We just planted ours last Tuesday. We have six Romas (hybrids) for lots of sauce, one Rutgers, one Mr. Stripey, and I’m still waiting for one more - a cherry or grape. Actually, we bought one last Friday at Lowe’s, paid for it, and forgot to put it in the cart to take it to the car. :smack:
There is a U Pick tomato farm about 1 mile from my house, so I don’t go hog wild on mater’s at all. I can just go there, pick a bucket worth and not have to deal with any hassle at all.
They also grow raspberries, too. (YAY!)
Blackberries are canes. The canes that sprouted last year are this years fruiting canes. Anything older that two years should be pruned out in the future. The new canes that grow this summer are the ones you keep for fruiting next year. Blackberries don’t flower untill June or July.
I’ve got some Oxheart and Wayahead plants about 8 inches tall. I have a heirloom mix that is 5 varieties that are just seedlings. They’ll produce fine this year.
Heirloom tomatos grow the same as any other tomato, they won’t likely have as much desease resistance bred in. Alternate varities so that a desease that one variety is infected with is stopped by a desease resistant variety. This helps stop it from taking out the whole row of heirloom tomatos. This is a good way to plant anything, because it sometimes limit desease or pests to one plant.
Probably Wisconsin 55s?
I am a tomato FREAK! The last tomato I ate was on December 4th, 2006 because I refuse to eat a supermarket tomato. Why pay for wet pink cardboard?
Varieties I am growing this year are:
Yellow Pear
Super Sweet 100 Cherry
Brandywine
Jubilee
Celebrity
Bloody Butcher
Black Krim
Mr. Stripey (also known as Hillbilly)
Old German
Wisconsin 55
Amish paste
Health Kick Roma
Green Zebra
Wayahead
I think that’s all of them.
I am trying to get a ripe tomato from the garden by July 4th this year, which is no easy feat in Wisconsin. I have 2 Mr. Stripey plants that have been blooming for about 8 days now. We’ll see how it goes.
So if I planted a stick that was labeled “blackberry” this year, nothing might happen until next year? That’s fine – I just want to know whether I should toss it or not.
Sorry about the blackberry hijack!
Is that the trick? I’ll remember that. We always have some plants where the leaves turn yellow and get brown spots, and it starts on the lower leaves and moves up. Good to know!
We planted Sweet 100 and Big Boy, and a couple others. Put them in last week, and caged them early, before they get too big. My husband made cages using wire fencing, and they’re quite sturdy.
I should note that I operate a CSA farm, so I grow a mix of hybrid and heirloom varieties so that I can be sure that my customers and I have some tomatoes to eat!
Continuing my apartment patio growing hijack- are there any particulars I ought to look for? Size of pots? Kinds of tomatoes? Particular fertilizer? Do I need cages?
Heh, sorry to keep adding to this thread, but tomatoes really are a passion of mine.
If my crop turns out well, a friend of mine that owns a couple of bistro-type restaurants is going to feature an appetizer on the menu for a couple of weeks called “A Study of Wisconsin Tomatoes” that will have thick slices of 5 or 6 varieties, plus some yellow pear and cherry tomatoes. I think that is outstanding and not just because he’s buying the tomatoes from me.
Diosa, I would get a 5 gallon bucket, put a couple of drain holes in the bottom and fill it 3/4 with mushroom compost. Plant whatever variety interests you, maybe a Roma-type for making sauce? A cage may not be necessary, but it wouldn’t hurt to put a 6’ stake into the bucket before you fill it with dirt.
Since you will have a smaller space, hybrids might be better for you since they are much more compact and well-behaved. Pick your favorite color tomato and look for the word “determinate” on the tag. This means the plant will get to a certain size, then quit sprawling all over. If you like cherry tomatoes, Sweet 100 or Tiny Tim would be good, and any tomato labeled “Patio” will be a smaller plant.
Fertilizer is up to you- if you don’t mind chemicals, Miracle Grow makes a fertilizer especially for tomatoes. I grow organic, so I use compost, rotted manure, and crushed shells- but those things are easier to come by if you have or live near a farm. If you have a nursery or big box store nearby, most offer organic fertilizers in 4 or 5 pound bags.
Pot needs to be pretty large- 3 to 5 gallons would be good. (Size of a large paint bucket). Make sure to pick one with drain holes and a tray to keep your deck nice, because your tomato will want water every day in dry weather.
