Tomato Tuesday for the PNW

It is a new day. Hope fills my soul. My Tomatoes are not nearly as far along as Boffer's but I'm trying to be ok with that. By the way Steve, your green tomatoes are beautiful. Just the perfect amount of ruffle.

Feature Tomato of the day: Tiffen Mennonite

(OP) 85 days. Once you taste Tiffen Mennonite, you'll know why it was a winner of our 2003 Great Northwest Tomato Taste-Off. The sweet, yet tangy flavor and large sized fruit of this pink-skinned heirloom make it a great slicing candidate for your favorite sandwich. These whoppers can grow 5 1/2 inches across and are born on potato leaved, indeterminate plants.

Tif is my only potato leaved plant, it is also the shortest of my indeterminate plants.

I did not start this plant myself. It came to my home with the cherry tomatoes I ordered from TSC. Right away it struggled thrive. Of all the plants I put under the tent it stayed purple the longest. It is covered with blooms but shows no evidence of fruit yet. I agree with Steve, it doesn't look good for long season fruit.

Decided to take a risk and put the rain gear away. Can you see little Tiffen all short and sweet?

Whoops! This poor neglected baby is Beaver Lodge Plum, trying to fulfill Elohim's command to be fruitful even though I did not keep my end of it (tend the garden). Amazing what creation will do to obey. I'm sorry I missed this in the up-potting and daily watering. Poor thing.

I found something upsetting today This is so early to find one of my babies rotten......this is what i found last year at the end of summer......i had ton's of large green tomato's that all turned out to be rotten before they were ripe....i did not get one red one my hopes were high this go around because most of my babies i seeded my self and waited on them hand and foot!

is this BER?....it came from my rainbow from our school plant sale.....this rotten tomato was not the first tomato to come.....the first green baby is growing nice and green still and he has a lot more babies growing.....the whole tomato was rotten from the top to the bottom.....the first pic you can see it on the left hand side....its the yellow one....the rest all felt solid and green....I am also seeing some leaf curl to them as well......





here are my four in my back garden....the first is the store bought, then my two from seeds and the last one is the rainbow from the school plant sale and the one with the rotten tomato



the three brothers from seed


the second store bought in my SFG


one of the ground cherry tomato's from the school plant sale....he is really taken off...he was sooo tiny when we got him and look at him now



here are the two left over babies sharing the same pot.....i keep meaning to transplant them some place.....they were left over's that i didnt have the heart to throw out....they are thriving....not sure they will do so well in the pot though....im just not sure where to plant them out side at.....i may break down and sneak out to get a larger planter.....pssst...dont tell hubby...he would have a fit



hugs
rose.......who told her self she was NOT going to plant and grow tomato's this year.....yet....seeded some seeds with son and up came babies she could not turn away from.....will be happy to share one ripe tomato with son

For the end of June tomato update the plants are looking very healthy, lots of blooms and thick stems. It does look like there will probably be some blossom drop but I am expecting it for the first round of flowers this year.

I know you cannot control the weather (I would never want to anyway). I have to laugh sometimes when I see the dark clouds overhead and drive 8 blocks east and it is raining and 10 blocks to the west there is sunshine.

I have been so happy with SFG that I planted half my normal amount of tomatoes this year and have larger variety of other items that I am very pleased with. Good luck to all!

FamilyGardening, the same thing happened to me in the middle of June. The five little fruits the Early Girl set thrilled me, until I noticed one looked a bit off. Yep, it was rotten to the core, as were two of its siblings. Paranoia set in big time, so I worked some bone meal in around the base of each and every tomato plant, thinking the calcium would help. Didn't someone mention using epsom salts to help ward off blossom end rot? Only other thing I can think of is more sunshine . Have a Happy (and hopefully sunny) Fourth of July everyone! Nonna

My tomato babies are no longer babies, they have grown and are about 4-5 feet tall and I found my first little tomato yesterday (about 1/4 inch).

To my dismay I found a broken branch that has blooms on it that is trying to heal itself and I am hoping for the best on that one.

I have lots of bees around so has long as the temps don't dip too much (clouds are on the way per the news) I am hoping for a better crop than last year.

Good luck to the PNW tomato growers this year!

