Does anybody know if you can top a tomato plant? I’ve never tried it.
You know, I have a 90-odd-year-old friend who I help with her gardening – I put the tomatoes in, did them out when they’re done, etc. She had a bumper crop last summer and was very generous with me.
I still have a few in the freezer. I like to chop them up & cook them in a skillet along with some cabbage and olives, then put them over pasta with breadcrumbs and cheese.
I just moved into a southern exposure place (why yes, I *am *in the Northern Hemi!) and the balcony will be a tomato and basil sauceatorium. Num num num. Nummy nummy nummy.
Sorry, what was I saying?
With a flogger?
:ba dum bum:
Ahem.
Forgive my ignorance, but I’ve never heard of topping a fruiting plant. How would that work, and why would it be necessary?
Alas. Here in the States, I am just now digging up my first vegetable patch, because the ground has only just thawed. I don’t expect to be able to put plants in it for two more months. So very, very sad.
I don’t do it myself, because I’m kinda lazy, but my best friend back east (USA) only lets each tomato branch form no more than four sprays of flowers, then starts trimming off further growth & side branches so the plant can concentrate on those fruit.
I was just thinking today I should start some seeds and get them ready for putting out in May.
To the OP, you know why home vine-ripened tomatoes are better than store bought, right? The tomatoes on your vines are actually ripe. The ones in the stores aren’t, they just look ripe.
Nah, because I’d put a plate of homemade tomatoes, maybe with some homemade basil down in front of you, and all would be instantly forgiven, because they’re that good. 
Would it make me even more unpopular if I told you that I have so many tomatoes that some have fallen to the ground and are just lying there, composting in? My argument is that they are making better tomatoes for next year!
I had trouble with basil this year - I planted 2 whole punnets, but only one plant actually grew, and it was kind of scraggly and small. I was most disappointed. Thyme & Sage on the other hand, are growing so well, they’s sprouting up in the cracks in my driveway.
How do you kill basil? Slugs. Slugs have no problem mowing down a whole planterful of it of an evening. Slug bait, apparently, notwithstanding. Alas.
The tomatoes in the store can’t be ripe. Vine ripened toms are way too fragile to be shipped and handled. And by the time you see them, they’d be spoiled. Which is why good canned tomatoes are better (for cooking) than the ones in produce. Esp. San Marzanos from Italy, if you can get them. Others are good too. Pomi, Muir Glen, etc.
Spaghetti with meatballs and a good garlicky marinara. Yum! Topped with Reggiano.
Insalata Caprese!.
I’m dyin here!
Thanks to those who gave balcony tips! I’m going to a friend’s vineyard this weekend so I might see if he has any spare wine barrels I could take off his hands. I’ve missed the window this year, but next year I’m determined to have a balcony garden. I will be generous and spread the bounty among my friends; I will be merciful and not boast to those who eat store-bought.
I’m not sure why my basil is looking so pathetic. Maybe the soil isn’t great (I’m using the same soil that I use for my succulent plant) or I’m not watering it enough. I’m not getting those big basil leaves - just teeny little ones that aren’t worth picking. I’ll try again later this year when Spring comes round.
Could all you tomato-growing Dopers give me a hand here?
That’s the one good thing about living in the Bay Area. I finished weeding last week, dug the soil today, and will be putting in lettuce and spinach and snow peas next week. We had celery, onions and potatoes over the winter. The potatoes were from red potatoes we had which sprouted, I just planted them, and then read that they are treated to not grow. I didn’t know that - but neither did the potatoes since they grew anyway.
The tomatoes grown for stores are bred for sturdiness, not flavor, as well. Tomatoes bred for home gardeners are bred for flavor first, and then for size, color, all that good stuff.
I’m gonna try that “bag of manure” method this year. We have horrible soil, and I CANNOT convince my husband that we need a compost pile. He sees it as trash. I see it as black gold.
Man, I haven’t had a good tomato for months! There’s still snow on the ground–heck, my dad is still going ice fishing. Winter sucks.
Well, I won’t argue with that, but I’ve grown tomatoes from seed taken from store tomatoes and letting them ripen on the vine still makes a world of difference.
My theory is that you can’t have too much manure or compost in the soil… Of course, the Melbourne drought really doesn’t help, I think that’s what happened to my basil this year.
Oh, and I thought I’d tell you all, I picked 1.2 kg of tomatoes this evening!
I was pissed this year. We got a fair amount of tomatoes last season and I still had a one-gallon freezer bag full, but when we moved they partially defrosted so my wife tossed 'em and said they “went bad.” Grr. I’m certain they didn’t go bad, just defrosted a little. I was planning on making a big pot of tomato sauce with those.
I haven’t grown tomatoes, or anything else, in a while, but now I’m being tempted. It is some work, mostly paying attention to them.
I want to look into the “upside-down” method mentioned above. It would be nice to have some in the freezer for, as levdrakon says, sauce.
BTW; I understand that food in the freezer is okay as long as there are still some ice crystals in it.
I think that my raised beds are diseased, as last year’s tomatoes were not what they ought to have been. It wasn’t that yellow leaf/black spot kind of disease, the plants were just puny and gray-ish and sparse, whereas in previous years they were riotously big ‘n’ beefy. I got only about a tenth as much fruit off the plants compared to previous crops.
Is there anything you can do about diseased soil?