9 Tomato Growing Myths to Avoid!
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Date: 2022-08-12
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Comments and reviews: 14
darian
Don't forget, when your tomato plants are done, you can cut them back to the first green growth low on the stem, and they will regrow to produce fruit again (at least they do here in Southern California. All of my plants, Mr. Smiley (a fav, cherry tomatoes and Accordion (another fav) tomatoes for me here, have regrown and have flowers PLUS the plants already have healthy roots so they grow back really fast and sturdy. I plant early under plastic soda and water bottle green houses, either seeds or seedlings (seeds coming up when they feel they are ready, so I prefer seedlings, in early to mid February (late January if not too cold. Some plants will even overWinter into the next year. Let them fill the plastic domes, removing the caps on warm days, and removing the domes entirely when it gets really warm but replacing them at night. I have tomatoes almost all year. My friend, Sandi, who lives in Long Beach, has her tomatoes live over three or four years and built wooden lattice covers around all but the front to keep the hot Summer sun from killing them.
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Don't forget, when your tomato plants are done, you can cut them back to the first green growth low on the stem, and they will regrow to produce fruit again (at least they do here in Southern California. All of my plants, Mr. Smiley (a fav, cherry tomatoes and Accordion (another fav) tomatoes for me here, have regrown and have flowers PLUS the plants already have healthy roots so they grow back really fast and sturdy. I plant early under plastic soda and water bottle green houses, either seeds or seedlings (seeds coming up when they feel they are ready, so I prefer seedlings, in early to mid February (late January if not too cold. Some plants will even overWinter into the next year. Let them fill the plastic domes, removing the caps on warm days, and removing the domes entirely when it gets really warm but replacing them at night. I have tomatoes almost all year. My friend, Sandi, who lives in Long Beach, has her tomatoes live over three or four years and built wooden lattice covers around all but the front to keep the hot Summer sun from killing them.
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jnl
everyone always says to let your plant go to a double leader to get more fruit, but its actually better to keep plants to a single leader, and just plant them really close together. so 2 plants in a bucket that most people would plant one. this is better because there are more roots feeding the stalks. if you have one plant with 2 stalks, its being fed by one set of roots and through one stem before it branches off. 2 plants in the same space will have twice as much capacity to eat/drink, and if one gets a problem and the main stem damaged, you still have the other. ive been putting 3 tomato plants in a 10 gallon grow bag, and that seems to be more than plenty of space for them, and ive even let them have multiple leaders. i have a trellis and string to hold them up. i actually use a market tent frame without the top to trellis a lot of things around my garden, and to hang baskets from.
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everyone always says to let your plant go to a double leader to get more fruit, but its actually better to keep plants to a single leader, and just plant them really close together. so 2 plants in a bucket that most people would plant one. this is better because there are more roots feeding the stalks. if you have one plant with 2 stalks, its being fed by one set of roots and through one stem before it branches off. 2 plants in the same space will have twice as much capacity to eat/drink, and if one gets a problem and the main stem damaged, you still have the other. ive been putting 3 tomato plants in a 10 gallon grow bag, and that seems to be more than plenty of space for them, and ive even let them have multiple leaders. i have a trellis and string to hold them up. i actually use a market tent frame without the top to trellis a lot of things around my garden, and to hang baskets from.
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handmade
1: 50 America's Test Kitchen has a marinara sauce recipe that can use any type of fresh tomato, because the opening move is to squeeze or scoop out the seeds and gel and chuck that into a fine mesh strainer. Most of the liquid in a tomato will be in that part of the fruit, and there's also a ton of flavor in the gel, so you can cook the flesh of the tomato as you would normally, then throw in some of the gel at the end to freshen up the tomato flavor. There's also another recipe that calls for sauteing cherry tomatoes before adding pasta (I found the recipe interesting, but I forget most of the details.
Blossom end rot. So that's what that's called. Yeah, all but 3 Momotaro tomatoes got that, while none of the other tomato varieties I'm growing this year got any of that. Perhaps Momotaros are particularly sensitive to under-watering.
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1: 50 America's Test Kitchen has a marinara sauce recipe that can use any type of fresh tomato, because the opening move is to squeeze or scoop out the seeds and gel and chuck that into a fine mesh strainer. Most of the liquid in a tomato will be in that part of the fruit, and there's also a ton of flavor in the gel, so you can cook the flesh of the tomato as you would normally, then throw in some of the gel at the end to freshen up the tomato flavor. There's also another recipe that calls for sauteing cherry tomatoes before adding pasta (I found the recipe interesting, but I forget most of the details.
