Tomato advice

[Brian Gallimore]

Neil Sperry 3/5/2011

Garden Tip: Large-fruiting tomatoes like Big Boy, Beefsteak and many of the heirlooms WILL NOT SET FRUIT WELL when temperatures go beyond 90. They are POOR PRODUCERS in Texas conditions. Stick with mid-sized and small tomatoes fox maximum production. Celebrity, 444, Roma, Porter, cherry, pear and Sweet 100. BIG TYPES SHOULD NOT BE SOLD HERE.

Garden Tip: Let me post one more tomato tip to go with the one from 20 minutes ago. The upside-down tomato pots are a gimmick. Run as fast as you can to a normal way of growing tomatoes, either in the ground or in 7- or 10-gallon pots.

Garden Tip: Further Tomato planting info: Full sun. Well-draining soils that are high in organic matter. Raised beds are best. PLANT ON OR AFTER THE AVERAGE DATE OF THE LAST KILLING FREEZE IN YOUR AREA unless you're willing to replant. A nurseryman I know chuckled one day. He said the TV weatherman had just been in for his 5th set of plants.

Question/Answer from Neil Sperry's facebook page

[Brian Gallimore]

Neil Sperry 3/13/2011

Garden Tip: Tomatoes – Plant small- and mid-sized varieties. NO Big Boy, NO Beefsteak and NO other giants in Texas, please. They don't set fruit past 90 degrees. Buy toughened transplants, perhaps with reddened stems. If plant is lanky, dig a short, angled trench, and plant it at a 45-degree angle. It will root along stems. Do not dig a vertical hole and just sink it like a fencepost.

[Brian Gallimore]

other responses from facebook users:
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Last year was my first time to grow tomatoes. I had great results with a tomato called "Fourth of July.". It produced all summer and was sort of a small tomato. None of my other plants did as well. Great flavor, too. I live in central Texas.
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I love Celebrity, I have great success with them every year.
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 I'm in McKinney also and had a pretty good harvest with the 444 and the sweet 100's in a raised bed. I'm planting the same thing again and purchased the plants from Calloways the Chef Jeff varieties are really solid plants.
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 I'm in Grapevine and also had great success with Super Sweet 100's and Sun Sugars, also in a raised bed. Four plants last fall (after the horrid heat of July, which nearly killed the plants) yielded about 900 tomatoes, and there would have been more had the cold weather at Christmas been delayed a couple of weeks! :-) I'll be planting both varieties this month, and for fall, too. I bought my plants at North Haven Gardens, where the staff were tremendously helpful with this novice gardener, and the plants were superb quality!
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I have super success with Better Boy and Celebrity. I'm in the Coastal Bend Area, Rockport.
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 We had lots of tomatoes a few years ago from "Fourth of July", too. I haven't seen it sold anywhere since then. We've also had many bumper crops from a variety called JS2000 that we got at Home Depot about 10 years ago. We planted it every year until we couldn't find it anymore.

[Brian Gallimore]

great article about raising tomatoes in DFW:

go to
http://blog.txwormranch.com/2010/04/10/tomato-planting.aspx
for full article

select snippets:

Top Dressing:  1)  I add a small handful of rock phosphate to reduce blossom end rot potential  2)  I add a handful of alfalfa meal as fertilizer in a ring around plant , being careful not too touch plant with it (it can burn) 3) I add a generous handful of vermicompost.  
...
 I mulch around bare soil
...
Use your hand spade to check ground 3-6 inches down [to test soil moisture level].  Over-watering leads to fungal problems and blossom end rot, but tomatoes do not want to be dry.  Look for leaf roll, which can indicate too wet or too dry conditions
 
Fertlizing:  Fertilize at planting and not again until you see your first fruit on the plant.   Too much fertilizer can cause lots of beautiful foliage, but no fruit.  When you see the first baby tomato, foliar feed the leaves of the plant every 2 weeks

[Brian Gallimore]

heirlooms:
Yellow Pear, Roma, Green Zebra, Beefsteak (don’t try to keep tomatoes through summer but indeterminant cherry tomatoes are OK; plant second crop around July 4th for October harvest)

see more at:
http://northtexasvegetablegardeners.com/blog/2011/05/22/lessons-from-leslie-heirloom-vegetables-for-texas/

[Brian Gallimore]

Some people rip up their tomato plants when it starts getting hot, other people nurse their plants through the summer so the plant will start producing again in the fall. 

Here is some advice from John Krause's facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/notes/john-h-krause/keeping-tomatoes-alive-until-fall-in-texas/172678182792165

Keeping Tomatoes Alive Until Fall In Texas
by John H Krause on Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at 9:15am
Well, the summer heat has arrived in north Texas. 100 degree days and 85 degree nights will play havoc with our tomato plants. Here's my tips for keeping your plants alive during this heat and have them produce again in the fall.
#1-Lots of water. Water away from the plants so the root system will grow to the water source. This creates healthier root systems and, in turn, healthier plants. Also, water in the early morning hours. I try to never water the plants, only around them. You'll have less chance of creating early blight issues this way.
#2-Trim off all blighted areas with scissors. Trim as much as needed. I've actually trimmed off half of the plant and it comes back in the fall.
#3-Start a rountine of spraying straight compost tea mixed with 2 ounces of liquid seaweed. This will help the blighted areas and provide microbes and nutrients to the plants. I spray at least every other week and sometimes weekly with this mixture.
Last year we harvested our last tomato December 24th from plants we planted the previous March. This foliar feeding method really works. You'll be amazed how tomatoes will produce again in the fall.

also

For bird troubles you can also use old CD's or tin pie pans for reflection. Seems to scare the birds.

[Brian Gallimore]

John H Krause says via facebook:

Tomato lovers and growers. Always pick tomatoes in the early morning. That's when the most juice is in the fruit. Don't believe me? Try it. You'll be amazed at the difference in taste.

[Brian Gallimore]

wealth of information here, will take weeks to read through:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TomatoMania/

"the tomato lady" AKA Ms. Jeanette Crumpler mentioned this group on the radio today

[Brian Gallimore]

What's wrong with your tomato plant?
Detailed color, shape, size, with answer with how to fix it.
http://onthegreenpath.ca/blog/archives/354

[Brian Gallimore]

Nice paper by Texas Plant and Soil Labs: : Tomatoes - Plant Nutrition and Sampling Notes
http://northtexasvegetablegardeners.com/forum/index.php?topic=556.0

[Brian Gallimore]

Pruning Tomato Plants
Tomatoes will grow to be a big bushy clump on the ground unless you support them, but another trick to maximize your yield of fruit per area of soil is to keep the sucker vines pruned.

http://therustedgarden.blogspot.com/2011/11/knol-three-finger-method-to-pruning.html