harveyc

Johnny's seeds is where I bought my Maxifort seeds (and the silicone clips and also some other tomato varieties). The video on that page from a grower back east is what I followed in doing my grafts (I used the top grafting method demonstrated half ways through the video). I posted that video here in the "Pretty Good" thread, I think.

Thanks for the link to the GardenWeb link, I had not seen that. I wish that guy had grown out the F2 seedlings further and actually compared them to some F1 seeds as his comparison seems very informal. I had not thought of using cuttings for grafting but think that's worth a try base don the price of the seeds. Probably not the most efficient method, especially since you've got to try to have plants all the correct size to match up with your scions, but it's worth a try.

It's far too early to make a comparison but when I was planting out some tomatoes the other day I noticed that one plant of a particular variety grafted onto Maxifort was much fuller and greener than the other five non-grafted plants of the same variety.

For what it's worth, my grafting success was 19 out of 20. The one that failed was doubtful from the beginning since the scion was very small and maybe it would have been successful if I waited a few days longer. The success of one guy there are GardenWeb was pretty poor but he seemed to be grafting outdoors on plants that were in the ground.

__________________

venturabananas

Love the Sungold, too. Congrats on the grafting success! Those bamboo stakes seem a little short for some of those indeterminate varieties. Maybe it is a photo angle thing. I hope this project works out well for you and Michael!

__________________

GreenFin

It's great of you to help your son like this. Many positives (and positive memories) will come from this project. Kudos!

__________________
Set out runnin', but I'll take my time; a friend of bananas is a friend of mine.

www.GreenFinGardens.com

harveyc

Those stakes are by no means the long term support for the tomatoes. I wouldn't have used them at all if planting hadn't been delayed by rains and then frost. We're going to use the "Florida Weave" like shown at and

Since my plants are already tied to the bamboo, the first row of twine can be higher so it's not all wasted work. The twine would not have supported these transplants well enough anyways since they were crowded in the greenhouse.

__________________

harveyc

Too much going on this time of year. I need to get the stakes and twine up but don't have time right now so tied some plants higher up on the stakes over the past couple of days. We had an unusual heat wave for a few days that made them happy and they grew pretty good.

We finished planting the rest of the Sungold on Saturday (4/21) and installed the second line of drip tape:

__________________

harveyc

I saw several cherry tomato plants with small fruits yesterday and today, 4/24, I noticed a pretty good-sized fruit on one of my Brandywine (Sudduth's strain) plants. I have six Brandwine. One each is grafted onto Maxifort, Colosus, and Better Boy rootstocks and three are ungrafted. The most vigorous of these six plants at this early stage is the one grafted onto Maxifort and it's the one with this fruit:

__________________

harveyc

Update as of 5/3/2012:

We've started installing lodgepole stakes (8' long, cost of $2 at area vineyard and orchard supply firm) and tomato twine ($7 plus shipping for 6,600') to install our "Florida Weave" training system.


Here's a Sungold F1, a very popular cherry tomato:


Black cherry:


Here's a Blush Cherry, a variety which will be red with orange stripes when ripe:


Here's Malakhitovaya Shkatulka a variety that remains green when ripe:


Here's Amazon Chocolate:


Next step is to work on some weed control before they get out of hand.

__________________

sunfish

Looking pretty darn good

venturabananas

No kidding. Mine aren't that far along and I started my seed before Harvey! Just goes to show the difference between an amateur and a pro!

Harvey, are you guys making any treatments for disease control? And, out of curiosity, how much water do you give each plant weekly?

__________________

harveyc

Mark, I've been spraying my cape gooseberry (in the middle of the row on the left) quite a bit with pyrethrin for a bad potato beetle problem but that's it. I haven't fertilized or treated for any diseases but plant to use Bt for worms later on. I've never had an issue with tomato diseases here but some of the heirlooms might prove to be a problem so I would probably just exclude those next year.

Our temperatures fluctuate quite a bit so my watering schedule has also been highly variable. It had been about a week since I watered so yesterday I ran the water for a couple of hours and would guess that was probably about 300 gallons of water or about a gallon per plant. They probably didn't need that much but my pumping cost from my well is very low (maybe $1 or less for that water) and I was busy with other chores. If I don't water them enough the roots won't expand out into new areas very well.

__________________

harveyc

Note to self: wear your reading glasses when reading tomato labels! Yesterday I posted a photo and said it was Blush Cherry but it was actually Black Cherry (they are planted right next to one another to allow me some excuse). Blush Cherry is elongated and I added that photo to my post above.

__________________

harveyc

Okay, it's been over two weeks since the last update. We finished putting in the remainder of the stakes for the Sungold and put twine on those and a second line of twin where we had originally put stakes. Overall, plants look very good. I've got a few clusters of Sungold that are getting close to being ripe...woohoo! I just snapped photos of a lot of different varieties and didn't make note of what names they were. I think I've got a 'Big Beef' that's about 3" in diameter.

__________________

harveyc

Note: the high water in the ditch to the left is because I pump water from the river into that holding ditch and then pump from that ditch to pressurize it to irrigate m chestnuts and pomegranates with micro-sprinklers. The ditch is about 650 long and I pump 2,500 gpm into it for 1.5-2.0 hours.

__________________

harveyc

Harvest Time!!!

Okay, not much, but I did pick two Sungold cherry tomatoes this evening. They were pretty ripe and were pretty good. I'll wait until next week to pick more.

__________________

momoese

Those Sungolds will split, don't wait too long to harvest.

harveyc

Michael graduates from 8th grade on 6/1 and the timing is pretty good as we might be starting harvest in good numbers around then. Then it will get very busy a week or two after that as we've got 110 Sungold plants that were planted a couple of weeks after these first ones. Good thing he has a good back.

__________________

venturabananas

They will, but they are not nearly as prone to splitting as another of my favorites, Black Cherry. At least in my yard.

__________________

harveyc

That's another we're growing.

__________________

Dalmatiansoap

Black Cherry?? Dang, how did I miss that one?!
Im a big fan of black tomatoes.

__________________
https://abnb.me/AXJty518xib

lkailburn

picking tomatoes already! aw man.. i just planted mine out a week ago :-(
lol lucky!

-Luke