Blossom end rot. So that's what that's called. Yeah, all but 3 Momotaro tomatoes got that, while none of the other tomato varieties I'm growing this year got any of that. Perhaps Momotaros are particularly sensitive to under-watering.
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Erdem
1-) Tomato leaves that turn brown or dry out is not a matter of concern if they are the early leaves.
2-)Tomato types for best pasta sauce
3-) Tickling tomato blossoms are not that important.
4-)Tomato doesn t need sun ripening
5-) If you don t prune suckers you might get slow yield but in long-term it s better to not prune them.
6-) Blossom end rot is generally caused by irregular watering schedule.
7-) Harvesting tomatoes just before ripening increases it s shelf life.
8-) Refrigerating fully ripe tomatoes won t change it s flavor.
9-) Don t overwater your tomatoes ( duh ) (It has details though so you better watch that part)
10-) Freshly composted Kevin talks in that part
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1-) Tomato leaves that turn brown or dry out is not a matter of concern if they are the early leaves.
2-)Tomato types for best pasta sauce
3-) Tickling tomato blossoms are not that important.
4-)Tomato doesn t need sun ripening
5-) If you don t prune suckers you might get slow yield but in long-term it s better to not prune them.
6-) Blossom end rot is generally caused by irregular watering schedule.
7-) Harvesting tomatoes just before ripening increases it s shelf life.
8-) Refrigerating fully ripe tomatoes won t change it s flavor.
9-) Don t overwater your tomatoes ( duh ) (It has details though so you better watch that part)
10-) Freshly composted Kevin talks in that part
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James
Oh man the point about the watering over the top inch or so of the soil is what I feel like 75 percent of houseplant watering issues are. Water thoroughly and deeply until runoff and then LEAVE IT ALONE until it truly is dry down to about 2 inches! So many folks just give their plants too much attention and kill them with love. That alone is the black thumb that many of my friends have claimed to have. but I watered it every day, HOW COULD IT DIE! and it's just like, facepalm every time. All you are doing is giving fungus and fungus gnats a lovely home to kill your roots!
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Oh man the point about the watering over the top inch or so of the soil is what I feel like 75 percent of houseplant watering issues are. Water thoroughly and deeply until runoff and then LEAVE IT ALONE until it truly is dry down to about 2 inches! So many folks just give their plants too much attention and kill them with love. That alone is the black thumb that many of my friends have claimed to have. but I watered it every day, HOW COULD IT DIE! and it's just like, facepalm every time. All you are doing is giving fungus and fungus gnats a lovely home to kill your roots!
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alindasue
My cherry tomatoes produce fruit steadily for a good couple months or so. Last year, after a couple months of picking tomatoes every day, I still had a lot of green tomatoes left on the vine when the frosts started to hit. Before pulling the plants for the year, I picked off about 3 gallons of green tomatoes, figuring I would do something with them. What I ended up doing was snacking on ripe tomatoes every day for the next few weeks as they gradually ripened off the vine in my house. I plan on doing the same with this year's end of season green tomatoes too.
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My cherry tomatoes produce fruit steadily for a good couple months or so. Last year, after a couple months of picking tomatoes every day, I still had a lot of green tomatoes left on the vine when the frosts started to hit. Before pulling the plants for the year, I picked off about 3 gallons of green tomatoes, figuring I would do something with them. What I ended up doing was snacking on ripe tomatoes every day for the next few weeks as they gradually ripened off the vine in my house. I plan on doing the same with this year's end of season green tomatoes too.
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Sunflower
Yep, I agree with all of these! Definitely things I have discovered by trying them out for myself.
You can also save most of the green tomatoes at the end of the season by picking them, and layering them in cardboard boxes, leaving a bit of stem on, stem end facing down. They will ripen gradually in the box, so you get tomatoes way into winter (cool temperate climate where I live in Australia. They just have to have started turning from hard dark green into a paler green with white starting to come through.
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Yep, I agree with all of these! Definitely things I have discovered by trying them out for myself.
You can also save most of the green tomatoes at the end of the season by picking them, and layering them in cardboard boxes, leaving a bit of stem on, stem end facing down. They will ripen gradually in the box, so you get tomatoes way into winter (cool temperate climate where I live in Australia. They just have to have started turning from hard dark green into a paler green with white starting to come through.
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James
I gotta say it's weird to me seeing that there are a lot of issues people have with tomatoes because I can't stop them from growing! The various spoiled ones I have tossed into my compost now pop up in ever plant I add the compost to so I just yank out the seedling and replant them somewhere else, and they tolerate it well because of the omnipotence of their stems to grow roots. Now I have like 8 random varieties growing all over my property and it's fun seeing what they come out with!
