Tomato News

I've updated you on my Sungold experimental tomatoes in the past, but I barely talk at all about my potted tomatoes. Today I'll talk about all my 'maters.

A couple of my Miracle of the Market tomatoes look like they may start to turn soon. The big one on the bottom hasn't changed color so much as it has started to change in texture. I have two pails of these tomatoes. They seem to be very prolific. Each spray only sets two or three tomatoes, but they keep sending out more blooms. I have over 10 tomatoes set on each plant with lots of flowers still blooming. It grows very weirdly. When a spray of flowers comes out of the stem, it ends the stem. The sucker down below at the last branch starts up just like it was the original stem. So it doesn't grow tall very quickly like most inderterminants do, but it doesn't stop either like determinants.

So far none of my small black tomatoes (Black Cherry- above, Chocolate Cherry and Black Moor) are ripe. The first two are rather disappointing in fruit set. Not many sprays have set. The plants are big, but they aren't doing much. I'll get some, but not an abundance of tomatoes.

Black Moor is much more prolific. It was described as a small 1" elongated cherry. These are almost 2" long and pear shaped. They are not the bite sized little tomatoes I thought I was trialing. I would have to cut them in two to put them in my salads. Then I found my problem. They are 1" across, not 1" long. That makes more sense. I hope they taste good though since there are a lot of sprays of fruit and lots of tomatoes on this plant. The one drawback has been some blossom end rot. I have had problems watering my potted plants. If I don't do it on time they droop rather sadly. So I can't say the BER is really their fault. I'm just as much to blame. However the other plants are getting the same treatment and I've only had one tomato with BER on my other plants (Miracle of the Market). I picked off about six tomatoes that had started rotting. I think I'll still get more before it is all over. Even with that, I think these will be much more prolific than the other small blacks.

Early Ssubakus Aliana is the last of my potted tomatoes. She was described as being a yellow egg shaped tomato. She is a bit rounder and shorter than I expected. But she is putting on a lot of fruit in huge clusters.

I so can't wait to taste them all. Tomatoes are one of my biggest joys in the summer. Now on to my Sungold F2s.

It is official. The Sungolds really are hybrids. I have two plants (Gabrielle and Debra) that have reddish tomatoes. The other four are all the typical Sungold color. So one of its parents had red tomatoes. The size and shape of the tomatoes don't vary much from plant to plant, so both of its parents were probably cherries. I only have six plants so it really isn't a good statistical sample. If my math is correct I have about an 18% chance that any particular recessive trait doesn't show up in my plants. The best part about a Sungold and even an F2 Sungold is that they are prolific. The photo above really doesn't do the plants justice. You can't really see the haze of flowers and fruit in that photo. The fruit especially blends in. It does give you an idea of their prolific nature though. The fruit is everywhere. I hope it ripens fast or it is going to take down their cages. And yes there are cages somewhere inside all that foliage. They have been overrun.

Sungold F2 Update, July 2009

It has been a busy harvesting time in the garden, but of all the things harvested two stand out. I ate raspberries on my cereal this morning for the first time this year. Then Alice gave me my first tomato. Go Alice!

I haven't done an F2 Sungold update in a while so I figure I ought to. It is harder now to figure out how the tomatoes are doing. They are a jungle and some have grown into the others' cages in their search for more space.

Four tomato plants: Alice, Betsy, Gabrielle (taking over her neighbors) and Debra

Alice is still the smallest plant. That being said she has also outgrown her cage, so maybe small isn't a bad thing. She did produce the first tomato and despite her size she is putting out flowers and setting trusses of tomatoes about as well as the other larger plants. Her flower trusses are amazing. They often branch into four sets of trusses. Some of the other plants are doing this as well but not nearly to Alice's extent. I was going to count the trusses that have set, but when I got over 10 for Alice I figured it was a futile attempt to see which ones had set and which ones were still just flowers.

This give you an idea of Alice's flowers. There are four trusses in this little section of photo.

