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Fart Car '97 posted:http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/pruning-tomatoes.aspx wow, thats awesome. I've always grown big bushy tomato plants, never thought about pruning them before. Thanks!
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Apr 21, 2014 12:37
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Cimber posted:wow, thats awesome. It's also worth noting that you shouldn't prune determinate varieties a lot (a little is still good), but indeterminate varieties are AOK to prune away.
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Apr 21, 2014 13:40
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Fart Car '97 posted:It's also worth noting that you shouldn't prune determinate varieties a lot (a little is still good), but indeterminate varieties are AOK to prune away. I've never pruned mine, but I hope to this year. I knew a guy at a community garden a couple of years ago who built a veritable scaffolding system for his tomatoes. I guess he must have pruned them, too, but he had the things looking more like trees in an orchard than tomatoes in a garden. I don't think they had any foliage below, say, 3 or 4 feet high, and I'm pretty sure they were taller than I am. I don't know what his yield was like, but they were some impressive plants.
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Apr 21, 2014 14:27
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Sorry, but what do you mean by determinate and indeterminate?
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Apr 21, 2014 14:33
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Cimber posted:Sorry, but what do you mean by determinate and indeterminate? Easiest way to explain is that determinate is bushy (the branches reach a certain length and stop growing longer) and indeterminate is trailing/"vining" (i.e. the branches continue to grow outward).
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Apr 21, 2014 15:12
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Hummingbirds posted:Easiest way to explain is that determinate is bushy (the branches reach a certain length and stop growing longer) and indeterminate is trailing/"vining" (i.e. the branches continue to grow outward). Determinate bushes will also tend to bear and ripen all of their fruit at once, where indeterminate vines will continue to bear and ripen fruit until the plants freeze to death. Also most of the tastiest heirlooms are indeterminate!
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Apr 21, 2014 15:21
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Peristalsis posted:I've never pruned mine, but I hope to this year. Some people go too far, I think. The goal of my pruning is to just not have any wasted space. A continuous canopy of leaves with as little overlap as possible is ideal, but you don't really want gaps either.
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Apr 21, 2014 15:32
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Hummingbirds posted:Easiest way to explain is that determinate is bushy (the branches reach a certain length and stop growing longer) and indeterminate is trailing/"vining" (i.e. the branches continue to grow outward). Ahh, alright. Will that be a description on the seed package? Speaking of which, Its almost time for me to put the seeds into the starter containers and start them growing. I generally don't put my plants into the ground until memorial day weekend, gives the ground a lot of time to warm up and removes any chance of a late frost.
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Apr 21, 2014 15:54
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Cimber posted:Ahh, alright. Will that be a description on the seed package? Maybe, but a quick google search for any given variety will also tell you.
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Apr 21, 2014 15:59
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Fart Car '97 posted:Maybe, but a quick google search for any given variety will also tell you. I actually just looked at the seed pack, and my beefsteak tomatoes as determinate, while the cherry are indeterminate.
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Apr 21, 2014 16:07
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I live in the desert, and here pruning tomatoes is generally a bad idea. If you let your tomatoes grow un-trellised and right near the mulch, fruit sets better and you get a better yield. The bushiness helps keep the air moist and the temperature lower. Tomatoes here need all the help they can get, because it is frequently above 95 at night here mid-summer. Those few degrees can mean the difference between fruit and not. A pruned, trellised plant will be exposed to whatever the air temperature is, and both flowers and vine suffer. The blossoms drop and the plant doesn't grow as much as it could. Now if you have a cool damp climate, doing what I do might encourage fungal problems, thus the standard advice.
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Apr 21, 2014 18:20
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Thank you for posting this. Too many tutorials just say blanket "trim this way, it's the one true way to trim" without explaining why (or why not).
