Tomatoes, Did You Know

[Ne0n 0]

That there are hundreds of different tomatoe plants, some of them are Santorine, Beef, Plum, Cherry and a whole host of many more. But no matter what ones you decide to grow they all need care and attention. I winter sow my Toms, I use the 6 pint plastic milk carton, I cut it off just above where the handel is joined on, it comes in handy for holding it, I put my poting compost in and sow the seeds, I fiind if I put two seeds together every two inches then it gives them room, I put 6 of these bottles in a white plastic bin bag and tye it so the top is at the side. Now to give them extra protection against the frosts I put bubble wrape around the bag. This year I had over 100 plants doing it this way, I dont have a green house so in winter my garden becomes one. Tomatoes love the sun, so its always best to give them what they like, If you plant them in a heavy clay soil you can bet you will end up with a disease. The disease will live in the soil and it does build up. For good tomatoes every year, plant them in a different part of the garden, its always best to move any veg to a different part each year. You can these days buy disease resistant varieties, so its best to go for this sort. Mulch is another way of helping to prevent disease. Stressful growing conditions weaken plants, therefore make them easier for disease to attack them, always make sure your plants are well watered during dry seasons and well fed.When watering try not let the foliage can also cause disease, so try to water from the bottom. Another thing I do to help this is when I transplant the seedlings I put a little pot that we have plants in by the seedling, then I fill this up with water and it goes right down to the roots rather than laying on top of the soil.Well its not much, but I hope it gets this thread going, and I hope my post has given some of you a couple of ideas.

[rob86 2]

I've done some gardening but not so much this year though I do have like 20 jalapeno and 20 ca syenne pepper plants. It's my first time growing peppers so I never went with any fancier ones like haberneros or bhut jolokias (or that other jolokia pepper that's even hotter I can't remember the name of) though I'd like to try them some day. So far they're growing quite well. Jalapenos are almost "ripe" and starting to crack, cayenne pepper's are still mostly green and not really ready. I wish I knew what to do with them all, I use jalapeno's in a lot of things but I'm not sure what to do with all the cayenne peppers. Your olive oil infused with peppers sounds like a neat idea..something I've never thought of. How'd you do it? I need ideas to use them all. I had pictures of a garden I had a couple years ago, but I can't find them anywhere. It was a pretty nice looking garden. I thought so anyway.. if I remember right. it had tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, swiss chard, onions, beets, green, yellow and purple beans, snow peas, sugar peas, asparagus, winter squash, spaghetti squash, summer squash(zucchini), cucumbers..uh that's about it I think. It was a lot of work, and it's quite obvious why that gardening spree only lasted a year.. lolI've tried a couple different ways to grow tomatoes. The normal way (in the ground), hanging upside down from a pot, and in a pot. I didn't have much luck with the hanging upside down ones despite all the hype they received this year, one of them broke it's stem during a heavy wind and the other couple didn't produce many tomatoes. The ones in the pot (which were meant for a pot) also went kind of funny, once the tomatoes started growing it became heavy and the stems started breaking off. I hear you can prop them up with something so they don't break, but that seems like a lot of work. The ones in the ground grew the best. There is one "trick" I learned and that's to transplant them quite deep into the ground, it makes the stem grow much stronger and they can withstand a lot more of the weight. I don't know much about tomatoes really, but I do know there's definitely a difference between the different kinds of tomatoes (aside from the obvious such as size). Some are juicier, some are less acidic tasting, some are better for sauces due to their low water content (romas), some are huge. It's good to know what kind of tomato you're planting so you won't be surprised if your tomato happens to be purple.PS: Why was your other thread erased? I originally posted this in the other thread but it's gone and labeled as spam.

[sheepdog 10]

I have to say, if anyone is going to want to plant even just a little bit of garden, the tomatoe is the one plant a person really needs to learn to grow. There is just nothing that beats the flavor of a home grown tomatoe. There is an old saying, "Only 2 things money can't buy is true love and home grown tomatoes!" Another important thing about growing tomatoes is that they have to be staked up. If the plants are left to their own devices, they will spread out flat on the ground and contact with the ground will cause the tomatoes to rot. Even staking them can be a challange, some people use a single wooden stake driven into the ground, but you have to keep a close eye on them and the tomatoes will still try their best to grow out of or fall out of the stakes. You also have to have something to tie the plant to the stake, and great care has to be taken in picking material to use for the ties. It has to be soft so it doesn't cut into the vines. Many people recomend old panty hose. Since I don't wear those, haven't tried that. But I used a lot of those rag rugs for the dogs, and when they come apart, I use those cloth strings for the tomatoes, that seems to work pretty good. Another good method for staking tomatoes is a circle of woven wire fiedl fence. Make a circle about a foot and a half or so around, and as the plant grows, encourage the branches to come out of the squares of the field fence. They also make a wire tomatoe cage with 2 or 3 circles of wire, and 3 or 4 wires coming down that you can push into the ground, but these tend to be a bit flimisy and if the plant gets big and heavy, they can tip over.

[rob86 2]

Oh yeah they make "cages" to hold up large tomatoes planted in the ground but usually they aren't strong enough by themselves to hold up a massive tomato plant and a stake needs to be put through the cage into the ground to add more support. It's like what sheepdog said but you can buy them instead of making them yourself. Be wary of the ultra-cheap cages if you check them out, because the metal is so weak that inserting them into ground will bend the legs and it will be very frustrating and a waste of money, I know.