PNW: Tomato Tuesday 2012

Nonna.PapaVino wrote:Rose, love hearing about your tomato adventures. What kind of paste tomatoes are you raising? Have you had good experience with it in the past? Last year, we had some good luck with a variety called Federle, with some of the fruits being 7" long. It's a kind with few seeds, so makes a great canned spaghetti sauce variety. Nonna

hi nonna

our paste tomato plants are *Super Italian Paste* Heirloom...this is the first year growing them....so far they are doing very well ...ooh your Federle sounds good.....we are wanting a good meaty paste with low seeds to use for sauce ...yet we will be happy to have a ripe tomato to slice and put on a sandwich we planted several differnt types of heirlooms just to see how they will hold up here in the PNW....some are doing better then others

three Super Italian Paste...with a double fruit at the bottom turning red



two Super Italian Paste



hugs
rose

.....some tom's are doing better then others....yet....the ones that are looking pretty sick and sad...still try to please us with providing some fruit







this guy was really sick as a seedling and we almost thru him out (there are two plants there together in one pot).....(they grew to close together as a seedling) so they became one and .....with some loving care and keeping him close to the house he is looking the best and giving us some fruit....havent tasted any yet....but looking forward to it



our sucker rooting doing very well in our SFG



our son may be able to eat these tomorrow he is so excited these are called sweetie's and they are in [i]his[/i] self watering container with MM



eating one or two a day now of these little fruits.....from saved seeds from last years volunteer ...my son said they are yummy!....the one that i tried tasted as though it wasnt ripe enough just yet....



hugs
rose

GWN wow your tomato plants look great!!....look how tall the one in the bucket is

hugs
rose who is not tall enough to reach the batteries and not brave enough to climb up on top of hubbys work bench to get them LOL GWN!

Hmmm HOW TALL..... much taller than me, and I am 5 feet 2.. I think one of them is up to 8 feet because it is starting to grow across the top of the greenhouse (I am envisioning tomatoes hanging down over my head )
I was ruthless this year, I had ended up in several cases with 2 plants growing together either in the same square, or the same bucket. In each case they were not doing as well as the ones that were one to a square or one to a bucket so I chopped them down...
Janet who is a ruthless tomato plant logger

GWN wrote:... who is a ruthless tomato plant logger

There's a common joke on sitcoms where the mom, fed up with her kids, let's loose the line "I gave you life, and I can take it away". Obviously, not true with kids (which is why it's supposed to be funny), but it is true with the seedlings we grow! They are just plants. Glad to hear they are peforming better for you now you've logged the extra's out of the way.

peforming better for you now you've logged the extra's out of the way.

Its kind of more funny because i am little miss tree hugger....

Judicious pruning is not destroying.

Kay

True, walshevak, true, especially in North Carolina. However, here in the Pacific Northwest where weather is cool, often almost cold under all-too-often morning overcast conditions, combined with a relatively short season, I've found that allowing a few "suckers" to grow up and set flowers/fruit gives me a better yield of tomatoes for canning come end of September. Anyone else experience this, or am I dreaming? Nonna

Even in NC I allowed a couple of suckers grow. Mostly because I just couldn't cut off those flowers at the time. Have no idea if they are doing well. Remember I said JUDICIOUS. That can mean more or less depending on the plant or in your case, the climate.
ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL

Kay

Yep, Kay, I agree. Sometimes benign neglect is good. Nonna, who paid attention to the weather prediction tonight and drew up the plastic sheet over the most tender plants. Blaaach, doesn't MomNature realize it's almost August, for love's sake?

Yep, Kay, I agree. Sometimes benign neglect is good. Nonna, who paid attention to the weather prediction tonight and drew up the plastic sheet over the most tender plants. Blaaach, doesn't MomNature realize it's almost August, for love's sake?

This is my "first year of being ruthless", almost sounds like a movie title doesnt it? It is just because the tomatoes are in confined quarters..... so to speak....I thought I would devote this year to keeping them to one vine. I have been amazed at how darn sneaky them tomatoes are. I go out there with a vigilant eye searching for any suckers..... EVERY DAY...
Then all of a sudden there is this huge BRANCH that I Have to chop off.
It is an experiment, and who knows I might just let it all hang out next year.

So, have you ever taken one of those huge suckers, rooted it, and had it give you a couple of tomatoes? Only had it succeed once, but made me wonder if it would be a viable idea for the greenhouse. Whadda 'ya think? Nonna

we rooted a sucker and its in our SFG and doing well....lots of flowers....hoping we will get some fruit too....we cant remember though which plant it came from :scratch: .....we just wanted to see if we could do it ......now we have three more sitting in a glass of water in the house ......we were just talking about this last night wondering if we could root some more suckers to move into the green house when our summer is over..... :drunken:

what i was thinking is ....these suckers are the same age as the mother plant we clip them from .....yet...they are not as tall ....so my thinking is they would fit in our small green house ....and maybe we might get a few more matters from them......

who knows what will happen ......but it sure is fun trying

oh....almost forgot....our son had those two cherry tom's of his tonight.....his face lit up when he was chewing them up....he loved them!.....he is very excited to see he has lots more fruit coming too.....i dont know what happen.....we left for the day (he had an MRI)....... when we came home our plants had fruit on them that wasnt there the day before.....really strange......

hugs
rose...... who is worried about the weather.......it got really cold outside tonight brrrrr

Rose, Loved your post. Yup, those plants sit there looking all innocent, until you turn your back, then suddenly...there's fruit! How 'dey do dat? Being in the same less-than-sunny area as you, I pulled plastic up over the more-delicate melons, and the tomatoes I'm babying in hopes of enough fruit for canning at the end of August. After all, this IS Western Oregon, not Hermiston, right? Nonna

I have several of those LARGE SUCKERS in a large jar attempting to root them for fall growing.
They are still alive in the water, just waiting for roots.
Two of my prunings have been planted in an old concrete culvert, and are doing pretty well (not sure if the year is long enough for them to produce, but you never know what the fall will bring.....)

oh fun.....it will be fun to see what happens in the fall

everytime i think about trying something new......i remember the words boffer said once or maybe a few times....i just remember i was new to the forum.....but i will always remember him saying.....*its only a few seeds*.....*what will you lose if it doesnt work out*?

