Some nice gardener that I connected with thru Facebook has extra heirloom tomato 'starts' (I guess that's what you'd call them.) She's already planted 60, yes, count 'em 60, and is virtually giving away a lot of extras. She said that altho small, they have at least 2 sets of leaves. She has Brandywines, both pink and red, and Black Krim. I'm going to pick some up from her on Friday or Sat. but am skeptical about there being enough time for the toms to grow. Aside from disease, bugs and critters, I've heard that toms don't like really hot temps. So . . . anyone have any experience or advice about planting these starts (slips?) so late in the season?
I'm thinking that I'll put them in containers for expediency, etc. But I guess for the price of the toms ($0), it might be worth a gamble.
If it matters, she's in Lewisville and I'm on Dallas.
Heirloom tomatoes - - - Advice please
I have no experience with this, so no worthy advice to share either, but I'll be watching this thread since my tomatoes are at the same point in development, and they were just planted out 2 weeks ago. Most are indeterminate so I hope I can squeeze in a small harvest before peak summer heat, then another larger harvest in fall. We'll see.. btw, our temps in Lipan are practically identical to yours since I'm due west 2 hours, and the plants, for the most part, range from 60-80 days to maturity.
Good luck and yes, free plants are oh so tempting! I still have 80 or so of the little guys myself, just sitting on my porch wishing for a good home as well..
For THIS year, so late to begin spring, and you are keeping them in containers,, it will be fine. I dont care for the black tomatoes, and they are touchier to grow, but the brandywines will be great. As summer heat kicks in around Aug, just give them afternoon shade. use deep pots and plant deep, in ground tomatoes grow larger faster and heirlooms can reach 12' long with the vines. This summer may not be as hot as normal. Lewisville has more humiditythan Ft Worth side, but still on white rock high plains, Bugs are usual ones, enjoy!
They will do just fine !
When "they" say hot temps, it simply means some varieties stop producing
new fruit when nighttime temos stay above the nineties F.
That is probably late July or early August.
But it does appear, hopefully, we may have a cooler than
usual summer, so those night temps may be later in
starting, or might not get as hot as normal.
At any rate, accept the challenge and see what happens !
You might also want to try putting a few in the shade, either
in the ground or in pots. The shade creates a microclimate.
You cant always go by what "they" say...... after all this is exas and we are unique and special :)
Flexibly fluctuating farmers? Chuckl,
Most of the time night time temps need to get below 70* for pollination but this is an "about". I'd give it a shot. It was freezing here 2 weeks ago....so you never can tell.
I really want to try to grow tomatoes aquaponically, has anyone tried this?
Lisa, I've heard 70 degrees also. My pole beans sat and did nothing last summer, despite looking healthy. I was ready to yank them but I heard that night temps have to be below 70 for them to produce. I kept them alive until September and then they took off and started producing soon after the temps dropped. I really do think there's something to that.
Never tried aquaponics, but it looks pretty cool :)
Just a note that Brandywine tomatoes are notorious for low yields in the South with the heat and humidity. That's what I've always been told and it has also been my personal experience. Bc of this I no longer grow them. I do grow BK and have had great luck with them.
We get the highest sales at the farmers market with our Black Krims and our Mortgage Lifters. My BKs are extremely prolific for us and we have less problem with birds although I use red ornaments for decoys.
When nights are above 75 and days above 90, tomatoes won't set fruit. You will have a lag time on production stopping because of the length if time it takes to form a tomato. We have found that tomatoes planted on the east side of the house produce a little longer in the summer because of the afternoon shade. Of course they take longer to start producing as well.
All tomatoes like consistent water, a tomato fruit is 80% water. Many issues with the fruit can be traced back to watering or lack of.
We dislike Brandywines as well for the same reasons. Plants were never as vigorous or as prolific. Some never seemed to produce.
Heirlooms are more flavorful and hardy. Well worth trying.
