A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Tomato fruit set...post your results

Black Plum is really loading up on fruit. Bloody Butcher and German Red Strawberry, too, and quite a few on Arkansas Traveler. First fruit on Aunt Rubies German Green and Rutgers, a few on Delicious, ditto Yellow Pear. A few nice fruits on Mortgage Lifter. Looking too be a good season here if all goes well, after a very slow start. Temps have mellowed a bit.

Ciao all,

Here is my update and I thought I'd include only the date of first fruit set for each variety and add to this list as I go along. Hopefully this information will be marginally interesting for people apart from myself, John, and Dave, lol. I considered including date of first open flower and number of fruit, but decided against it because I'm trying to marginalize my tendency to be overly anal-retentive. Ok, here goes and I apologize for some redundancy..an attempt for complete notes. I'm going in order by row and bed.

Main Bed

Opalka #6: 25 June
Orange Banana: 23 June
Borgo Cellano: 18 June
Cuostralee: 23 June
Cherokee Purple: 24 June
Aunt Ruby's German Green: 23 June
Brandywine Yellow Platfoot Strain: 23 June
Black Heart: 21 June
Prue: 25 June
Anna Russian: 25 June
Manyel: 23 June
Black Krim: 25 June
Sungold F1: 18 June

Left New Bed

Aunt Gertie's Gold NOT: 24 June
Grub's Mystery Green: 24 June

Right New Bed

Kotlas: 18 June
Moskvich: 25 June
Happy F1: 24 June

Munchkin's Garden

Sophie's Choice: 20 June
Whippersnapper: 12 June

Front Patio

Patio Orange (pot): 25 June

Driveway

Mountain Princess (bucket): 22 June
Kimberley (bucket): 18 June

This last week of cooler weather has helped all of the plants set fruit. A full truss of Manyel and Green Grape abcissed I'm pretty sure due to high heat and humidity. Most of the plants are between 3-4' in height now, with a few exceptions which were very small at transplantation and are not showing any signs of buds at the moment. I have what I think may be curly leaf virus on the smaller of my Kotlas plants..I need to confirm that with a picture sent to "the experts". I counted 23 flowers on one German Red Strawberry flower cluster. Holy Mary, mother of God if all of those set fruit!

Cheers and happy growing,
Julianna

All my mater plants have flower buds, and hopefully they'll all turn into maters.

Julianna, I attempted to get Sophie's Choice, but couldn't come up with it. Let me know how that one is. Yellow BW too.

Dave, your plants are really coming into full swing!

Mothman, how many cherry varieties have you tried?

Well I'm a Southerner and I'm already eating my tomatoes but I'll chime in anyway lol.

I have one Tiny Tim I should harvest the first two tomatoes off of it this week. They are orange but not red yet.

I have one Cherry tomatoe from phoenix that is producing several tomatoes every week.

I have one cherry tomato that I planted from some that I got at the grocery store. It produces great but the tomatoes don't taste as well as the parent did.

I have several Romas and the first tomato from them should be ready to harvest this week.

I have one surviving brandywine that has one green tomatoe on it that is still growing. And that's my tomato story and I'm sticking to it lol.

Thanks for the post John I've enjoyed reading and participating in it.

seed saved from hybrids, which most supermarket tomatoes are, do not normally taste anything like the parents. This is exactly how the big commercial seed companies want it. FORCES you to go to them for the seed. :rolleyes:

No problem TK! Did you have other brandywine plants that succomb to disease or something?

Ciao John,

I've got lots of Sophie's seeds, I'll hook you up. I'm hopefully going to have lots of Yellow BW seeds as well for distribution in Fall.

TK,

I'm assuming you had more than just the one green Brandywine? You've harvested some? How were they for you? We had the sweetest BLTA (A is for Avocado) sandwiches with those last year. One sometimes frustrating thing about Brandywines is that they are quite sensitive to humidity and their blossoms will drop like crazy if it gets hot and humid. So far so good, I haven't had that problem yet, but maybe it's like that in Virginia? Could be why you might be having a dearth of fruit right now.

