Does anybody now of a good website to do with growing tomatoes. I've searched and I'm getting pretty pi$$ed off with the results. Thanks

eric1 at telusplanet dot net

What's the problem?

Bottom rot? Try sulfur

I don't know, I've found most everything I wanted to know by doing a search from Netscape or Google.

Here's a tomato BB that looks informative.


http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/tomato/ 

You might want to try this site. Its a forum for gardeners

http://www.vegetable-gardening-club.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=24 

Brad

Mr.Mean,

Got some roma's going that are supposed to mature in 62 days, mine are starting to turn red now but it seams longer. I don't know at which point the 62 days starts. From transplant? Flower? Start of tomato Growth. This is my first year.

Just want a sight that gives me the scoop, without having to read every post. Thanks, I'll try these sites.

Ya, I've been to these sites. You'd think I'd be able to find the answers to some of my questions through a search. Must be a small community. I don't have that kind of patience. It took me 3 days of pulling out my hair to learn about chili pepers.

limoric --- that number usually means from seed to fruit ... under ideal conditions ...

... those numbers really don't mean anything more than to give a broad guideline, so you can determine if they are goting to ripen between when your snow thaws, and before your first frost.

It all has to do with your climate, soil conditions, types of fertilizers used ... and more importantly, on how hot it gets in your area.

Tomatoes really won't do that well, unless you live in a very warm climate, with long sunny days ...also, they like infrequent, deep, waterings ...

Give them plenty of growing room ... and keep in mind that they are extremely deep rooted.

I don't know how close your climate up there is to mine here in the Chicago area, but, it has been very cool and my tomato crop this year is way down. And on my Jersey Devil and Viva Italia things seem to be on a slow road to completion.

Mr.Mean,

We must be the reverse, Western Canada is hot this year. Normal Temp for July and August is 72, it's averaged at least 82 for all of july and the last 2 weeks has been between 84 and 90. Very sunny Alberta.

My Roma's have around 10 per plant and my Beef Eater has around 30 and it's still flowering. The Roma's are just turning red, but it's been over 80 days as apposed to 62. That's where I'm confused. My Beef Eater will probably start turning red at end of Aug. and well into Sept. It's the envey of friends and familly. Oh ya, I have 4 hot pepper plants all in one pot. 2 super chili, 1 garden salsa and 1 habanero. There must be 50 peppers in that thing.

Be careful... at 63 days sometimes THE KILLER TOMOATOS ATTACK

err.... tomatos

I believe the time frame should be from germination to fruit. So you should add at least a week to your due date. Your temps are much better than ours have been.
I'm envious on your pepper production 😞

so like 69 days, 62+7. I'm at least 80 days now. Before I transplanted them a second time, they were in much smaller pots. I wonder if that delayed their growth, taking them longer to mature.

Shock time should be taken into consideration.
How often have you been feeding?

vegie fertilizer about every 10 days and because it's been hot, water every day

limoric --- never put more than one plant in a pot, as they are competing with each other ...

When the plants are at the seedling size ... you should have clipped off all but the strongest one.

They are much healthier and the plant will grow much bigger, if you do ...

Eric,

Like slim said the mature date is very impercise. Doesn't matter how hot it is now if you had a cool June/July. This would delay maturity. My plants do best when it is in the upper 80s and humid. I never pay attention to those dates. They will always turn red eventually. I'm in NY and last year I was picking fresh ripe tomatoes in November.

Cool,

Slim, the only plants that are together are the peppers and they are doing incredible. Also hoping for some cross polination so when I harvest the seeds, I may come up withs some Hybrids next year.

The Tomatoes are seperate. I've been pruning the Beef Eater, and it looks great. Was recommended not to prune the roma's as it doesn't make a difference, the fruit generally matures all at the same time and will not flower thoughout the summer as the Beef Eater will.

All in all, it's been fun. next year I will try a few different things.

If you give tomatoes to much fertilizer they will be more susceptible to disease. When you plant them in the garden use a pine straw and manure compost. You do not need to feed them as much as you are. If you remove some of the flowers the tomatoes will be bigger. We have had so much rain in VA I just got ripe one this week. My watermelons, eggplant, squash, zucchini, cucumber, and butternuts are doing great but my tomatoes are taking forever to ripen all because of to much rain.

limoric --- I've done that too with peppers, and had up to four in one pot ... and they did well too!

The point I was trying to make, is that they will do much better, and you will have bigger plants with larger harvests ... if the roots are not in to much competition with each other.

Cross pollination is a whole different 'ball of wax' ... Most people do not realize how important it is to prevent cross pollination of plants within the same species of Tomatoes or Peppers.

There are five species of peppers (Capsicum):

1) C. pubescens -- purple flowers and seeds (Rarely grown in the US)

2) C. annuum --flowers are white or purple and have tan seeds (one of the two grown in US)

3) C. chinense-- flowers have a greenish tinge and the ripe fruits have a strong smokey-tropical fruit aroma (Rarely grown in the US)

4) C. frutescens-- flowers have a greenish tinge , but the fruit has a vegetable aroma (one of the two grown in US)

5) C. baccatum -- includes escabeche, kellu-uchu and puca-uchu. (Rarely grown in the US)

Pepper plants are notorious for cross pollinating, and though it is almost impossible to prevent ... the mixing of different DNA from unrelated species does not alway produce desireable results.

Specific hybrids of both peppers and tomatoes have been selectively hybridized under extemely controled environments for years ... to get plants that have larger and better tasting fruit or hotter (in the case of peppers), stronger plants, more disease resistance ... etc.

It would be fun for you to see what comes of it though ... but in my doing what you are attempting to do, I came up with unsatisfactory 'offspring' from those seeds the next year.