil, compact it tight, make a donut circle of soil around each plant to hold water so I can water them for a week. Once I notice the tomato plants are starting to grow I never water them again this forces the plants to grow deep roots so they are prepared for this hot 95 degree weather. My tomato plants are 3 feet apart with 5 bean seeds planted between all the tomato plants. I don't care anything about the beans they are only there to supply nitrogen to the tomato plants. Beans are nitrogen fixing they will put a lot of nitrogen in the soil for the tomatoes. I have my whole garden with a row spacing of 3 feet there is a 40 foot long row of beans between each row of tomatoes this should supply plenty of nitrogen to the tomato plants. Beans and tomatoes are both doing good. I have harvested 34 lbs of beans from this part of the garden so far. At this point sometimes I pull all the beans up but there year I am just going to leave all the beans until they die on their own. I got a late start on the garden this year I usually am more organized but this year bad weather did not allow me to get everything planted on time so I planted another 40 foot row of beans just for harvest and a small 6 foot row just for next years seeds. I have already collected a few tomato seeds and will collect more tomato seeds for next years garden. I am going to build a very small green house this winter just large enough to start a few tomato and pepper plants from seeds for next years garden.

I have a total of 12 tomato plants in 1 row. There are 3 cherry tomato plants, also 4 Jet Star plants. My son has 7 tomato plants but they don't count I don't get any of those tomatoes and I give him most of the cherry tomatoes. I have 2 plants from seeds that are not making tomatoes yet. Most of what we have canned in jars came from 8 tomato plants. I give away tomatoes almost every day and we eat all we can eat for lunch and dinner. When the plants were small I sprinkled wood ash on them every day after we cooked on the BBQ grill. I burn tree limbs and sticks in the grill there are not much wood ash maybe a teaspoon full for all tomato plants, peppers, squash, melons too.

Sounds like about 30 plants, with more to come?

rainbowgardener wrote:Sounds like about 30 plants, with more to come?

I had 8 tomato plants making tomatoes for a month until now. We canned 74 pints, we ate lots of tomatoes every day for lunch and dinner and we gave away lots of tomatoes. Today I am taking 29 lbs of tomatoes to the homeless shelter.

4 more plants are starting to make tomatoes, I picked 2 tomatoes yesterday and 5 tomatoes look like they are almost ripe.

2 more plants might be making tomatoes in about 2 or 3 more weeks.

We are giving my Son almost all the cherry tomatoes, we like the beef steak flavor best.

8 good producing good flavor tomato plants is all a person needs to have more tomatoes than you can eat and still Can enough tomatoes for the pantry to last all winter. In the past I learned a lesson by not planting enough tomato plants, if you get blight you loose all your plants early, if you plant tomatoes that are poor producers then 8 plants are not enough, if you plant a variety and some flavors you don't like you still need 8 good flavor plants, the rest can be pulled up. Plant about 16 to 20 plants to see how it goes and hope you have 8 good producers with a good flavor you like. Over kill is always best other wise you have to wait until next year. Good tomatoes are like good wine, you never want to run out.

We Canned another 14 pints of tomatoes yesterday. I just picked 2 more baskets of tomatoes and there are 2 more baskets to be picked. These 2 baskets weigh 19 lbs. We are done with canning tomatoes. The pantry has all the tomatoes we need, all we need now is about 2 tomatoes every day until frost kills the plants.

I harvested 42 lbs of tomatoes today. 1 row of my tomatoes looks like it has blight. 1 plant turned brown and died then it spread to the other 11 plants in that row. I was only getting tomatoes for 8 of those plants and just as the other 4 plants started to make tomatoes the plants were dead. I have 4 new plants that just started making tomatoes this week so we will still have tomatoes for a while. As soon as I clean away this row of dead plants I will plant new tomatoes plant in their place we should have a few tomatoes by Oct. I always throw all the bad tomatoes in a certain part of the garden for the seed to grow there are probably 200 plants coming up that I can get 12 good trans plants for the new tomato row. I also have 2 more late tomato plants that are not making tomatoes yet. There will be several more pint jars on tomatoes in the pantry later today.

We canned 12 pints of tomatoes and have enough tomatoes to do 12 more pints. We have enough tomatoes for the winter so I will give all the rest of these tomatoes away. I hope my tomato plants hang in there and make at least 1 tomato per day until frost kills them. We often get frost about Halloween and some years no frost until after Christmas.

All summer every time something dies I replace it with tomato seeds. Seeds are up in a few days and 1 plants over powers the rest and becomes a full grown plant. There are several tomato plants scattered around the garden all are 2 to 3 weeks apart so if all the original plants die I have 7 plants that will grow until frost kills them. Hopefully we will have a few tomatoes on the kitchen table until November.

If the tomato plants get blight it is usually the 3rd week of July so I always plant enough tomatoes to be able to have 150 lbs of tomatoes in mason jars by the second week of July. If tomatoes all die I have my winter supply of tomatoes.

I always plant about 6 different kinds of tomatoes so no matter what the weather does 2 or 3 types will do better than all the others. This year Big Beef and Beef master were the top producers. Big Beef produced tomatoes 1 week before Early Girl. Cherry tomatoes were for first plants to produce tomatoes 2 weeks before any others. Beef Steak was very late producing tomatoes and produced very few tomatoes unlike Beef Steak I grew in the past so this makes me thing they were labeled wrong and were not really Beef Steak. Big Beef and Beef master a total of 8 plants were producing 30 lbs of tomatoes every day from about June 20 to July 15. We had 102 degrees weather 1 day in June then it was about 95 to 97 every day from July 4 to mid Oct the tomatoes suffered and many died in the heat. The tomatoes I planted in the shade did best in 97 degrees heat the plants got full sun early morning 8 am to 12 noon then the big tree gave them shade the hottest part of the day until dark. At its peak 24 tomato plants were producing 40 lbs of tomatoes every day for about 3 weeks. For 2 month 97 degree temperatures and no rain tomato plants made just enough to have a few for dinner every day we had Canned 140 lbs of tomatoes in Mason Jars by July 14. Now 10/11/16 the weather is cooling down 78 to 84 degrees every day and still no rain but we still get tomatoes to eat every day I have been watering the plants every day also and 9 plants are still alive but look almost dead. The cooler temperatures has causes the plants to have new green growth that sticks out like a sort toe on these dead looking plants. Things are picking up I harvested 10 tomatoes yesterday evening for dinner.

No rain in 2 1/2 months. TV News says worse drought in TN since 1911. 9 tomato plants are still making enough tomatoes to have a few for the kitchen table. It was 82 degrees today and 65 last night. We may not have frost for another month and maybe no freeze for 2 months.