Ok this was my first try at growing tomotoes and i used to have them in a smaller plastic greenhouse type thingy.
Just wondered if anyone can give me advice on what i should have done?
Since i just got a greenhouse i have moved them in there, but for next season i could do with some help.
Thanks everyone. ;)
(http://backyard.8m.net/veg%20pics/greenhouse%20tomatoes1.jpg)
Where are the leaves ???
i thought you were suppose to cut most off, too let fruit grow......oops !!
I'm no expert but I think the idea is to pich out the sideshoots as the plant grows, but only take off the leaves when you need the fruit to ripen. I always miss a few sideshoots and end up with very odd-shaped plants, probably with too many trusses.I've decided I'm going to grow mine outside next year, as I can barely get into my greenhouse now!
Blimey!
My first reaction was... use a little less Agent Orange ::)
Your side-shoot pinching out technique is a little radical, next year I'd only start to take leaves from the bottom after the first tresses have set fruit and it's well on the way to ripening. If you miss the odd side shoot it's no great trauma either.
But, looking at the plants themselves.. they have a huge amount of vigour with many long, thick stems... I'm guessing that these plants have some nutrient imbalance (oversupply of Nitrogen, undersupply of Potassium) in their feeding that has lead to rampant growth like that at the expense of fruiting.
I'd also think about growing more plants and feeding less, your yield next year won't be any worse and a greater density of planting will make the plants work with each other for a balance of the available sunlight/nutrients/water. You'll have smaller plants but a higher fruiting yield this way.
I grow outdoors, don't feed artificially and didn't do too bad this year (http://bellebouche.com/blog/?p=240)
woah - Chris, you're gonna give people nightmares with pix like that :o
heheheh i thought i had done something wrong ;)
does look scary eh?
Quote from: mc55 on August 14, 2006, 22:37:33
woah - Chris, you're gonna give people nightmares with pix like that :o
Quote from: Merry Tiller on August 14, 2006, 21:42:54
Where are the leaves ???
;D ;D ;D ;D
Don't despair theres always next year.I remove some of the leaves mostly around the trusses.Goodluck for next year.
Chris - much surprise here too!! But some good advice given. A few more thoughts from a NON-expert:
1. You know what a 'sideshoot' is? The little thingie in the photo2.
2. Assuming that they are cordons, in addition to removing most of the useful, feeding leaves, you have NOT removed the early sideshoots, thus achieving multiple stems - with MORE leaves!!
3. I am a non-radical on leaf removal. Yes, I take off the bottom couple when things get crowded to allow circulation at the bottom, & to make watering easier. But the only others that I remove are those that are 'passed ti' at the bottom, those that are diseased in any way & those which block my passage down the rows. Like Caroline, I have to make myself small to get through!
Since toms will happily ripen in a box in the kitchen, I see no point in removing productive leaves to assist this process on the plant. And the practice can & does cause sunscald. See next pic. These are 8 feet high.
4. What happened to the fruit trusses lower down? You didn't pinch them out too??
i agree with tim. this year, i have not removed any leaves apart from three or four that turned brown and yellow. my plum tomato trusses are so large and heavy that they NEED to rest on the (strong) leaves in order to not break.
better luck next year :)
wow...never saw tomatoes like those before.
Belle - i love all your toms! how many actual plants do you have growing? i have 27 and still haven't been able to collect more than a few at a time, certainly not enough to make pasta sauce (i live for pasta).
:o
Thanks for all the great advice.......i know what side shoots are but like you say didnt remove them at the start. My fault for not reading up on this ;)
Tim, your tomatoe plants look great, i'll make sure not to remove leaves next year and start them off earlier.
One question, are trusses the stem of the plant that produces fruit? I have been truing to figure this one out.
Thanks again
I see them as being the whole 'branch' with flowers or fruit on.
Could you have removed trusses thinking they were sideshoots? I grow outdoors, leave everything on the plant, don't feed at all, and have plants covered in fruit.
Try some outdoors as well if you've got the space. You have to wait longer for the fruit, and they're more likely to get blight, but growing them is simplicity itself. The only thing is that they tend to sprawl all over the place; some of mine have collapsed despite staking.
At least Robert agrees with me! Here's more:
Bottom, the leaf 'frond'.
Above, the side shoot - pinch out on cordons but not on bush toms.