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I gotta say it's weird to me seeing that there are a lot of issues people have with tomatoes because I can't stop them from growing! The various spoiled ones I have tossed into my compost now pop up in ever plant I add the compost to so I just yank out the seedling and replant them somewhere else, and they tolerate it well because of the omnipotence of their stems to grow roots. Now I have like 8 random varieties growing all over my property and it's fun seeing what they come out with!
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TheMitcher
I grow in a community garden and it's lovely besides the fact I can't keep my tomatoes healthy. Half are riddled with disease and the other are getting blossom end rot. My tomatoes on my patio are perfect though. I was getting frustrated thinking I was doing something wrong. However, I just found out that another gardener has been watering my plants. Improperly I might add, as well theyve been causing me to overwater, it's quite frustrating.
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I grow in a community garden and it's lovely besides the fact I can't keep my tomatoes healthy. Half are riddled with disease and the other are getting blossom end rot. My tomatoes on my patio are perfect though. I was getting frustrated thinking I was doing something wrong. However, I just found out that another gardener has been watering my plants. Improperly I might add, as well theyve been causing me to overwater, it's quite frustrating.
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Donna
I have heard most of these myths. I didn't know that people left tomatoes unrefrigerated. If my tomatoes are ripe, I will refrigerate them. I will pinch of suckers; but, it's only been in the last couple of years that I've done it. My mom used to pinch off flowers. I've done that' but, it doesn't seem to have any benefit or detriment to do it. I have lots of flowers on the tomatoes that I've grown from seed. But, no tomatoes yet.
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I have heard most of these myths. I didn't know that people left tomatoes unrefrigerated. If my tomatoes are ripe, I will refrigerate them. I will pinch of suckers; but, it's only been in the last couple of years that I've done it. My mom used to pinch off flowers. I've done that' but, it doesn't seem to have any benefit or detriment to do it. I have lots of flowers on the tomatoes that I've grown from seed. But, no tomatoes yet.
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Ren
I had blossom end rot my first year. Tested my soil to see if it was actually calcium deficient. As you said, my soil actually had plenty of calcium. BUT the pH was much higher than recommended for tomatoes (8. 5 or so. Which can also interfere with nutrient absorption. I believe higher pH promotes the formation of calcium carbonate which is not bioavailable. I acidified my soil and haven t had BER since.
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I had blossom end rot my first year. Tested my soil to see if it was actually calcium deficient. As you said, my soil actually had plenty of calcium. BUT the pH was much higher than recommended for tomatoes (8. 5 or so. Which can also interfere with nutrient absorption. I believe higher pH promotes the formation of calcium carbonate which is not bioavailable. I acidified my soil and haven t had BER since.
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FrozenWolf150
I've been having massive pest problems this year, so I'm reluctant to leave my tomatoes on the vine too long, and have been picking them the moment they start to show any signs of ripening. It turns out this makes little to no difference, as they will continue to ripen off the vine anyway. Just as long as you don't pick them when they're completely unripe, they'll taste just fine in the end.
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I've been having massive pest problems this year, so I'm reluctant to leave my tomatoes on the vine too long, and have been picking them the moment they start to show any signs of ripening. It turns out this makes little to no difference, as they will continue to ripen off the vine anyway. Just as long as you don't pick them when they're completely unripe, they'll taste just fine in the end.
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jbigfeather
Wow! This is an impressive video having the three of you giving your info covers all the questions I have wondered about. This year I wasn t able to have a garden due to a broken arm but there s always next year. The squad video was really helpful as I have a few volunteers that are doing well, they popped up after the monsoon season started.
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Wow! This is an impressive video having the three of you giving your info covers all the questions I have wondered about. This year I wasn t able to have a garden due to a broken arm but there s always next year. The squad video was really helpful as I have a few volunteers that are doing well, they popped up after the monsoon season started.
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Mrs
Blossom end rot: if you have great nutritional soil, they are less likely to suffer in times of water inconsistency than a plant growing in poor soil. But absolutely, tomatoes need regular water. I ve never had BER before, and am surprised I have not cared for them perfectly! I do a lot of (weird) things to keep my tomatoes healthy though.
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Blossom end rot: if you have great nutritional soil, they are less likely to suffer in times of water inconsistency than a plant growing in poor soil. But absolutely, tomatoes need regular water. I ve never had BER before, and am surprised I have not cared for them perfectly! I do a lot of (weird) things to keep my tomatoes healthy though.
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