....well....I can apply that saying to a lot of things in life....this time....in my head im telling my self....its just a few suckers....what is there to lose.....

....our life has enough stress in it .....we are going to have fun in our family gardening!

hugs
rose

Nonna.PapaVino wrote:So, have you ever taken one of those huge suckers, rooted it, and had it give you a couple of tomatoes? Only had it succeed once, but made me wonder if it would be a viable idea for the greenhouse. Whadda 'ya think? Nonna

I have pulled a bunch of suckers off, filled an old 4" pot with compost and some dirt, and they have taken off! I've given the plants to friends who are telling me the plants are huge! I planted a TINY seedling I found growing in my gravel around my SFG. that TINY seedling is now about 10 feet x 10 feet loaded with baby tomatoes, blossoms and suckers! The neighbors are all laughing about how HUGE this plant is! It's crazy, and has taken over the whole planter! I say go for it!!

.its just a few suckers..

well actually
it is about 12 suckers that have all rooted in a jar )HUGE jar, and no sign of an overcast day on the horizon.

I previously had all of my strawberry runners rooting in the jar, they all rooted, but they all died in the garden WAY too hot.

maybe I will use shade cloth.....for the maters

I have pulled a bunch of suckers off, filled an old 4" pot with compost and some dirt, and they have taken off! I've given the plants to friends who are telling me the plants are huge! I planted a TINY seedling I found growing in my gravel around my SFG. that TINY seedling is now about 10 feet x 10 feet loaded with baby tomatoes, blossoms and suckers! The neighbors are all laughing about how HUGE this plant is! It's crazy, and has taken over the whole planter! I say go for it!!

So is it a brandywine?....

we have red and blushing tom's

dont know what this one is...i know its an heirloom but i for got to mark the last two that were planted.....but....it was really, really sweet, meaty and oh sooo good...we had to fight our 6 year old not to put the whole thing in his mouth when we were harvesting it.... ..it wasnt true red just yet....so it sat for two days with many tiny finger marks and maybe a lick or two but in the end we split it three ways



it came off of this very sick plant ....but it keeps giving and giving.....we hope to pick these red guys soon as well!



our big brandywine....is turning red!...the only fruit on this over 6ft plant ...and the plant looks sick too.....



our 5 super Italian paste are loaded with fruit we have harvest 2 so far and they are on the counter resting to turn darker



our six year old son's sweetie in his self watering container with MM....his plant has lots of fruit and a ton of flowers...he has not shared three of them so far ...he keeps reminding me that this plant is HIS!



our sucker that rooted.....has fruit now too!.....in box #1 SFG



one of our other brandywines....plant is looking better then the other two we have.....



heirloom rainbow



one of last years volunteer saved seeds plant



another sick plant....been trying to trim off the bad leaves in hopes we can keep it going to at least harvest the fruits.....



hugs
rose

Well well ROSE, who is in to tomatoes big time..... congrats.

GWN wrote:

I have pulled a bunch of suckers off, filled an old 4" pot with compost and some dirt, and they have taken off! I've given the plants to friends who are telling me the plants are huge! I planted a TINY seedling I found growing in my gravel around my SFG. that TINY seedling is now about 10 feet x 10 feet loaded with baby tomatoes, blossoms and suckers! The neighbors are all laughing about how HUGE this plant is! It's crazy, and has taken over the whole planter! I say go for it!!

So is it a brandywine?....

It's not a brandwine, it appears to be a cherry tomato. I'm really hoping it's a yellow cherry from last year. Those were the BEST tomatoes I've ever had ! There are literally hundreds of them but they're all green....keeping me in suspense!!

I finally have a picture of tomatoes growing in my SFG. Both tomatoes are growing on branches that sprouted where I'd had to trim off sick leaves. I let them grow since I had nothing but blossom drop all through June. I did cut a couple other branches off today though. The first sets of blossoms on them hadn't set fruit and now that I have a couple growing and it's so late in the season, I want the plant to focus on those two.

GWN wrote:Well well ROSE, who is in to tomatoes big time..... congrats.

i really hope the weather allows them to ripen......last year we had a lot of green tomato fruit.....

i dont care for fried green tomato....

we tried to ripen them inside and it didnt really turn out so well.....we were able to get a few....the rest rotted....

this time were going to try and hang them on the vines upside down inside the house or maybe in the green house and see if that works to get green ones to ripen.....

hugs
rose

gwen.....sorry to hear about your bloosoms falling off

the two in the pic look really good.....what kind are they...their really pretty

a lot of our fruits are kinda ulgy forming...not sure if thats an heirloom thing or just the type we planted.....all i know is our brandywine is really ugly but we cant wait to see how it taste

hugs
rose