Then the flower truss. LEAVE!! The flower truss almost never comes from the stem/leaf joint.
So kind!!
Belle, your toms are amazing and beautiful! And those lovely bowls of chillis...could be in the med!
Chris....interesting pic! :o I have nothing to add, everyone has said it before. I would second and third the suggestion of growing an outside variety, maybe a bush, where you can just leave them to it. I do that on the plot and have a goodly harvest.
Meant to ask earlier - if you want to grow indoors, & have limited height, might it not be more productive to grow bush varieties? Wider spacing but more stem?
Excellent explination image Tim, that helps loads!
Quote from: umshamrock on August 15, 2006, 07:57:10
wow...never saw tomatoes like those before.
Belle - i love all your toms! how many actual plants do you have growing? i have 27 and still haven't been able to collect more than a few at a time, certainly not enough to make pasta sauce (i live for pasta).
Thanks! We have about 70.. 9 different varieties. I planted out four 4m rows and one 6 metre row of the bush 'roma' variety. I'll nip out this afternoon and take a snap of the patch to show the growing arrangement.
With some many plants we're trying a new experiment this year. I've not staked any individual plant... just used a rigging system with poles running the length of the rows and the plants being wound up string suspended from the poles. It looks precarious but has saved hours and hours of labour with us not having to bother to tie in the plants as they grow... they just get the top 20cm/30cm or so wrapped around the suspension string.. it's a massive labour saver.
What has convinced me to grow outdoors next year, apart from all the people on here saying outdoor-grown are sweeter, is that I found some seedlings growing among my parsnips, presumably from the compost, and just left them to it & they are producing lots of fruit without any attention!
I seem to recall someone else doing that, Adrian?
I tried it in the greenhouse - as they do commercially - total failure!! The plants just slipped down the string.
I will never grow my Toms outside again, 6 months of delicious anticipation that ended with a rotten stinking mess. Tomato Blight, I hate it more than slugs and that's saying something >:(
I've always had to grow outdoors til this year & the advent of a g/house and not inclined to do it again unlesss they're in movable tubs. The weather this year has been great for ripening outdoors - but this is the first time for, what? 4 - 5 years? I've managed to achieve it with the bulk of the fruits. So greenhouse for me from now on or, as I've thought, outdoor ones in tubs which can easily be moved. And just think of that extra ground I'll have for other stuff :)
I feel for you MT. That happened to me on the first year of having an allotment in Essex, and I had never come across it before and had no idea what I had done wrong! Lost my entire crop so the following year, did half in the greenhouse and asked you lot what to do about the outdoor ones. On Tim and others advice, I know dust with Bordeaux mixture in June and July, carefully, but thoroughly. Fingers crossed, it does the trick when many other loose their entire crops on the site.
Dust, Emma? Better to spray. Easier &, with a lance, you get over and under.
We got our allotment because of tomatoes ;) ; I came from Russia and there people grow toms in open ground in Siberia, but my English husband didn't believe that it is possible to succeed without a green house, so we had a bet and got our allotment for the trial. I'm happy we did! Here they are:
(http://foto.mail.ru/mail/kuzovleva/1/i-46.jpg)
This is the way my mum used to do it and we always had more tomatoes than anybody else on our allotment site there. So, I try to follow her footsteps:
I start planting seeds on the 1st of March and never earlier than that, the late maturing varieties first (Black krim, Cour di bue). I don't have grow lights and without them the seedlings grow too tall and thin if you start them too early.
Just before putting the seeds into the seed tray, I water the compost with boiling water, sort of disinfection.
As soon as the seedlings appear ( I check them twice a day) I move them into conservatory, the temperature there is about 15-17 C, but everything between 12 and 18 I think is fine, the seedlings do not like to be hot, re-pot them into bigger pots as the plants grow. Tomatoes like to be moved, intentionally or not the roots are disturbed and it provokes the plants to develop a stronger root system and this is the main job for this period; to grow strong roots, not leaves.
First half of April; all my grown ups go into a green house in their pots and get acclimatized. I shut the green house door only if the weather is going to be below 8C.
I add nettle/parsley and dry onion/garlic skin into my water butt, I'm not sure why I'm doing that... Habit, more than sense.