Betsy is a sad case. She is a bit bigger than Alice, but she doesn't like to bloom. I see absolutely nothing going for her. I probably won't even save her seed.

Gabrielle is doing well. She is a big plant with lots of flowers. She didn't have much disease on her (a leaf spot disease is endemic here - probably Septoria leaf spot ) so when I cut a lot of foliage off of the other plants to open them out on the inside, I didn't do it as much on her. This means when I got back after a week, she had more leaves turning yellow in the middle that doesn't get any sun. I'll have to get out and trim up the plants a bit more.

Debra is doing OK. She is a large plant with lots of flowers. She isn't growing quite as fast as her neighbors and is getting a bit shaded out. Her neighbors to the west, Emma and Zelda, are the biggest of the lot. They are over two feet above their cages with very thick stems. They have innumerable flowers. When all those flowers set at the top I'm worried that the plants might come crashing down. The rusting 18 year old cages just aren't holding up anymore. They were starting to tilt over. I threw some wire supports in the front to hold the cages from falling. I attached them to the fence. I hope it is enough, but I'm not really sure. Right now it is hard to walk back there. The stray stems are poking out and seeking light. I have one that came out of the middle of the cage, dipped down to the ground then started growing up again.

Now Seedman told me that he thought Sungolds might already be stabilzed and no longer a hybrid. That might well be true. I'm only growing six plants which is really not enough to statistically tell. If I knew what the original parents were it would be easier to look for those differences. I do see differences in the growth of the plants. Two are very slow growing (Alice and Betsy). Three are very fast growing and one is in the middle (Debra). With the number of blossoms Alice has a very prolific output, Debra has very very little and the other four are about the same given their growth. The tomatoes that are starting to ripen are all the Sungold color. Only Debra isn't showing any color yet. They are all about the same size (1", just like Sungold) except Emma. Emma's tomatoes are a bit smaller at 3/4".

Sungold F2 Update

I've had too much to write about so I've been putting off writing about my Sungold experiment. It has now been 3 1/2 weeks since my last update and can't put it off anymore. I'm going to put in photos of each plant for the record. Sadly I took them yesterday and the sun was strong with a bit too much glare so they aren't great photos, but it is raining and dark outside now so they will have to do.

General Observations

The weather for the past week few weeks has mostly been cool, dry and cloudy. The average temperatures have probably been in the 60°Fs with five days in the 50°Fs and two days in the 80°Fs. Cool and cloudy weather is not the best for tomato growing. That being said my tomatoes are doing much better than last year when we had warm abnormally wet weather. I'm guessing this is due to the bed preparation and not the weather. Things that are different than last year:

• grew a vetch cover crop before digging the bed, saved the dried foliage to mulch the plants
  
• double dug the bed
• dug in three inches of compost in the deeper half while double digging
• did not use black plastic mulch, but used compost as a mulch
• interplanting with basil, marigolds, carrots and peppers, last year only had peppers
• in the planting hole added bonemeal, organic 5-3-3, powdered egg shells, and azomite, last year only had the first two (note that Alice and Betsy got crushed eggshells and not powdered)
  
• Planted about three weeks earlier
  

When I say they are doing better I mean the plants look stronger. The foliage is thicker. I don't think the tomatoes will be earlier, but that is still to be seen. But I do think they will produce more. I didn't measure my harvest last year, so this is subjective, but to all appearances they seem happier. The happiest is Emma. The next two strongest are Zelda and Gabrielle. The other three are not quite keeping pace. If there is nothing really to put them up in the standing, they will not be grown out in subsequent years.

There are more flea beetles this year than last year. The plants don't seem overly bothered by them. The issue with them is that they eat little tiny holes in the leaves and I'm thinking it makes it easier for diseases to enter the plants. So far I haven't had much problem with the typical disease my tomatoes always get (disease is unknown, but the oregano is the only other plant in my garden to also get the same spots). A few plants do have it, but it doesn't seem to be spreading much. Last year it showed up in June and was bad enough that I ripped up one of my plants.

