Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

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MorpheusPA
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Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by MorpheusPA » April 9th, 2011, 12:53 am

texasweed wrote:
Ohio2112 wrote: You mentioned above about not feeding after planting. Do these grow that much without additional feeding too?
they sure do. I would not count on it if I were you simple because of your location and the short growing season.
+1. Trying this in Minnesota might disappoint you. Ohio somewhat less, but...

texasweed

Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by texasweed » April 9th, 2011, 3:14 pm

andy10917 wrote:Thanks! After a bad, bad attack of Early Blight two seasons ago, I am avoiding growing tomatoes and other early blight sensitive plants in that area for 5 years. I bagged the diseased plants and carted them to the curb. No composting at all for them.
Andy you do not have to wait that long if you do not want to so listen up I have another excellent tip you or anyone else.

Crop rotation is a excellent idea, but lets face it not many folks have that luxury or space to do that. You can easily kill all the viruses easily with a little work. I have done this many times and it works like a charm. In TX we have two mator seasons, spring and fall. By mid to late June and sometimes early July if we are lucky it gets way too hot and the tomatoes are done. So I pull the plants up, soak the bed, and cover it with heavy gauge clear plastic and solarize the soil. By the end of August pull the plastic off and I am left with nice sterile soil for a fall planting of mators. :yahoo:

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Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by cberhomengarden » May 2nd, 2011, 4:13 pm

texasweed wrote:
3. In every planting hole I recommend 1-pound of well-aged and rotted animal manure compost, and 1 Tablespoon of Epson Salts. If you do not have access to quality manure compost, no problem I have a secret recipe a very dear friend of mine came up with. His name is Darrel Merrill from Tulsa OK aka The Tomato Man (RIP Darrel). In each hole add 1 Tablespoon of blood meal (nitrogen), ½ cup of bone meal (phosphorous) , ½ cup of green sand, 1 Tablespoon Epson Salt, 1 whole banana with peel (potassium), and 2 crushed calcium tablets to prevent blossom-end rot. That is it for fertilizing for the season. Do not add any more.
Texasweed - do you think your friend's secret recipe would be appropriate for container gardening of tomatoes as well? Perhaps in smaller proportions?

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Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by Mechadan » July 20th, 2011, 8:02 pm

texasweed wrote:But today after moving th Prescott, I will just be using store bought conical cages. Only planting a few tomatoes this year to see if it is even possible to grow mators here. So far so good, but I have not found many people around here that grow them.
What exactly was your concern? Too cold? Too warm? Too dry?

texasweed

Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by texasweed » July 20th, 2011, 11:04 pm

As I feared too cold for too long. Being from TX I made an error of trying to get tomatoes out too early here. We had frost and freezing weather up to late May.


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Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by Ohio2112 » July 31st, 2011, 10:12 pm

texasweed wrote:7. Mulch lightly after planting to prevent soil being splashed onto the plant from watering or rain. As plants grow, keep adding mulch layers to about 1-foot.
tw: Thanks again for the tips. I've got the best crop of tomatoes I've ever had.
I went with the 5' concrete mesh cages and some of the sweet 100's are already 1' above the top of those!

About the mulch: What do you do with the 1 foot of mulch at the end of the season?

texasweed

Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by texasweed » August 17th, 2011, 11:56 pm

Ohio2112 wrote:About the mulch: What do you do with the 1 foot of mulch at the end of the season?
There are a few things you can do with it.

1. Leave it on the beds and let it turn into compost. Turn it about once a month and keep it moist. Then next season til it in.

2. What I do is remove it and put it into the compost pile. Then in early fall immediately after you rip up the last plant, I plant a green manure crop of Hairy Vetch. You can plant anything in the legume family. Then next spring, turn the cover crop over and mix in the compost you made during the winter.

Did you get a good crop of mators this year? I didn't and most folks I talk too had a horrible growing season this year.