Last week of May-first week of June; all toms go outside, most of them are flowering at this stage. Also just before planting out I sprinkle the leaves with copper based solution. That's it. No more sprinkling, no pinching. I came across this article from some Canadian agricultural Uni, they carried out a research, which demonstrated that non pinched tomato plants are more prolific and healthier comparing to the pinched ones. I guess it works better for the open ground, where you are not as limited in space as in a green house and roots can grow as far as they need to feed the plant. While pinching it is easy to pass infection from one plant to another one.
The drawback is that the plants are really heavy and bamboo sticks are not strong enough to hold the weight. I use bricks now.
The picking season starts from 15th of July.
Natasha, thank you SO much for all this - there's a lot to take in there! You say that you 'stake' with bricks? So your toms are bush varieties & you let them sprawl, presumably? And, do you feed them when the fruits have set? I'm well-impressed by your 1st date for picking in the open & perhaps, after reading your post, I'll revise my ideas for only growing in pots. Many thanks for your input.
Alishka (not Russian but my Dad loved Russian literature 8)) - my sister, poor soul, is called Anastasia..... ::)
What's a Siberian summer like? Since it's continental, I imagine it could be warm and dry, better for tomato growing than many of ours.
I was about three weeks later than Natasha with my first picking, but apart from that, my dates are about the same. The only thing I'd add is that when I planted them out, very few were flowering, and I put them under cloches just in case of frost. Maybe I'd have gained the three weeks given a more normal spring.
Great spiel, Natasha.
Very interesting post Natasha, thank you. I now feel less guilty about all my sprawling toms on the plot as most of them were bush varieties and as you say bamboo doesn't hold them - but they look very neglected! Producing though.
there is a variety called Siberia, bush type so will do good outside sprawling, or in a pot and is quite early, hence the name :)
check out the 'totally tomatoes' web site (you'd have to google for the address)
No, no, no - with respect!
Go to our own www.simpsonsseeds.co.uk/
They even do plants, should you be lazy.
Hi everybody,
Robert, you are right and Siberian summer is dryer, but it is hardly warmer, in fact the first thing which impress Russians in Britain is the weather, it is so pleasantly mild. But you see summer over there is short, so the same principal; to do your best to make them fruit before rain and diseases get them.
My father-in-low grows the same varieties and his crop starts about 3 weeks later than ours. It is difficult to detect the reason, he starts them slightly earlier and keeps them in his bedroom, where it is a bit warm and not enough of natural light, moves them into his green house in May, which is for me slightly late, apart from that everything seems the same.
I think it is a good idea to plant different varieties as well, so instead of 10 plants of Moneymaker, may be 2 plants of 5 different varieties, to see which ones work better for you and ... the element of surprise.
Alishka, I don't feed my tomatoes with anything apart from watering with dodgy smelling water and some patches were manured last year, also it is obviously madness, but I take all my family into a forest in mid Autumn and we all collect some old leaves, to dig into the soil later (not just for tomatoes). This year my mother-in-low said she will be doing the same, it is infectious.
For me the earliest ones this year were:
Principe Borghese (smallish but early, seeds came from DJBrendon, thank you very much :-*) )
Black mavr (gorgeous)
fireworks (some of them have a bit of a funny skin, sort of scratched)
North pole (krajnii sever) in Russian language there are several names for North pole and also there are several varieties of tomatoes called these names, not to confuse with the other North Poles.
This one is nice; the fruit is smaller than medium, but perfect shape and not too low to the ground, it tastes nice, there are varieties more prolific than this one, but for me this is a "Cinderella", it works when everybody else is still asleep.
Give me a shout if you want some seeds!
As promissed, here's some snaps of my tom growing patch/methods
(http://bellebouche.com/snaps/a4a-tompatch1.jpg)
I've popped in links for the other two as I've left the actual snaps a little on the large size... don't want to muck up the flow of the thread.
http://bellebouche.com/snaps/a4a-tompatch2.jpg (http://bellebouche.com/snaps/a4a-tompatch2.jpg)
In the above snap you can see the steel poles, the rigging and the string I use to weave the plants around. The large bundles of fruit that are sagging down are marmande.. big bunches of heavy fruit has the plant sagging a bit but it still works well. The smaller fruited varieties are now close on 2M tall and doing very well
http://bellebouche.com/snaps/a4a-tompatch3.jpg (http://bellebouche.com/snaps/a4a-tompatch3.jpg)
A better/bigger snap of the whole patch.