Cheers,
Julianna

I planted 6 La Roma II tomatoes. My first ripe tomato off of them probably weighed close to a half pound! It was huge. My neighbor kept insisting that I should have picked it while orangey-yellow and ripened it in the house, which I absolutely refused to do. When do you guys pick your mators? I've probably thrown away 2 dozen BER tomatoes, and each plant still has a least a dozen healthy mators. These tomatoes (even when ripened on the vine) are a little on the bland side. Not like the slicing tomatoes I'm used to growing.

Sarah

You're the best!

I have 8 tomato plants--4 are Roma's, one is a cherry and the other 3 I don't know what they are--a big boy maybe and an early girl? I have some pretty green tomatoes on all the plants but it'll still be a while yet before I get to eat/harvest any.

Except for the cherry tomatoes. I expect to have some in a week or two from it.

I'm in northern South Dakota and got my plants in well before the recommended time for my area--I think mine were in in very early May.

Stuspot, are you anywhere near the Laura Ingalls Wilder sites in DeSmet?

Yes, I am north of there but pretty close. I have been to the pageant (?) they do there, but not since I was a little girl.

Wow, how neat. I'm really interested if you saw and went into, any of the Ingalls' houses or other sites?

JohnCT, what does tomato blight look like? And what causes it?

Have a look for yourself Deb. Blight specifically is caused by fungi, but there are also bacterial diseases that affect tomatoes. Certain weather conditions are also necessary for the presence of blight. Specifically the kind of cool, wet, rainy weather that we are having in the northeast for the past month!!

http://www.avrdc.org/photos/tomato_diseases/

UH OH

I just read, that some pick off the flowers when the tomato is set.
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

Have I somehow missed a whole step?

Also does anyone here use copper spray or dust for tomato plants.

It means that some people prefer to pinch flowers off when they transplant their maters in the garden. The theory is that it forces the plant to expend it's energy into root growth and establishment rather than producing fruit. It's nothing to get worried about.

You mean copper spray for use as a fungicide? There are better ones available. From what I've read, they do not provide any control for late blight. Get a product containing Daconil like Ortho's garden disease spray or something similar which will help provide control for both early and late blight. They are two completely different diseases.

Thanks, John, that's a really helpful site-I've bookmarked it for future reference.

I picked close to a 20 Roma's tonight, I plan to make sauce out of them very soon.

Thank you,John, for the help on my 'mater' questions.
I am sooooooooo ready for mine to ripen. Maybe I will have a few by late next week. MMMMMM I spied a little zucchini today.

Man am I jealous! I can only eagerly await my first fruit to ripen on a couple plants.

I picked my first New Girl on Monday, and another yesterday. My New Girl and my earlier Brandywine are now over 6 feet tall!.

Ciao all,

LOL John, you're ahead of me if you've got some close to ripening. None of mine are close. The gap is closing on ones left to flower and set fruit, though. Less than 10 out of 60 now, whew.

lakegran,

Some of us also take the spent flowers off the plants when we can see a small tomato underneath the petals. This is an extra step, largely compulsive, and unnecessary, but some of us can't help ourselves, nonetheless.

Cheers,
Julianna, a self-proclaimed compulsive tomato flower puller offer

LARGELY!!

Julianna, I wouldn't say WAY ahead. The largest fruit on Kimberly hasn't shown any sign of ripening.

Pulling off spent flowers? I've done that on a few plants, here and there, to see if a certain variety is setting fruit. Where'd anyone get the impression that's necessary?
John, when did you become an advocate of Daconil? I wish I knew more about that product. Copper sprays and Serenade may, reportedly, do as well, though I've never used any of these. I'm trying Serenade for the first time this year, I like all the Bt products I've ever tried, but I'm scared of products that aren't organic. On the other hand, I'm seeing leaf disease on many plants already. In years past, I assumed this was normal, but I'd like to get maximum yield for my efforts. What do you do, Julianna?