Crickets Greenhouses 2007

Lurking around and remember your thread Cricket
Hmmm geraniums , you will have to keep me updated on those . I always wondered if they are pretty easy to do. Nurserys around here are always saying " grown from seed " well aren't all plants grown from seed lolol :) but i know what they mean.
I guess you decided to keep your greenhouses ? i was under the impresssion you wouldn't be doing it anymore ? or am i mistaken.
did i miss it somewhere in the thread ? i htought i read it well enough , but at my age you never know ? ! lolol :)
take care looking forward to another yr of Crickets greenhouses
sue

I dont remember about "not keeping the greenhouse business." I know i was flustrated with the Tomato produce greenhouses. That was truely an iffy decision. But decided to grow them again next year too which I start those seed next week in order to have vine ripe tomatoes by first week in April. Gotta beat that Summer heat.

I sow all my seeds in seed flats then transplant to packs or baskets. I never start them in the finishing pots. For one, you never know which seed isn't goin to germinate and most of the time only 80 to 90% will germinate. If i started them all in the finishing containers I would have alot of missing plants in packs. Transplanting also helps make the plants stronger. It's also important not to tear as many roots as possible when transplanting little seedlings. Like tomatoes for instance. Most accidently break the tap roots on tomatoes when transplanting them without ever relizing it. The tap root is what will help give you that BIG ONE. Same for other plants. They all have a tap root. If the tap root is broken, It will not do its very best.

Heating Mats--------I start all my seeds with some type of heat mats or cables.
Seeds need 70 degrees or slightly warmer to germinate properly and evenly. I sow over 25,000 seeds each spring and need as many as possible to germinate evenly for pack and container sales so that all the plants are close to the same size. Germinating in a window is fine for the hobby gardeners. I use to use the window before I opened a business. My problem after that was the window wasnt big enough. LOL. And uneven heat cause the window is cold at night. Growing under lights is fine too if you dont have a window, but still, uneven bottom heat.
It takes longer to germinate if you dont have even bottom heat.

happy gardening

Cricket

Hey Cricket,
I've read this thread all the way to the end and am amazed that you fly SOLO! With all that production! I'd like to know if you have any tips/suggestions for trellising tomatoes (a hobby gardener who might decide to get SERIOUS about production real soon...) grown in Earthboxes? Your tomato vines are so LUSH throughout. I'm still trying to understand how to trim to ONE stem and still get all that foliage you show in your pics. I tried trimming the side branches off the first 12" of my plants this fall, and set up Black Speck and Black Spot because I didn't follow up with Ortho Garden Disease Control to keep the fungus from getting into the sites I had pinched off with my thumbnail. I truly want to grow a banner crop in the spring, and any advice you could give me would be much appreciated. I want to share my harvest with my family, friends and as many in need as I can .

Thanks.

Linda

An easy way to trellis your tomato plants that are in EBs is to set up a clothes line method.
Just like in the old days when women had to hang their clothes out to dry on a clothes line.
Make it as long as you need it. Set your EB under the clothes line. Tie a long string with string to spare to the bottom of your tomato vine and twist that string around the vine to the tip and run on up to the clothes line, tie it off like slip knot. A Knot that can be easily untied when your tomato vines reach the clothes line it self. Then you can untie the string and lower the vine down and retie the string again.
I keep the main vine and trim all the other sucker vines off as it grows taller. A sucker will grow in the each leaf joint and they get cut off when they are about 2-3 inches long.
As the vine grows taller, I wrap the vine around the string. The new tomato growth at the top of the vine is flexible but tender to break. Do it carefully.

Hopefully you can see the string wrapped around the tomato vine in this picture. These tomato vines are approximately 6 inches apart from each other.

You dont have to trim your plants to one vine if you have limited space on growing your seedlings. Just trim your plants back so that each vine has at least 6 eaches between them for good air circulation to reduce fungus.

go here to view a picture diagram of how to prune a tomato plant.
http://ag.arizona.edu/hydroponictomatoes/pruning.htm

Cricket
so they are tied at the bottom and the matos grow up with the string ? That is cool
sue

Cricket,
I understood everything you said, until this part: "A Knot that can be easily untied when your tomato vines reach the clothes line it self. Then you can untie the string and lower the vine down and retie the string again." Why am I lowering the vine once it reaches the clothes line? I thought the vine was supposed to grow upward toward the clothesline and keep on going. Where am I lowering the vine to?