More aphids this year than last in the garden as a whole and certainly on the tomatoes. No bad infestations yet.

All the tomatoes have set fruit on one truss, but no more. Alice is ahead of the curve and her tomatoes are bigger than the others at about 1/2" wide. The others are at around 1/4".

Alice

Alice is 2'8" tall. Her growth is narrow and she has few stems. She has four trusses that are currently blooming. She does stand out in one respect. She produced her blossoms before any other tomato so her first fruit (which all set even with low temps in the low 40°Fs at times). Her trusses also seem a bit bigger than others. She is healthy.

Betsy

Betsy is 2' 11" tall. She seems pretty pitiful and is a very narrow plant with few stems. She only has two trusses open. Last update she had some disease spots. I pulled off the lower leaves on most of the plants a while ago. This included the diseased leaves. I couldn't find any spots this time around so she seems to have recovered. Despite her recovery, there is really nothing going for her since she is small and is not making a lot of tomatoes.

Gabrielle

Gabrielle is 3' 2" tall. She is a real stand out. I would say she is the third best tomato if you go by growth alone. She is very wide and has many strong thick stems. She has four trusses open and is quite healthy.

Debra

Debra is 3' 2" tall. Despite her height, I still consider her a bit of a weakling. She is narrow and has sparse growth. Her stems are thin. She has two trusses of blossoms open. One of the trusses is a double truss so quite large. She has a small bit of disease in her lower branches.

Emma

Emma is 4' 2" tall and the star of the show. The cages are 4' tall (yeah I know I need taller ones) so she is now over the top of the cage. She is wide. So wide I have trouble keeping her confined to her cage. Her stems are thick, strong and numerous. She has a whopping 6 trusses open. She is healthy. Her one flaw seems to be small flowers. I'm thinking this will mean small tomatoes too. But if her tomatoes measure up and she stays healthy, she will be the clear winner in the trial.

Zelda

Zelda is 3' 4" tall. She is much like Emma in growth. She is wide and has a profusion of thick strong stems that are trying to escape the cage. She has four trusses blooming right now. Her foliage is a bit thicker on the bottom than any of the others and in that thick foliage are some disease spots. It isn't on the bottom most leaves, but in the thick growth toward the bottom.

F2 Sungold Update

Gratuitous flower photo

Oh so many things in the garden to talk about, but I just haven't been feeling like writing. So I'll write about the one that needs to be put permanently into the record - my tomato experiment. But first a description of what I'm doing.

I'm growing out some Sungold F2 seed. Sungold is my favorite tomato. It is a golden cherry that produces well. The plants are vigerous enough to outgrow our multitude of blights and mildews. It is also a hybrid. So that seed that I collected last year shouldn't grow true.

Hybrids are made by fertilizing two different open pollinated plants. Plant one may have genes that are 'AA' while plant two would have genes that are 'aa'. When combined the hybrid will have genes that are 'Aa'. This plant would be an F1 hybrid. The F1 denotes that it is the first generation hybrid. When you save seeds from an F1 hybrid plant and grow it out it is an F2 hybrid, and you really don't know what you will get with such a plant. When 'Aa' and 'Aa' combine the resulting seed will have one gene from one plant and one gene from the other, but it could be either gene so it could be 'Aa', 'AA' or 'aa'. And this of course holds true for all the genes they have. So when I grow the F2 Sungold out I have no clue as to what I will end up with.

If a seed company were trying to stabilize a hybrid, it would grow out many plants to start to get what they are looking for. I honestly am not quite sure what I'm looking for though an open pollinated Sungold would always be nice. I should also grow out a lot to see what different combination I get, but I had room for six. So I'm growing six. Their names are Alice, Betsy, Gabrielle, Debra, Emma, and Zelda because the Greek alphabet is more fun than our American one.