When you think they are giving up the ghost this summer, take a stem and cover it with dirt. Keep moist till roots form. Cut behind the roots, put in a big pot and keep in the house under good lights till weather starts to ease. Plant back outside and you are good to go for fall.
I love ML. I've had good luck with the yellow ones as well as the pink. My tomatoes slow down but never stop producing. When I lived in So Cal growing veggies was so easy even when the day time temps got into the 100s. But it always cooled down at night. I've harvested exactly 1 BW tomato after all the plants I've grown. Not doing that again. There are too many that I know will produce to bother with them...
Last year i planted Arkansas Travelers, Bonnie Best, and Bradley. I got about 10 edible tomatoes all year, couldn't keep them watered enough. Which is why I'm eying my fishpond as a tomato bed.
I picked up some Cherokee Purple and Early Girl starts at the feed store. I threw the Cherokee in the trash for a couple of days thinking they had mosaic disease, then pulled them out and planted them (they were right side up and it was a warm trash can). They are still doing fairly pitiful, but the Early girl hybrids are taking off.
Started a few Juliette seeds in the greenhouse. My water bills were higher than my grocery savings last year. Early Girls are heat tolerant, but not heirloom. Still a tomato is a tomato and they set fruit , then none in summer then set fruit in fall and they do live
tx_flower_child
I am in your same area and here is my experienced with late planted tomatoes: It is a waste of time and space ... sorry for my honesty ...
By the time your tomato plants will be old enough to produce, the weather will be too hot here in Dallas.
You will have wonderful tall green plants, with tons of leaves.
Yes they will make flowers ... but not fruits.
If you will have any fruits you will be lucky ... but then in June /July the leaffotted bugs will suck the juice out of your tomatoes and make them really taste bad and also the tomato hornworm will come to visit.
Here is the good news: you may have tomatoes in the fall ... if ... we will not have an early freeze.
Sorry: brutal truth !
If you really want to have a great harvest of tomatoes in Dallas, you will need to transplant mid February (a lot of nurseries in town will have transplants ready for you at that time).
You need to dedicate a month to keep your plants protected under hoops and cover, then you will have 3.5 months of tomatoes ...
Planting now you may harvest 10/20 fruits or nothing ... and work a lot and water a lot ...
By the way, I have started to harvest my tomatoes already: Gold Nugget and Super Sweet 100
http://nhg.com/pdf/NTxVegPlanting_spring.pdf
http://nhg.com/PDF/NTxVegPlanting_fall.pdf
Here are the spring and fall planting dates for our area from North Haven Garden.
They will give you and idea of when vegetable needs to be planted/transplanted in Dallas.
Thanks y'all. I know it's late but at least the tomatoes have a decent start on them. (And were free!) Plus I'm planting each in 5 gallon buckets using extremely good mix of all kinds of stuff. (Bags are outside and memory too short to name all the ingredients.)
Roux, like you, I'm not a big fan of Brandywines. Gave most of those to neighbors. Think I'll love the BKs. Did anyone know that the 'K' in the name Black Krim is short for Krimea? Or Crimea as we spell it over here. At least those toms will be timely in one sense of the word.
I go to NHG a lot and was there on Sat. Also was at the TX Discovery Gardens Plant Sale on Sunday. And have been to Redenta's Nursery. All said it was worth a shot to try the toms. Plus I bought some pepper starts at Redenta's and I see by the list provided by one of drthor that it was a timely purchase. FYI for those in the general area, Redenta's is totally organic (I think) and they have a nursery in Arlington. I go to the one in Dallas but it's teeny. However their staff is very knowledgeable. And if all goes as planned, I'll be back at NHG on Friday for their monthly Happy Hour. Woo hoo!
Didn't know about the 70 degrees thing but evening temps here are still way below 70 altho we all know how quickly the weather changes. Had the heat on for a little while this morning.
Going outside now. Among other things, I'm still doing a major assault on nutsedge. Have a little more to pull and have already started covering with dried molasses. Update on that later. Think there's another thread on that somewhere.