It should leaf out. It’s dead if you don’t get a new growing cane or leaves on the cane you already have sometime in the next month.
Expect a one single cane transplant to take at least three years to become a producing plant. I would recomend you plant more than one, as it will be a decade before one plant will multiply enough to produce a useful quantity.
Blackberries do best in full sun with lots of organic material where they’re planted. Once you have a well establed plant you can propagate the new plants yourself. A popular way to control them is a number of wires alonge each side of the row, and train all canes between the wires. Clean out the dead canes in spring. The canes can reach enormous lengths.
DiosaBellissima, if you go to a nursery to buy your plants, look for the herb section. Italian girls need some basil and oregano to go with their tomatoes. If you get a large pot- 5 gallons or larger, you should have room to stuff some herbs in around your tomato plant. Tomato plants usually need to be staked, because the fruit and stems can get heavy and cause the plant to bend or break. Maybe grab a cute trellis or bamboo stake- can make the container both pretty and yummy.
(I keep smelling tomato plants while cruising this thread. Anyone else?)
Yellow leaves can be calcium deficency, or bad drainage also. Plant some short marigold around the tomato base, to help keep rodents away. They do climb the stems and chew holes in tomatos. Marigolds discourage other pest too. Plant marigolds to reduce nematodes, which damage roots on plants.
OK, here’s my advice. I’m in my third year of container gardening, so I am not an expert. BUT:
Get the biggest container you can comfortably house. The bigger the container, the less you have to fertilize and the more sloppy you can be about watering. This doesn’t mean you can be too sloppy, though! Remember that plants are 90% water, tomato plants especially are watery, and you’ve essentially captured a living being and made her stand on your patio instead of a place she could stretch her roots and find her own water - you owe it to her to give her the water she needs. In the summertime, this means twice a day, at least. If you don’t have an outdoor hose, consider a coil hose that you can fit on your sink - lugging watering cans is only quaint in movies.
As mentioned, I really like self watering containers for container gardening. They have a reservoir at the bottom that will hold quite a bit of water if you go away for the weekend.
This is a fantastic, hard to screw up tomato kit for first timers. It may look like a lot of money, but you get a great planter that you can reuse.
You do need some fertilizer for 'maters (and most container gardening). I like this one, but there are quite a few out there you can find at the garden center. Some people like to put red plastic sheeting under their plants to increase their yield. I haven’t tried that.
Tomatoes lack exoskeletons, and they need to be staked or put in cages. If the leaves hit dirt, they get nasty. It the tomatoes hit dirt, they rot. You can use twist ties or strips of pantyhose to gently bind the stems of the plant to sticks, or you can put a tomato cage around it. You might still need to do a little tying up with a cage, but not as much as you do with stakes.
One thing I’m playing with is companion gardening - the idea is that some plant give off chemicals which are especially beneficial to other specific plants. Tomatoes of all kinds “love” basil and oregano, so you might, if you have a big enough container, consider planting a couple basil and oregano plants around your tomato plant.
DiosaBellissima, I just checked, and I have several small cherry varieties left. I have Juliet Grape (the small, kind of pointy variety you find at the grocery), mixed cherry (could be red, orange, or yellow), red pear, and Patio left. If you can’t find what you want in your nursery, e-mail me your address and I’ll wrap some plants in moss and damp newspaper and send them your way.
Gah! Don’t talk to me about tomatoes! I can’t find heirloom tomatoes anywhere here! I’m so frustrated! All of my favourite tomatoes from America, I can’t find here! I’ve planted beefsteak and, other tomatoes, but my favourites aren’t here to be found. And everything here is greenhouse and watery. DAMMIT.
Oh hey! I can do that? I had no idea! heh My grandma would be proud of my little bucket of pasta sauce. I think you’re onto something there and I’ll definitely try that out.
Also, thank you for the offer! I’ll stop by the store tonight and get back to you about what I find. We’re in a farming community so I’d hope that I could find a few good things!
One more question, I promise: should I get seeds? Or is it already a bit late and I should maybe get some plants that are already started?
Also, thank you all for giving me such informative answers! Hopefully I wont get all plant-Hitler like I managed to do on my cacti 
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Get plants if you can find them- already getting late in the season for some areas.
You can plant seeds yet. Make sure it’s a variety that harvests in 60 days. Don’t get a variety that takes 110 days.