Congrats Happycamper on your baby tomato coming

our tomato's are all doing pretty good.....no ripe ones yet.....we also have had to give them some *hair cuts* or in other words....we have been thining them....its still work in progress it was sooooo hard to cut them.....

my ground cherries


and they have fruit!


my three brothers from seed have blooms


our rainbow from the school plant sale....are still working on the same tomato's that they have been now for several weeks....still green and getting bigger along with some new green babies


starting from the left is my store bough replacment in the ground, then my two babies from seed and then the school rainbow at the end and they all have blooms


the other store bought replacment in my SFG


last my two extra's from seed that are still not transplanted and they have blooms


hugs
rose

FamilyGardening, The rainbow tomato plant looks to be a potato-leaf type of tomato. Makes me wonder: in both of our gardens, the potato-leaf tomato has the largest infant fruits. Is this particular to the Pacific Northwest, or just luck of the draw for the two of us? Hmmmmmm. For us, this is the first time ever that I've had baby tomatoes while the iris are blooming. Nonna

you know nonna i dont know.....we bought the rainbow at our local school plant sale and it had a little hand made tag that said rainbow on it....other then that i hadnt notice that the leaves are any differnt then my other tomato plants....tomorrow i will go and take a look and see i dont know the what it means to have potato leaves on it....i have heard people talk about it...or i should say read about it, but i dont know the difference.....if that made any since LOL

im still in shock on these green guys that keep growing larger but not turning color yet.....the only thing i can think of is that if this is an heirloom (sp?) that is it from a generation of plants that has become addaptive to our weather that maybe that is why its growing so well?.....i wish now that it had more info on it when i bought it....i am going to save some seeds from it and try and grow it again next year to see how it does....not sure what its going to taste like yet.....im sure better then anything i can buy from the big box stores LOL

if i had knows it was going to grow so well i would have put it in a bigger pot.....do you think i should transplant it? or would that just upset it to much?.....i just hope they turn out ok.....it will break my heart.....last year my heart was broken and i told my self i wasnt going to grow tomato this year.....well........

hugs
rose

Because it has already set fruit, it would be very difficult to move it into another pot without breakage and/or knocking the fruit off. Wouldn't it be better to just be sure it has all the nutrients and water it needs to live in its present pot and ripen the fruit? You might work some compost in around the base of the stem, or water it every two weeks with compost tea. When you get a ripe tomato or two, Google "rainbow tomato" and see if you can find out more about it. TomatoFest has in its online catalog a listing for Big Rainbow Tomato, but it says it's a regular leaf variety. ( From their description, though, it sounds yummy! http://store.tomatofest.com/Big_Rainbow_Heirloom_Tomato_Seeds_p/tf-0052.htm )

thanks nonna.....i see we are both up late tonight

i have been giving it lots of compost tea....its in a self watering container and most of the time when i fill it up i use compost tea water.......i have been keeping my eye on it....its the one that had the rotten fruit before it turned ripe....i added some calcium (sp?) to it and it seems to be doing ok now .....there is just so many fruit on it and it keep making more before the others even have a chance to rippen

hugs
rose

oh wanted to add....i havent had a chance to thin it out yet either.....should i do that now while it has so many fruits on it or wait until it slows down?

its also a lot shorter then my other plants that i know are indet plants...they are just now getting some flowers....im starting to wonder if this rainbow is a det since its getting so much fruit at one time......and maybe i shouldnt trim it....

this is my first year ever thinning out my tomato plants....hoping they will do better this year then last year

hugs
rose

Yup, I'm up late trying to identify a cause for some leaf yellowing on two of my tomato plants, you know: is it some kind of blight, or just a lack of adequate water during the four days we were in Eastern Oregon? So far, I'm ruling out blight because there is no rotting of stems or signs of mold spores. Best of luck with your Rainbow tomato--BTW, do you know if it is a bicolor tomato?

I dont know....so far they are only green

i know that yellowing can be a lack of calcium...(sp?) or to much water....i have also read that some tomato plants bottom leaves will turn yellow and die off...and its normal for that.....

hugs
rose.....who needs to get to bed!

well....my tomato plants are all doing ok...my rainbow fruits are starting to turn a slight yellow......( there are 15 tomato's on this one plant )....my two babies from seeds are getting lots of flowers.....my three brothers have lots of flowers....my one replacement in the SFG has some little green babies

i didnt get any pictures today because it decided to rain while i was out in the gardens today......they pretty much look the same as last time....

hugs
rose....who wonders how long does it take for a tomato to ripen :scratch:

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Thanks for sharing, that was neat!! Sounded like you were whispering though, I need to get my speakers out and hook them up, my husband's laptop is quiet.