I'd definitely be glad of some seed! I'll be posting some seeds in the swop section soon, when I have a few varieties sorted out. I'd be grateful for anything which does well out of doors here.
Natasha - leaf mould? Nothing better!
Summer in Russia? Not much of it in all our time in Murmansk!!
Adrian - you obviously have a younger back than I do??
Re Leaf removal, I always remove them up to the first truss when it starts ripening then on up to the second when that starts ripening. I feel it lets in more light and air and concentrates the plants energies into the fruits rather than foliage growth.
Of course leave some leaves on, the plant needs to make food for fruiting after all!. In addition leaf removal helps the plants conserve moisture (less leaves to support) and helps against disease (the bottom leaves tend to decay and attract fungal problems).
i have done a few (not very scientific) experiments with my tomatoes this year in an attempt to spread the crop and avoid the usual glut. This has included stopping plants earlier (afte one or two trusses instead of the usual 3 or 4), with the hope these would crop earlier. This has not worked really, the 'stopped' plants did not ripen their fruits any quicker than the normal plants.
I also tried to save space by growing more than one plant in a larger than usual container. This again has not had any advantage over the normal method (used as a 'control'). I would probably be better off trying twin cordons on one plant, in one pot.
What has worked though is my experiment with planting mixture. I normaly use a 50;50 mix of multipurpose compost and john innes no 3. However growing the quantitiies of tomatoes that i do, this can prove qute expensive (if effective). So this year when i found myself with some good topsoil from the garden spare I decided to use this instead of John Innes. The soil was seived but not sterilised (dont have the facilities), to produce a fine material which was then mixed with the bought multipurpose, and the tomato plants planted into it in the normal pots.
I did worry that there might be too many weed seeds or worse pathogens in the soil would harm the tomato plants, but whilst a few weeds did appear, the tomatoes grew fine, just as good as in the John innes mix, and are now cropping heavily. I shall certainly be thinking of doing the same again next year!
I hate an argument - so this is NOT an argument.
But I just cannot see the logic in removing most of the feeding leaves from tomatoes.
In my 45 years here, I have never done more than what I've said above, & when we were growing them commercially in Jersey, there were certainly not enough hands to defoliate an acre of toms.
And we didn't do too badly, despite that!
belle,
i love your tomato plants! maybe that will be my goal for next year....
shamrock
Well this is certainly an interesting thread, hopefully all you tomato growers can answer a couple of questions for me.
1. What is a cordon, as opposed to a bush?
2. Although I have now grasped the pinching out of the sideshoots from Tim's explanation, can I pinch out the tops to stop them hitting the roof of greenhouse and breaking?
3. What is the best way of supporting the tomatoe plants, trellis?, bamboo stakes? or some other type of support?
any suggestions or answers gratefully recieved, as I have had problems with all but my hanging basket toms
Kathi
1. I will leave this to one of the experts amongst us ... (displaying the limits of my knowledge)
2. Yes, pinch out the growing tip when you like. The plants will then divert their energies (allegedly) into fruiting.
3. I guess the correct answer is which is most suitable for you. I use bamboo canes, whereas my neighbour hangs strings from the roof and trains them onto the strings very successfully. I found trellis to be a bit cumbersome in a greenhouse, but for outdoor tomatoes it could be very effective.
Hope this helps ...
What a fabulous tomato patch bellebouche, I really wanted to see how you grew that feast! ;D
Huge Thanks Curry, that is useful info! ;D
Just thought, when having my rest that, if anyplant needed thinning, it would be a bush?
Prink - a cordon keeps on growing upwards - usually kept to one stem - until you stop it. A bush - usually earlier - grows to 2-3 feet, on many stems, & then stops.
and also to be boringly pedantic :-[ toms are divided into 2 groups 'determinate' (these tend to be bush type) and 'indeterminate' (these tend to be cordons)
I like the bush type because they need so little work (not that I'm lazy) and I grow them outsise leaving more room in the greenhouse for other things but at the end of the day it has to be taste that should decide what tomato you grow
Here's one of my tomato rows. Not many ripe fruit in sight because I pick them rather than leaving them on the plant; Taxi in the foreground, Black Seaman, which hasn't ripened yet, behind. As you can see, some have collapsed, others haven't. I really must organise better supports for next year.