A very small distance can make a huge difference in growing conditions ( microclimates). Plant your plants and see what happens. I always have a great fall harvest from the plants I put out in the spring. I can't say I have many problems with pests and the problems I do have are usually in the spring and early summer. I've been growing in the same location for 20 yrs.
As you can tell we all have different experiences so plant your plants and see what your experience is. Please keep us updated on your plants. It's supposed to be in the 40s here tonight, so who knows? Lol
From what I've read that is what K stands for. ; )
Anybody know how many and how big the holes in the bottom of the 5 gal. buckets should be? The nursery told me but I promptly forgot. Guess I'll call back.
If they have shorter dates to maturity, then you'll be fine. As long as the fruit sets before it gets too hot, you'll get a harvest. I still have some tomatoes that I've not planted.
BK has a pretty short DTM compared to theres. If it does get hot you'll have nice big plants for a fall crop and if they are in containers you can move them if a freeze is coming.
The heat thing in Tx as aways confused me bc when I gardened in SoCal it got into the 100s for days on end but we always had a very productive suburban garden. I'll I can think is that it cooled down enough at night. The Central Valley of Ca is one of the biggest producers of commercial tomatoes and it gets dang hot there all summer,maybe it cools down at night, and I don't know if they get the humidity that some of Tx gets ( we don't get that humid here). Tx is such a huge state there is no way to generalize and I think it's hard to compare growing in a rural area to growing in an urban or suburban area. I only have barb wire to stop the winds and my one garden is 20' x 50', the other area is twice as big. There is no way I can cover everything when it gets cold I pretty much have to wait until the weather stabilizes.
Its possible it may freeze tonight.
Yup. Possible freeze. Just heard the weather forecast. Dallas is going to be in the low 40s, but outlying areas may get a light frost. May Day!
You're right! I just checked wunderground and we're lucky, only calling for 44 here.. I think I'd cry if we froze!! Still 54 here at midnight so they better be right.. Kind of considering going out there and covering all my tomatoes with flowerpots I brought home for the roundup!!
Forecast low of 37 here, I've got to go turn off the tilapia water pump, they like it over 50
52F this morning ... false alarm !
We got down to 38 here, temp is climbing back up now, that was scary..
It was 50 this morning, that's a big difference from freezing. Wonder what the temps will be tomorrow AM? It strange to see all the different AM temps. There is just no generalization in this state.
Texas really does have so many more regions and climates than people think. It is always a few degrees cooler here than in the metroplex. Probably since it's rural, we're more open to the winds, and there's less concrete to trap heat. Except for in the summer, when it's triple digits, I really feel no difference brought by winds and the heat is no less stifling..
Even when not online, I have been thinkin about this thread and topic.
REMEMBER these things:
1 Every year is different
2 Take a risk. Experiment.
3 Gardening is a challenge, that is part of what makes it interesting
and challenging !
4. If you have an opportunity to obtain plants, take it ! Nothing
ventured, nothing gained.
5. When debating which types of maters to grown, not all mater cultivars are created equally.
6. Try to grow some that are more suited to Texas.
Some I know of are "Texas Wild", discovered growing wild in Texas, and Porter, which was developed specifically for Texas growing. There are asp pthers, but its still too early for me
to think clearly.
7. Do your homework. If you read up on varieties you might be interested in,, you will be better able to tell what will succeed here. I doubt a German variety would do better than
one from a country nearer the equator.
Even within Mexico, varieties from the cooler mountain regions would not be more appropriate for hotter, lower-altitude parts of Texas than tomatoes adapted to hotter,
more humid locales.
8. Check with Texas A & M website and your county extension service for suggestions
about which cultivars they advise for your county.
9. Even if "they" were correct about the temps, my observation has been that production SLOWS during the heat but doesnt come to a total standstill.
10. If the halts or slows production, it doesn't kill the plants, and as soon as the heat lets
up, production will rev back up.
Actually Ive had great luck with German and Russian Varieties. It gets cold in those countries but it gets hot too. Just have to see what works for you.