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Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by Ohio2112 » August 18th, 2011, 8:17 pm

texasweed wrote:
Ohio2112 wrote:About the mulch: What do you do with the 1 foot of mulch at the end of the season?
There are a few things you can do with it.

1. Leave it on the beds and let it turn into compost. Turn it about once a month and keep it moist. Then next season til it in.

2. What I do is remove it and put it into the compost pile. Then in early fall immediately after you rip up the last plant, I plant a green manure crop of Hairy Vetch. You can plant anything in the legume family. Then next spring, turn the cover crop over and mix in the compost you made during the winter.
I like option 2 too.
I was planning to do a cover crop this year for the first time. I was thinking of trying those monster radishes C&C used last year but my garden soil doesn't really need that kind of aeration. Do you know if Hairy Vetch works up north?
texasweed wrote:Did you get a good crop of mators this year? I didn't and most folks I talk too had a horrible growing season this year.
Well, I've got more live plants than dead ones and I'm picking tomatoes every day, so for me that's a success compared to prior years! :)

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texasweed

Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by texasweed » August 18th, 2011, 8:49 pm

Hairy Vetch is a winter hardy plant, so yeah I think it should do good for you. As soon as the mator quit or slow down enough, pull them up and plant vetch. It should do good at least up until you get really hard deep freezes. In Texas it grows all winter even after cold spells of teens. But keep in mind when we do hit the teens is just for a few hours, not days.

It is cheap seed, so you got nothing to loose and everything to gain. When Hairy Vetch is grown in pastures it can fixate 120 lbd per acre of nitrogen or roughly 3 lbs 1000/ft2 which is enough to grow most cash crops except corn and mators. Couple that with some good compost and horse maure, you wil not need any store bought nitrogen.

Is it county fair time up in your area? Do you have a PU truck? Go to the fair on the last day and get a load of horse love, sheep, cow, or whatever you can get a load of. That with the mulch will make you some of the best compost money cannot buy. Till that in with Hairy Vetch next spring and you are set to go my friend.

I live in Prescott AZ now and did not get but a very few mators. Most of mine were froze out. So for my fee, next year send me a box of LOVE from your bumper crop. :yahoo:

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Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by Ohio2112 » August 18th, 2011, 10:07 pm

texasweed wrote:Hairy Vetch is a winter hardy plant, so yeah I think it should do good for you. As soon as the mator quit or slow down enough, pull them up and plant vetch. It should do good at least up until you get really hard deep freezes. In Texas it grows all winter even after cold spells of teens. But keep in mind when we do hit the teens is just for a few hours, not days.

It is cheap seed, so you got nothing to loose and everything to gain. When Hairy Vetch is grown in pastures it can fixate 120 lbd per acre of nitrogen or roughly 3 lbs 1000/ft2 which is enough to grow most cash crops except corn and mators. Couple that with some good compost and horse maure, you wil not need any store bought nitrogen.

Is it county fair time up in your area? Do you have a PU truck? Go to the fair on the last day and get a load of horse love, sheep, cow, or whatever you can get a load of. That with the mulch will make you some of the best compost money cannot buy. Till that in with Hairy Vetch next spring and you are set to go my friend.
Great idea on the fair. Our county fair ends Sunday. I should be able to get plenty of fresh poo for the compost pile.
texasweed wrote:I live in Prescott AZ now and did not get but a very few mators. Most of mine were froze out. So for my fee, next year send me a box of LOVE from your bumper crop. :yahoo:
I'd be happy to send you a box!
Just PM me your address.
Would it be better to send ones that are a bit less than ripe?

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texasweed

Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by texasweed » August 18th, 2011, 10:38 pm

Well thanks for the offer, but I was joking.

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Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by Ohio2112 » August 19th, 2011, 7:32 am

Lol, I figured you were kidding but I wanted to offer anyway. I really do appreciate the tips. I'm sure they have a lot to do with the success I'm having this year.