Thanks for the clear pics and the visual test on the link. the explanations on the different (wrong) cuts was very helpful in understanding what each part of the vine does.

Sorry, got busy there for several days.

The purpose in lowering the vines is cause you run out of space at the top.

a picture to show what it looks like when lowered
the purpose is so you continue to have support for more vine.
the vine that is lowered still has support.
I trimmed these vines to show what it looks like===which was too much trimming.

This is what happens when you dont lower the vines, You run out of room up top. Vines were a total of 12 feet long. I also lower my vines cause they are grown in a greenhouse .

It is totally up to the individual on rather they should or want to lower the vines.

very nice Cricket
It all looks great !
wow you have alot of tomatos ! lol :)
I m wondering your greenhouses they are also used as coldframes ? and just little by little take off the cover ?
I hope i m not asking the stupidest question.
I am hoping this comming spring of 08 be doing plant sales and veg sales at our local farmers market and was wondering on that . I am not looking forward to doing it all by hand like i did 2 yrs ago lol :) 200 little plants carried out . Bunch by bunch lovingly hardening them off .
looking good
sue

Cricket,
Forgive me for being so "anal," but I'm not truly understanding. Let's see if I do. The vines grow upwards to touch the clothesline. They've grown straight up, trained to wrap around the verticle line reaching up to that clothesline. Now, they're too tall. What to do? In lowering them, wouldn't they just sort of "bend" in a bow shape? In your photo, looks like you clipped them down. But I thought if you cut the main "Leader?" stem, the vine would stop growing taller, correct? It starts to "bush" out and keep producing at the new height, just getting bushier and putting out more tomatoes?

Again, I apologize for not understanding the first time around.

thanks for the visual. It helps.

I dont cut off the main vine. The main vine keeps growing. I trim all other suckers. I let no side shoots grow. In the previous jungle picture, I did not trip the tops of those vines and it got way out of hand. I had surgery that summer and could not tend to the tomatoes. Yes when you lower the vine , it drapes to the side. Some commerical greenhouses actually wrap the lowered vine around the growing container rather it be a sturdy 5 gallon pot or the plastic grow bags. I did not like doing that cause my vines were very sturdy and broke when i tried it. But most just drape them to the side

So they're still on the line, just lowered to drape to the side, right? Ok. That makes sense to me!

Thanks Cricket!

Oh, and by "side shoots" you mean the "suckers" growing from a "V" on the side branches, right?

Ok!

Cricket, beautiful tomato plants, as always. What do you feed them, and what kind of medium are you growing in these days?

When I grow in grow bags, most of the time I use 1/3 peat moss and 2/3 compost manure from walmart. Mix it in a wheel barrow.
To make it easier to fill my bags because they are limp, and I fill sooooooooo many, I cut the bottom out of a 5 gallon bucket and I use clothes pins to hold the grow bag in the cut bucket. When the bag is full, remove the pins and lift the bucket.
If I am growing in the ground, I amend the soil with compost manure and peat moss. Some aged cow manure or homemade compost is excellent but if you dont have it, buy it. Since everyone has a differant type soil base, amendments will be differant.
Gypsom helps break up clay loam for better root system. Peat moss helps retain more moisture in sandy loam.
I fertilize with 13-13-13, Epsom Salt for the magnesium, and Calcium Nitrate when growing in bags. Same in the ground but less calcium nitrate and use Lime in the fall for calcium in the Spring.
It is also best to spray your plants with some type of fish emulsion throughout the growing season every two weeks. After tomatoes start forming, spray with a good potassium for fruit development. A fertilizer with high last number. Or Wood Ashes, greensand, kelp meal, and manure in the soil. You can buy organic nutrient sprays that contain high potassium.
Neptunes Harvest.

Yes, side shoots are the suckers in the V of a leaf joint.


Growing tomatoes extra extra early is a new experience for me. I learn something new every day. And something I already knew may not be the best. Learning news ways all the time.

I am goin to start a new topic, 2008.