the flying dutchman

Benny, it is just a straight horizontal cut.

Here is a link to a dutch company that produce them. Click on the foto link
at the bottem of the site.

FortaPlant - Tomatenplanten

They use kind of plastic clips/tubes to hold the 2 parts together.
You have to use a sterile knife etc. ofcourse.

Ron

turtile

I've tried Persimmon but did not get tomatoes that big! Most of them were around 1lb. with the biggest 2lb. Did you pull the suckers (branches) off?

Some of the Brandywine varieties that I tried produced bigger tomatoes but they did not produce as much per plant. The Persimmon variety had loads of tomatoes while the Brandywine only had a few.

Try adding Fafard Growing Mix #2 or Pro-mix BX. It comes in 3.8 cu.ft. bails. The peat and vermiculite help hold moisture and nutrients in the soil and the perlite helps with aeration. Magnesium is also important for tomatoes which can be washed away in sandy soil.

Some of the heat resistant varieties may do better but I've never tried them.

The most popular tomatoes around here seem to be Empire, Jet Star, Supersonic, Celebrity, Big Boy, Better Boy, Rutgers, Roma, Beefsteak Cherry tomatoes, and Grape tomatoes (not sure of the exact variety for Cherry/Grape)

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Richard

Nope, I let it develop into a 6' x 6' mounding mass of vines and fruit. I was expecting 12oz to 1lb fruit, so the size was shocking.

If I could only grow 1 plant in a pot it would be Cherokee Purple in a 40 gallon tub. For my tastes, I haven't found a better tomato. Once you start taking slices off of it, the remainder will keep in the refrigerator for at least a week.

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turtile

How long do your tomato plants last before dying? I always have loads of unripe tomatoes that never ripen due to frost.

I tried Cherokee Purple but it didn't grow well here. They barely produced any fruit and the fruit was webbed, ribbed and cracked after rain (which let slugs and insects in).

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NanaNut2

We have a short growing season here as well. When I grew tomatoes, just before the first frost, I would cut the vines, tomatoes and all, and hang them upside down on a line inside to ripen. That doubled my harvest. But still had tons of green tomatoes for green tomatoe relish. Yum.
NanaNut2

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NanaNut2

Richard

Yes, everyone should take advantage of this approach. I learned it from my aunt.

In my experience, the first fruits on Cherokee Purple are always knarly. It takes 100 or so days to produce fruit, so you need seedlings in the ground the first week of April. The harvest will be poor if the plant is not fed properly. I think most consumer "tomato" food has too much Nitrogen. Use a bloom formula that is something like 3-12-12. Feed it regularly once the plant is established in the ground.

I can tell you that this approach works in Newton, NJ.

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bencelest

Ron: Thanks for the idea grafting tomatoes. Gogooled has many threads that I found. I will try that this summer.

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Banana Nut

Yojinbo

I am growing "Orange Strawberry" this year.

Ahava

For some reason I cannot beat the plain ol' Roma but being where I am I love making salsa's and sauces from mine. And I haven't found a tomato yet for flavor that makes better salsa than the Roma, but I have a lot of fun trying. For robust earthy tomato flavor, I love the brandywine tomatoes. This year other than the roma's I don't know what I want to do. I need to figure out what to do with these darn gophers first.

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bencelest

Amber. I'll ask you a favor I'll PM you soon.

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Banana Nut

Richard

Here are two outstanding Romas:
Striped Roman from Underwood Gardens-Heirloom seeds, open pollinated and rare seeds.
San Marzano Redorta from Grow Italian

The strain of Striped Roman they have at Underwood Gardens is unique.

Gophers.
The most effective way is to hire an agricultural service to pump flamable gas down all the holes in the neighborhood and ignite it, then you and your neighbors put strychnine down any new holes (sorry).
The alternative is to build an 18 inch high raised bed about 3 feet wide and with 3 feet of length for every tomato or equivalent plant. Line the bottom and the sides with 1/2 inch metal chicken wire so that the mesh extends 2 feet out of the ground all the way around to become a fence.

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Ahava

Dont' be sorry, hell I wanted to get a BB gun and wait for them to pop their heads out and take their little heads off. >.> But I'm on five acres, and we have animals that do hunt and eat them. It's a bigger problem because the guy across the street has only horses and they seem to be breeding the varmints. I've thought about doing the raised bed. My time is running out to figure out what I'm going to do. I'm tempted just to do all my veggies in barrels, and make a meshing for when I plant my bananas in ground. Also thanks for the links, I will look into those romas they sound awesome. And lastly Bence I'll be looking for your msg.

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Richard

Interesting thing about the gas-flame treatment: gophers and snakes will not reuse holes with ash in them. Any animal that eats a fried gopher suffers no harm. The larger problem is the breeding ground across the street. For that you need to find a fruit farmer that is raising six-toed cats to keep the gophers and squirrels to a minimum in his orchards. No joke, six toes on the hind feet and 5 on the front.

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sandy0225

This is a subject I love!
I grow about a million different kinds of heirloom tomatoes each year, and sell plants. I sell seeds too. I plant too many in the garden, last year, I think 125 plants I planted last year,and I sell tomatoes at the farmers market all summer too.
I have a list of the ones I grew out last year and sold on my website. Northern Tropics: Home
It's on the second page, you look up at the top of the page and click the second tab. It says solutions I think, but I couldn't change the tab name on the website, so I just have to live with it.
I haven't heard of Caltrans, but it's not uncommon for people to "change" the names of tomatoes they're selling at the farmers market. Another vender with me, he calls Pineapple tomatoes "big stripeys" instead and people buy them because they're different. It could be Golden Jubilee, an great old timey deep orange one.
Kellogg's Breakfast is wonderful, so is Persimmon. I'm trying a new one this year, Woodle Orange. I love white tomatoes too, especially White Wonder and White Queen. I especially like the "peach skinned" fuzzy ones though--I grow Furry Red Boar, Pink Peach, Garden Peach, Elberta Peach, and Angora.
Sincerely,

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Sandy Burrell



Northern Tropics Greenhouse
1501 East Fuson Road
Muncie, IN 47302
www.northerntropics.com


specializing in bananas, heirloom tomatoes and water gardening plants~
check out our new online store at our website!

D_&_T

road trip !!! tomatoes and bananas

and met to 2 members!

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harveyc

LOL, Sandy, think of the California Department of Transportation folks that where orange vests so they don't get run over by cars when their resting on their shovels!!! (In case there are any CalTrans workers reading this, I'm just joking.)

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NANAMAN

I have a book by Charles Wilbur titled: How to grow world record tomatoes
The pictures alone are worth the $15.00 asking price of the book. It's a pretty good resource for verticle growth of tomatoes

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NANAMAN

I tasted this years Odoriko's on a bacon and tomato sandwich. I was looking at the sliced tomato on the counter, and thought I'd post a pic. They sure are great !!!

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sunfish

Tomatoes I'm growing this year.
San Mazano
Paul Robinson
Black from Tula Beefsteak
Hungarian Pink
Red Current
Marvel Stripe
Sweet Million
Green Giant
Black Cherry
Purple Calabash
Huge Black
Earls Faux
Purple Hillbilly
German Green
Heirloom Mix
Prudens Purple
Cherokee Purple
Red and Pink Brandywine and a few others

Jack Daw

That's a lot of tomatoes. I too intend to plant 10+ varieties, all sizes, all colors and all shapes that have been grown in Panonia for centuries. Good luck to yours, sunfish!

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Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



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