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Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by mattya » June 5th, 2012, 2:29 pm

Any tips/chance I can (successfully) grow mators in MA? I'm guessing that Hairy Vetch would be a good choice up here also.

texasweed

Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by texasweed » June 7th, 2012, 12:06 am

mattya wrote:Any tips/chance I can (successfully) grow mators in MA? I'm guessing that Hairy Vetch would be a good choice up here also.
Certainly you can. I mean hells bells that is where Victory Garden was filmed at right?

You just have to use some techniques to deal with your short growing season.For example grow varieties that mature quickly or early Tomatoes. Maturity is anywhere from 35 to 80 days. You cannot grow the late bloomers, so don't try.

Most of the early bloomers are what is called Determinate type tomatoes. That means they are compact in size, most do not need cages, they set blooms and fruit early in a period of a few weeks, then they are done. You get all the fruit within a few weeks and they wither and die.

Then there are the Indeterminate types or the vine types. Quite a few are Early tomatoes. One of the best is called Sweet 100. They produce small cherry tomatoes packed with big flavor. A single plant can produce over 500 tomatoes. If you ever go to Epcot Center in Orlando to the gardens they have what they call a Tomato Tree It is a huge lattice canopy the size of a very large home in area with picnic table to eat and shade in. The canopy is completely cover in a single tomato plant, a Sweet 100. They claim it has produced over 100,000 maters. You can pick them for your salad. Indeterminate mator plants produce until first frost.

Start your plants early indoors, and better yet a small green house. Do some research for your area and try it next season.

In TX my family is already burned out on mators. So far it has been an excellent year in north TX for mators. Early spring, not too hot or dry. Last year was terrible almost no mators as it was too hot and dry. Even here in Prescott AZ we have mators this year already. It was cold as heck last year here. Had frost all the way up to the end of May early June, followed by a cool summer and first frost in late August. I was not happy as I did not get 1 mator from the garden.

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Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by mattya » June 7th, 2012, 9:40 am

Thanks for the tips TW, I'll have to do some research for next year! One more question - Can they be grown fine in pots? Running out of space in the yard to really plant these, so having them in pots would work best and ensure they get enough sunlight.

texasweed

Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by texasweed » June 7th, 2012, 12:23 pm

mattya wrote:Thanks for the tips TW, I'll have to do some research for next year! One more question - Can they be grown fine in pots? Running out of space in the yard to really plant these, so having them in pots would work best and ensure they get enough sunlight.
Absolutely and can be used to a great advantage where your growing season is very short. Trick is to select the right variety.If you recall I mentioned Determinate Tomatoes. Most of them are early produces and many are compact bush types and require no cages or support. That is what you are looking for and there are many hybrid varieties made to do just that. Here is a short list, but there are more which I will let you discover on your own.

Small & Compact Plants:

Better Bush
Patio
Small Fry
Toy Boy

Cherry:

Cherry Grande Hybrid VF

Standard:

Bingo (Known for having a great taste)
Biltmore
Celebrity
Early Bush (Good for coastal areas)
Early Girl
Floramerica (AAS winner)
Jackpot
Legend (grows extremely large fruits)
Mountain Belle
Mountain Delight
Mountain Gold
Mountain Pride (strong producer with heavy yields. This is what you find in a lot of grocery stores)
Mountain Spring
Roma VF
Royal Flush
Shady Lady
Sub Arctic Plenty (great for Northern gardeners with a short growing season)

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Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by mattya » June 7th, 2012, 12:27 pm

Awesome! Appreciate all that info, the wife will be happy to hear it. I'll let you know how I make out next year :)

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Re: Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by vistalawncarega » September 1st, 2012, 8:33 pm

I planted 2kinds of tomatos this year and a few other veggies. Had pretty good luck thanks to this forum, lot of very good information and tips!

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Tomato and Pepper growing Tips

Post by Michael Wise » March 5th, 2015, 12:28 am

Wanted to post a link to the whole list of planting and growing tips. Lots of additional, good info in here.

This is the updated 2015 version of their plant list.

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5 ... al+pdf.pdf

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