Time line for the tomatoes:

• April 3rd, 9 soil blocks seeded (2 seeds in each block), used heat mat for germination
  
• April 6-7, 17 seedlings germinated, randomly thinned out (didn't pick biggest or smallest, just the one closest to the left)
  
• April 24th (three weeks) potted up 7 tomatoes (didn't choose which ones, just did them in order down the row) into newspaper pots
  
• April 24th, started hardening off
  
• April 30th (four seeks) planted six outside under row cover
• May 14th row cover removed and cages put on
• May 20th a mulch of compost with half decomposed leaves was applied
  
• May 22 (today) first observational notes

Planting notes: The tomatoes were planted in a bed that was double dug and amended with several inches of compost about 8" down. The bed was also amended with an organic 5-3-3 fertilizer, lime, greensand and Azomite. Below each planting hole the dirt was amended with 1 c bone meal and 1c crushed eggshells. The plants were put 2' apart and slightly deeper than their pots. The bottom leaves were removed. In the back (north side) of the bed, basil and marigolds (Ground Control for nematodes) are alternated 2' apart so they are between but behind the tomatoes. In front of the tomatoes carrots were seeded on May 14th. Peppers are planted in the front (south side) of the bed at the same time the tomatoes were put in.

General Observations: they all seem to be doing at least OK. Flea beetles have started eating the leaves on all of the plants. No plant seems to be getting damaged more than any other plant. All had some black spots on the lower leaves. These leaves where taken off when they were mulched since they were very low.

Alice:

• healthy, doing OK
  
• 9" tall, shortest of all the tomatoes, narrow
  
• no suckers
• two sprays of flowers already and has two open blossoms, blossoms are small as usual in cherry tomatoes - she may be small, but she is spunky

Betsy:

• doing OK, some black spots on lower leaves
• 10" tall, narrow
• no suckers
• one spray of flowers, unopened

Gabrielle:

• doing well, healthy, thick stem
• 12" tall, wide plant
• one spray of flowers, unopened
• top no longer has one strong stem, sucker at that spot is just as strong (if not stronger) than main stem, so split into two

Debra:

• doing well, healthy
• 13" tall
• two sprays of flowers, unopened
• suckers 1"

Emma:

• doing the best of all, healthy, thick stem
• 20" tall, very wide
• two sprays of flowers, unopened
• suckers 5"

Zelda:

• doing well, healthy, thick stem
• 13" tall, wide plant
• two sprays of flowers, unopened
• 3" suckers

Basically Emma is the star at this point. Her growth is so strong. If you look along the line of plants she is obviously the winner in healthy growth, but can she produce? She does have two sprays of flowers. One looks like it will open soon. One of Sungold's best traits is its strong growth. Diseases can try to stop it, but it just grows out of them. Emma seems to have inherited that trait.

Alice and Betsy are the worst of the plants. Though Alice is trying to stay in the running by blooming the first. Neither has particularly thick stems. I'm a little worred that the two worst plants are over to one side. Did this side not get as much fertilizer or compost? Are there more nementodes here? Or could it be the eggshells? I had powdered eggshells as an ammendment for the other four. When I planted Betsy I was running out so she got half powdered half crushed. Alice got all crushed eggshells. Hmm something to think about for an experiment next year. Maybe putting the eggshells in the food processor is more than just cosmetic for the garden. It would make sense. Will the powdered ones last all season long? I guess time will tell.

Tomato Flowers

Sinfonian's Square Foot Garden had an article today that talked about tomato flowers and I started to comment, but it just got too long, so I'm putting it here for everyone. As many of you know I'm doing a little tomato experiment growing F2 seed that I saved, so I've been doing a little research in tomato breeding and seed saving and have come across a lot of info.