Great stuff - but not at my age!!
It's so pleasing to see these - especially as my toms have become wild luxuriant and I've stopped paying too much attention to pinching out. I am surrounded by models of pinched-out rigidity with old Italian gent across the path from me and the site rep from whom I get a good ribbing I can tell you :-X So pleased you are growing the Black Seaman outdoors, kind natasha sent me some seeds so I know what to aim for next year. Do post more pics when you have time Robert, they are very helpful indeed :)
Quote from: tim on August 16, 2006, 17:11:02
Just thought, when having my rest that, if anyplant needed thinning, it would be a bush?
Prink - a cordon keeps on growing upwards - usually kept to one stem - until you stop it. A bush - usually earlier - grows to 2-3 feet, on many stems, & then stops.
I have a mystery bush variety that has reached 8' and shows no sign of stopping, it is meant to be principe borghese but none of the fruit is nippled as on my other PB plants. it is loaded with fruit, thousands of them.
I am saving seed from it in abundance as it it is totally blight free, even though its neighbours are struggling.
I'll post more when I've got something that adds something new; all my rows look like that at the moment. I'm not at all happy with the staking, but I grow everything as bush because of the shorter season outdoors (most of them are bush anyway), and don't remove anything. As you can see, I get lots of fruit.
"I am saving seed from it in abundance as it is totally blight free"
We'll no doubt be after some when ready?
On second thoughts, Robert - better than having to carry & pour 2cwt of water daily for the greenhouse??
I know my tomatoe plant looked really bad, but it does have fruit on it, althought it was planted at the start of June the fruit is still not ripe.
Is this normal or should i remove the fruit, i have the same problem with the tumber, loads of fruit but not ripe.
When I put my greenhouse up (hopefully over the winter), I will grow some toms in it, but probably only for the beginning and end of the season, I don't want to go overboard when I've got the space outside. I'm going to need a system for watering; probably water butts topped up from a hose to get round silly Council restrictions which they're trying to enforce, and some sort of drip feed which could be put on for a couple of hours a day if I was going to be down there. If I wasn't staying, it would have to be either a watering can or a hosepipe, which I do try to avoid.
If your tom has reached eight feet, Amphibian, are you sure it's really a bush?
Chris, they will ripen, just give them time. As soon as the toms start to swell, peeps want them ripe. How impatient are we all!! I am as bad, but I have learnt to wait. Ripening on the plant gives you such sweet fruits, proplerly red all the way through, and some, melt in the mouth! Devine!!
Tim, the leaves I remove are those in the way. As usual, I cram everything in, so to let me get through the crowds, I take away the leaves in the way. Other than that, they tend to stay unless they look iffy. As for dusting, I know I should spray, but I would have to make the spray up at home and take it to the plot to do it, and I never remember to do that until I am there and looking at the plants. The powder I buy cheap in the sales at a large store in Devon and it sits in my shed all winter until I need it in June.
And as for the rest of you, glad to see my toms are as (nicely put Sarah) luxuriant as yours! ;D
Emma - exactly what I said elsewhwere - hate the spiders & webs as I squeeze through. NOT a question of losing weight - it's my face that gets snarled up!
Hello,
I put about 10 tomato plants in the conservatory, and the others dotted around the flower garden, as it seemed a shame to throw them away. I think it got too hot in the conservatory this year, one morning was a bit late opening the door and it was 44 degrees!!! The plants looked awful, and most of the leaves shrivelled, even with watering 3 times a day.Very poor show, with few small tomatoes.
However, the ones in the garden are going MAD! They are collapsing under the weight of the crop. I'm glad I didnt throw them away, as they will be giving me loads of tomatoes. I think I will need to rethink my tomato methods if this global warming continues. Perhaps I could put tomatoes outside and keep inside for melons.....mmm .
cj :)
Quote from: carolinej on August 23, 2006, 22:58:45
I think I will need to rethink my tomato methods if this global warming continues. Perhaps I could put tomatoes outside and keep inside for melons.....mmm .
Caroline, that's
exactly what I'm thinking for next year too ::)
Mine are producing loads of fruit outside, but they do start later, and you have to watch out for blight.