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Apr 21, 2014 19:14
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Thank you for this. Not just because my tomatoes will be happier but also because it made me curious to see if I had already let some suckers get established (there were some big ones on my Cherokee Purple which required a razor blade) and later went outside to discover this little jerk while checking the wounds:  Cutworm, I think. I don't know why he'd be so far up the plant BUT that certainly explains my broken off other tomato which I had thought was just rain and wind damage. I've been putting off driving the stakes for my tomatoes but I should probably just go ahead and get on that before there are even more roots to damage and the vines need some guidance to go up not sideways. I going to just drive in some electrical conduit piping I have hanging around and use strips from old cotton tshirts to tie with. It will be comically tall but no harm done there. The potatoes continue to be insane:  nearly mid-thigh high in spots and the flowers are opening now. edit: better tater pic. Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Apr 22, 2014 |
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Apr 22, 2014 04:33
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I just want to say that free dinner container I've been using as a germination station a ballin. Sprouted Culantro, which is notoriously hard to start, in a matter of days with a single watering. The black base keeps it like 80+ degrees in the sun.
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Apr 22, 2014 13:37
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Same Great Paste posted:Thank you for posting this. Too many tutorials just say blanket "trim this way, it's the one true way to trim" without explaining why (or why not). yeah, thats a kickass guide and has gone into my bookmarks folder.
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Apr 22, 2014 14:01
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Shifty Pony posted:Thank you for this. Not just because my tomatoes will be happier but also because it made me curious to see if I had already let some suckers get established (there were some big ones on my Cherokee Purple which required a razor blade) and later went outside to discover this little jerk while checking the wounds: Edit: Apparently not very well. http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r785300611.html TerryLennox fucked around with this message at 13:17 on Apr 23, 2014 |
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Apr 23, 2014 05:16
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TerryLennox posted:Kill it with prejudice. Before I had to take apart my rooftop minigarden, a family of these bastards destroyed my tomato plants. Bt works on those right?
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Apr 23, 2014 12:23
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TerryLennox posted:Kill it with prejudice. Before I had to take apart my rooftop minigarden, a family of these bastards destroyed my tomato plants. I tossed them into the neighboring yard. They have chickens. I found another one on my peppers last night. I'll be doing spot checks before going to bed because they are pretty easy to see with a flashlight after they come out at night.
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Apr 23, 2014 17:38
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Those stupid fuckers have absolutely decimated my peppers in years past, so I sympathize. Make sure you get all of them. No cutworms must be spared.
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Apr 23, 2014 18:57
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Fortunately the peppers are thick and woody enough at their base that they can't actually cut them down anymore. Only two have damage and I picked the worm off the one of those. That one has such light damage that I think the cutworm had just moved to it last night from the one that had more damage. Their nocturnal behavior sure makes them a pain in the rear end to spot though. Frustrating coming out to munched leaves with no perpetrator in sight (and at night not being able to watch the chickens fight over the caterpillar and rip it apart). Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Apr 23, 2014 |
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Apr 23, 2014 20:01
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I picked up a sun gold cherry tomato plant on impulse this past weekend. I think I may have already hosed up and accidentally pruned the main stem.
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Apr 24, 2014 16:44
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sithwitch13 posted:I picked up a sun gold cherry tomato plant on impulse this past weekend. I think I may have already hosed up and accidentally pruned the main stem. Last year I had a plant snap in two due to wind and the top half in a bottle of water grew roots and the bottom half grew suckers that grew into the new stems.
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Apr 24, 2014 17:05
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I'm losing some of my cherry tomatoes. I think I might have been over-watering them. But I also planted them in 100% compost that I got from my city's recycling company. It is the first time I've grown tomatoes in this compost, so it might be lacking some nutrients. The plants on the right hand side of the bed are doing pretty good though.  You can see the tiny radishes starting to pop up out of the ground.  Plants on the right seem to be ok. e: and now the weather report is that it will be raining tonight and tomorrow. Fozzy The Bear fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Apr 24, 2014 |
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Apr 24, 2014 23:45
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Started to try to start hardening things by putting them out in the morning. Some of the tomatoes now look like this- Am I doing it wrong or is there another issue like watering that could be causing this kind of wilt and discoloration?
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Apr 24, 2014 23:48
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TheBigBad posted:Started to try to start hardening things by putting them out in the morning. Some of the tomatoes now look like this- Generally wilting is a lack of water (sometimes to much heat) and yellowing is too much water (filling the pore spaces in the soil and suffocating the plant). The transition from warm, calm and moderate light indoors to the outdoors is pretty stressful for plants. The best thing to do is keep them well watered and in full or partial shade at first. I had one of my cape gooseberry starts wilt when I set it out yesterday. After giving it more water it perked right back up.