There are two kinds of tomato flowers. Most modern tomatoes have the first kind. These have short styles. The anthers (the male part of the flower that produces pollen) form a cone around the style and the stigma (the female part that accepts the pollen at the end of the style) is totally enclosed. Bees can't get to the stigma to pollinate it, so they are totally self pollinating. Bees actually do help with pollination here. Studies have shown that the frequency of the bees buzzing is perfect to loosen the pollen and make it fall on the stigma. Wind also helps and shaking the flowers can help too. If you grow in a greenhouse, shaking the plants is mandatory for fruit set.

The second kind of tomato flower has long styles. The stigma sticks out past the cone of the anthers. These don't always self pollinate. They can be pollinated by bees in the usual way. They can cross with other tomatoes. Sometimes they self pollinate like the other tomatoes (and they don't need bees for this, if the flower is pointing down the pollen can still fall on the stigma). However the seed collected from these tomatoes may not be true to type.

So how can you tell if your tomato has long or short styles? Most modern varieties have short styles, but as I found out earlier you can't be sure. My Sungolds from which I saved F2 seed might have crossed with my others since they have long styles. The wild tomatoes all have long styles. According to Suzanne Ashworth's book, Seed to Seed, all potato leaved tomatoes have long styles as do beefsteaks when they have double blossoms. If you want to save seed from your tomatoes it is always a good idea just to check the flowers first. Just look at the cone formed by the anthers. Does the style stick out past it or not? If it does, you have to isolate your plant if you want to save seed. I'll probably do this by making little remay bags for the flowers, since mine will all be planted in one 20'x20' garden. Oh and when you check those styles, make sure it is from newly opened blossoms. Once they are pollinated, the anther tube will start to open and you will see the style then.

Though tomatoes pollinate themselves just fine, that doesn't mean all your tomatoes will automatically be pollinated and if they aren't pollinated no tomato will be formed unless it is parthenocarpic (if you want to read about that go to Sinfonian's SFG and click the link to the article he references). What causes a tomato not to pollinate? Temperature is the major culprit. Low temperatures can cause the flowers to be malformed (55°F 13°C) and pollen is usually not viable under 50°F 10°C. I don't see high temperature problems here in the Boston area, but the same thing happens when the temperature goes over 90°F 32°C.

Please note that those temperatures are an estimate. There is a lot of genetics at play about what temperatures the flowers are viable. Some have been bred for temperature extremes and can produce where others can't. Strange things can happen to the plant at temperature extremes too. If your tomatoes don't self pollinate at high temperatures, the flowers can sometimes elongate their styles in an attempt to try to cross with viable pollen. This is a very cool survival mechanism since the resulting seed will always have some genes for high temperature survival. Though if you want true to type seed, don't save seed when temperatures get that high.

Tomato Dreams

Yesterday the Ottawa Gardener wrote about trading tomato seed. I've been debating what to do with my tomatoes this year. Should I buy transplants from Verrill Farm like I did last year? They have thirty varieties to choose, including lots of heirlooms. Or should I play with my seed? Isn't playing lots more fun?

I saved seed from last year's Sungold plants. Sungold is an F1 hybrid, which means it won't come true from seed. Usually. I've been told by the Seedman that sometimes the seed companies have already stabilized it while still calling it a hybrid. And then again, sometimes not.

This year I'm going to grow that seed and see what I get. I could get lots of Sungolds, which would be yummy, but fairly boring. They could be red or yellow . They could be large or small. Or I could get something tasteless and diseased. I haven't yet looked into tomato genetics so I'm not sure what which genes are recessive. But it will be fun to find out and even more fun to see what turns up on the plants.

And before you think that I have a chance of not getting any yummy garden tomatoes to eat next year, just know that I have a fabulous farm nearby - Wilson's Farm. In August and September they sell their tomatoes, which taste like real ripe picked garden tomatoes, in heaping gallon containers for just 2 for $10. They are hard to beat. My garden tomatoes don't taste any better than theirs. In addition I still have some Busa Bucks to spend next year. So I can go pick some real Sungolds or Black Cherry tomatoes if I really need them.