Thanks for sharing that video Lavender Debs! I planted my very first tomato plant because someone on these forums posted a link to a YouTube video about "stringing and suckering" indeterminate tomatoes and it looked like so much fun I just had to try it. The branches on mine are angling down quite sharply too, and the bottom ones are touching the ground. I was wondering why it was growing like that. Glad to see it's just a growth habit that some plants have. And now I can feel comfortable trimming up those lower branches. Thanks! (Oh - mine is also growing up really wavy like another one you showed in your video).

Great video Deb!

i hate the weather!.....my rainbow still has the same green tomato's on him that he has had for several weeks now and no change of color....poor thing.....not sure how long he can hold out with no hot weather.....we are thinking about moving some of them around as well.....

thanks for sharing with us.....it really does help and ease my mind when i see how others in the same weather area are doing with their gardens.....some of my tomato plants have the same looking leaves as your does and i was getting a little stressed about it....i have also trim all mine so that they are not touching the dirt.....some of their leaves are curling as well.....and they are having some yellow streaking going on too.....

i just keep telling my self that we know its hard to grow tomato's....some years are better then others and its just a wait and see.....we will rejoice with a red tomato and if not....then there is always next year.......i think they are so pretty and they smell good rather we get anything to eat from them or not

hugs
rose

the sun was out today so i was able to take a few pics

we moved our school rainbow to our red rock garden area...it gets more sun so we are hoping it will help those green tomato's to ripen up!.....we lost one of the big ones....we snip it off because i noticed it looked a bit mushy on top....the bottom seem fine though...so not sure if that is BER or not ...there still is about 15 fruits on there still on this one little tomato plant....



here are my three brothers babies from seed....growing tall with lots of flowers...still no fruit.....



here is one of my store bought replacments in our SFG...he has some green fruit



here are the two extra's babies from seed....still in the same pot...growing taller with lots of flowers....



my other two babies from seed and second store bought replacement that are in the three sisters garden are all growing taller and flowering.....no fruit yet....the plant on the far left is the rainbow that we moved to the other garden....he is the smallest yet the one that is making the biggest and the most fruit :scratch:



hugs
rose who hopes by moving her baby into better sun she will get a ripe fruit!

forgot my ground cherry tomato's.....they are doing great....the little pods seem empty though....none of them have fallen off yet....so im in hopes we will still get some fruit from them


as i was out taking pictures today between the rain breaks...i found my first baby green fruit on one of my babies from seed....


hugs
rose

Good news/bad news. Bad: found one potato leaf tomato with classic signs of blight; ripped it out and burned it. Good: lots of green tomatoes on other plants, and--wonder of wonders--one red and two orange tomatoes, small variety, but, hey, who's counting? I notice the Master Gardner down the hill from us has tented her tomatoes with plastic, open-ended, over a tall frame. Perhaps I should do this also to cut down on the moisture reaching the plants and contributing to things like blight. What do y'all think?

So far, only one ripe tomato, Stupice and really small that we harvested around the 15th.

Cherokee Purple

Ground Cherry

Japanese Black Trifele

Tomatillo



Even the early season tomatoes, Manitoba and Stupice are not producing well. Sigh

We have had about 12 ground cherries fall off the plant. We tried two and they are very sweet, more like a fruit not really a tomatoey taste. Hope I get enough to make a jar or two of ground cherry jam.



But, it still is early. Last year no appreciable harvest (of what did mature) until late August.

seems like my plants are getting taller, making some fruit but nothing ripe to eat

our school rainbow....still has ton of green fruit....nothing getting red....they just keep growing larger....and this is a tiny plant compared to my others...this is the one we moved from the three sisters garden to our SF rock garden....they do seem to be turning a more yellow color now....fingers crossed we get some ripe ones!



this plant is having some leaf issues....i dont think it's blight...but not sure :scratch:







here is one of my ground cherry tomato from our school plant sale...seems to be growing fine....lots of flowers and paper lantern's.....we did have one fall off only to find a little green fruit inside....not ripe







here is our replacement tomato in our SFG....he has a couple of green fruit





here is our three brothers from seed....growing tall...lots of flowers and they just got their first green fruit!





here is our second store bought replacement and our two from seeds out in our three sisters garden.....they have lots of flowers and are starting to set fruit





hugs

rose who is only seeing green......

Tomatoes are looking good, lots of baby green "maters" and the plants are very healthy.

I went into the garden yesterday morning and saw a hole approx. two inches around at the base of my biggest plant, I must say I was freaked out.

I found the culprit a MOLE with an orange chest, dead, right next to the cat. I couldn't bring myself to throw it in the garbage and it was buried under a plum tree.

I am the resident spider, bug and snake remover of the house but I don't do rodents!



I am hoping the plant is large enough that it won't suffer from the roots being pushed around.