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Apr 25, 2014 00:18
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Well, I just put my seeds into planets yesterday, so in a month or so I'll be bringing them outside. Still too cool here to really start growing, but soon enough!
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Apr 25, 2014 00:23
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Which ones? I've only put them into Earth so far 
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Apr 25, 2014 00:55
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My squash and zucchini are starting to take off. I'm gonna be in trouble.
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Apr 25, 2014 16:25
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Kilersquirrel posted:Which ones? I've only put them into Earth so far Mars and venus. Trying to do a little bit of atmospheric seeding. make that 'planters' :p
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Apr 25, 2014 16:28
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Shifty Pony posted:My squash and zucchini are starting to take off. I'm gonna be in trouble. Lol that's way too many squash plants in such a small place dude (assuming they're not bush varietals which even then is pushing it). You should probably just dig up Fart Car '97 fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 16:38
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Yeah that one is going goodbye. I over planted expecting some to fail but of course they all came up and are thriving. I may plant an upright flowering annual of some sort in that hole to pull in bees. Any suggestions?
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Apr 25, 2014 19:04
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Shifty Pony posted:Yeah that one is going goodbye. I over planted expecting some to fail but of course they all came up and are thriving. I love borage and bees do too, but beware it can get pretty big in the right conditions, and it reseeds like crazy but they're easy to pull in spring.
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Apr 26, 2014 00:18
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I planted some chillies about five weeks ago, looks like most are coming along nicely, with the Numex and Mustard Habanero's growing slower than the rest, if at all.  In the long propagator: a bunch of Jalapenos, Cayenne, (non-growing) Habanero's, some F1 Cheyenne that seem to be doing very well, Chenzo, Numex duds, and F1 Apache. In the cardboard trays: (Growing!) Numex, more 'Peņos, Tabasco (allegedly, as the seed packet stated Cayenne despite what it said on the box.), and the solitary Habanero.  I'm gonna start moving them over to individual pots soon, and I'm wondering about the possibility of root damage when I start the transfer, will they just shrug it off, or is it going to have require almost surgical precision?
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Apr 26, 2014 23:38
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I've transplanted many many peppers, just be gentle and they'll be fine. Water them afterwards.
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Apr 27, 2014 00:14
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Dilettante. posted:I'm gonna start moving them over to individual pots soon, and I'm wondering about the possibility of root damage when I start the transfer, will they just shrug it off, or is it going to have require almost surgical precision? Whatever you might damage beyond that isn't important to their survival yet. Just don't pull the stem or anything and you'll be fine.
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Apr 27, 2014 00:53
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I actually use chopsticks for moving really small seedlings like that- just shove your chopsticks into the planting medium about an inch from the stem and scoop up the clump attached to the roots. However this requires you actually be decently practiced at using chopsticks.
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Apr 27, 2014 11:39
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Marchegiana posted:I actually use chopsticks for moving really small seedlings like that- just shove your chopsticks into the planting medium about an inch from the stem and scoop up the clump attached to the roots. However this requires you actually be decently practiced at using chopsticks. I use a widger: http://www.bountifulgardens.org/Widger/productinfo/SWI-9010/ 
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Apr 27, 2014 17:32
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Starting to get tomatoes on my patio 
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Apr 27, 2014 17:49
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My pepper plants are wilting during the day even though they have plenty of water. I'm guessing its just because it's so drat hot. Should I move them out of the sun halfway through the day or something (they're in containers)? I don't remember having this problem in years past but it might be because they're still young plants and aren't very robust yet.
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Apr 27, 2014 21:15
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Garden update: Watermelon and pumpkin are starting to sprout.  Going to have to do some thinning soon.  Earlier I picked up some bare root grapes:  One hasn't sprouted yet, but it has only been 2-3 weeks. How long do you normally wait for bare root plants to show some life?  First time growing tree collards, one went to seed, the rest seem to be doing well.  Need to start eating my artichokes.  The kiwi fruits that I planted in half a wine barrel are starting to bloom.  I didn't pick off enough of the unripe peaches on my tree, and the top broke off. This tree has never done that well. What can I do now that the tree is 3 years old, and just not growing how I thought it would? 
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Apr 27, 2014 21:47
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