A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 TOMATO

That's funny, cause......
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I THOUGHT I INVENTED IT.. heehee,
seriously...

No we have a lot of clay here.

When I first tilled it I borrowed a counter-rotating tiller from a guy it work, all it did was get stuck a lot. The wheels spun one way and the tines spun the other way. It would dig 2 holes everytime it did this.

The tiller I have now is forward-rotating. I have tilled several spots and it's all hard to till up.

I trenched a water-line for the son last fall in Broken Arrow, and his yard was full of clay about a foot down.

The only way a worm is going to burrow in my yard is if he uses a jack-hammer and some dynamite!!!

Got one word!!!
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COMPOSTTTTTTTT!!!

heheheheehe..
That's a good one..

But use COMPOST...
Best soil, clay buster~upper you'll find..
Will ad to drainage...and break that stuff up..

I added 6" of wood chips to the east half last fall, and I have about 6" piled on the west end, and have some more left for the east end.

My compost pile was VERY big. I plan to get some more wood chips from the city this year. I also added some lime, and some 27-13-13 to it to help it.

With what you posted,
I'd get some kind of manure too...

Pat, with all that wood chips, the manure will
help... it'll ad to the nitrogen the plants need, and help break down the woodchips..

and if for the area for your tomatoes,
I'd lay off the lime....

Tomatoes love acid, like you'd get from leaves, pine needles and wood stuff.....

I have not heard anything good about Totally Tomatoes. These are more reputable sources of tomato seed.

Tomato Growers Supply
Sand Hill
Marianne\'s
Heirloom Tomatoes
Seed Saver\'s Exchange

I think a member of ours, though I haven't spoken with him in a bit, RICK, grows seeds for there,
I think.. I'll have to find out from him...

I'm a first year member. I just got their annual yearbook. Over 100 pages of unique OP tomatoes. I've ordered many tomato varieties from their public catalog and have about another 15 varities I'm requesting from the yearbook.

I just ordered some hot pepper seeds from Tomato Growers Supply. They have a great selection!
Another great source of heirloom and open pollinated tomatoes is Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Peppereater,

I didn't save any seed from Aunt Ruby's last year so my stock is pretty low. I do have an excess of Black Plum that I can send you. PM me with your mailing address.

John, I'm so looking forward to joining SSE with all the talk and drooling going on regarding the yearbook. I have to see what all the fuss is about. Of course it just feeds my tomato obsession, lol. It'll have to wait until next year, though. This year the budget's very tight. The big purchase I'm looking forward to in March is a set or two of shop lights for the seedlings.

Weezie, I haven't grown Siberia so I can't speak to whether it's a good variety. Like whoever mentioned before about Rutgers, it's a very decent canning tomato, so it doesn't surprise me that you wouldn't like it as a slicer. Get your hands on some German Red Strawberry seeds. That one doesn't get huge and it's a WONDERFUL fruity tomato for eating out of hand and not too big.

Cheers,
Julianna

I hear ya Julianna. I actually need a couple more shoplights myself.


Dave, I can send you a few ARGG. Just drop me a PM with your snail mail addy.

I already have a place to pickup a truck load of cow manure. Was going to do that last week, but I didn't have time.

Julianna...thanks for the offer. You too, John. I'll be PMing you both. Anyone want Cosmic Orange Cosmos seed? I think it's that variety, that's what they look like.
Julianna..."German Red Strawberry" is a great name! I'll be looking into those!

Sure! I can throw in few German Red Strawberry if you want.

Just my input. I order from TT every year and have always gotten good service and good germination on the seeds. I know that they also sell plants and haven't ever ordered those. I was on a site called watchdog or something and checked out their ratings there. There were several negatives, mostly related to their live plants, though many of those reviewers said that TT had either refunded their money or reshipped the plants.

Pat, Then you are alllllll set to go...


Try some orangic fert's too, Cotton meal,
blood meal, I think, oh, goshhhhhh, brain drain,
Terry posted some somewhere's around here of some good mixes to mix up too...
Try some experimenting...

Just fixed your quote mike, that was all!

Do you all like Early Girl???? I've started some from seed this year and it's the first time I've tried them.

My mother likes early girl, if for any other fact than, they're early and they are not a store bought :p tomato...
They do produce well, she gets a good supply to hand out to the Meals on Wheels people...

Thanks Weezie. BTW, is there a way to reply to a specific message? I didn't see one.

Mike

Like this one Mike???

Click on the quotation makrs at the top of the person you are tryin' to answer or question,
clean it up, if you'd like, to specify what you wanted to quote or know about, like I did with your question above..

Let me tell you, My mom planted a few of the tomato seeds from Comfrey, and a few store bought, and Comfrey's are ZOOMING past the store bought!!!! Can't wait to start mine!!!!!!!!!

Ninni

PS. Thanks again Comfrey!

Early Girl is very productive, but not much on taste.

Thanks John, that's just what I wanted to know......

Does your mom like the taste of them Weezie? Do you?

Good thing I also have beefsteaks, romas, and cherry tomatoes to fall back on.