tomatoes - good news and bad news

soon-to-be-ripe cherokee purple tomato

The tomatoes have been ripening quickly. The first cherry tomatoes only took about two days to go from pale green to red!

BUT - I had trouble with blossom end rot and sun scald. It took me awhile to figure out what was going on - I did see a few insects on the plants, and I blamed them at first. But after cutting into every bad tomato that I picked, doing lots of googling, and talking to some farmers, I think it was just that the blossom end rot and sun scald created opportunities for insects. I also put yellow sticky paper up around the tomato bed. I would recommend this because it showed me which flying insects were hanging around my tomatoes. Turns out there wasn't anything damaging in large numbers, just some flies.

small spot of blossom end rot (seriously, in bad cases it basically covered the whole tomato)

what the blossom end rot looks like on the inside. In every case, it went much deeper than it
looked like it would on the outside.

First - blossom end rot. It is caused by calcium deficiency in the soil but also by watering at night. This is the third year I've grown tomatoes and I have always watered them at night and never had this problem. But now I know. I tried eating the parts that didn't look damaged by blossom end rot, but they are not tasty.

two tomatoes with blossom end rot - the one on the left was picked early, before the rot spread
and before insects took advantage. The one on the right was picked late,
after the rot spread and insects binged on it.

Second - sun scald. I think this was caused by the long stretch of very hot weather we got. These were just small spots and if I brought the tomatoes right when they began to ripen, bugs didn't get to them. So I was able to just cut off the sun scald and eat the tomato anyway.

tomato with two spots of sunscald

Two things for next year: I am going to plant repelling flowers like marigolds and borage around the tomatoes. I may not have insect trouble with tomatoes this year, but as I've said before, I'm going to be much more proactive next year. Second, I thought with 20 tomato plants designated for canning, I would have an easier time getting large amounts of fruit ripened at once. So far I am getting a handful of tomatoes every day. In addition, I began examining the canning books to see how many tomatoes you need for a pint of tomato sauce. It is a lot! I think it was 10 pounds per pint. So, I will actually at least double my tomato plants next year, or plan my garden for summer eating and buy a ton of tomatoes direct from a farmer.

I must say I was very relieved when I determined that the tomato problems were not caused by insects. I am upset about losing the squash, but I would be DEVASTATED if I didn't get the tomato crop I wanted. For the last couple of weeks I have been able to bring in lots of perfect tomatoes so I'm feeling hopeful!

tomato update

On June 30th, the romas and cherokee purples had blossoms, though the brandywine did not. Every single one of the tomato plants seems to be growing well - a nice surprise since there were several I didn't think would survive, but I planted anyway because I had the space. We were starting to get several little tomatoes on the two tomato plants i purchased, which were more mature than the ones I started from seed.

Two weeks later, every single plant has little tomatoes on it! Way more than I can count. And, I've already harvested one early tomato from one of the plants I purchased. It was DELICIOUS! There is nothing like the flavor of the first tomato of the season.


My only two concerns at this point are continuing to stake the plants up as they grow larger and heavier, and canning the tomatoes - I'm worried they will ripen at a pace that will have us continually canning a few quarts rather than doing a big session, as I would prefer to do. Oh, and we will be out of town for 10 days in August and I don't want them to ripen while we are gone!

trellising

We decided to try something new with trellising systems. Mainly because we wanted to do it cheap - tomato cages seem to regularly cost 10+ each, a price we could not afford for 22 plants. We bought bamboo poles, put them in the ground, and zig zagged twine across to support tomatoes. We did a similar thing for the pole beans. The bamboo poles were quite cheap - maybe 10 or 20 dollars total for all we needed for both crops.

It just isn't working, for either crop. We could instantly tell that it wouldn't work for the tomatoes, as the poles weren't strong enough for the plants even before they set fruit. Below you can see a photo of the poles as we were beginning to tie the string around.


The bean poles were better supported, my spouse used anchors and counterweights but it still dragged the strings way down. i thought they would be six feet high but they are less than four feet when we first installed the trellising. The situation has gone from questionable to bad, as some of the bean poles snapped in a storm. My spouse fixed them, but a couple of weeks later the beans have gotten so heavy that the poles are bending way down. I think it is too late to try something new so we will continue to prop up the current trellising systems. The photo below is from the day we first installed the bean trellising.


The poles came in a package so we couldn't really tell how strong they were until we got home and began trying to put them in the ground. I think we both knew it probably wasn't going to be a successful experiment but we tried anyway. I will definitely do something different next year - either I will look for some free or cheap rebar or I will have my spouse build me a large sturdy wooden frame for stringing the twine for the beans. I do not have any ideas for the tomatoes yet - even if we got free tomato cages, I would rather not use them because in my experience they are not strong enough and they are awkward to store. If you've got ideas, hit me.

Hardening off seedlings

If you have started seedlings indoors, like I did, it is relatively easy to control conditions. The baby plants grow up with consistent temperatures and water, sunlight gently filtered by windows, and never have to deal with rough conditions like wind or insects.

This is good for seedlings, particularly plants like tomatoes and peppers that seem to be a little weaker when they are young. But when it is time for them to go out to their permanent spots, putting them out without gradually introducing them to the challenges of the outdoors could shock them (slowing their growth) or, without having had a chance to build-up defenses to these challenges, they might perish.

So, we must gradually introduce them to outdoor conditions. This process is called hardening off. The basic idea is ease the transition. Precisely how this is carried out depends on how much time and energy you are willing to put into it and the outside conditions when you are ready to begin the process.

Some of my resources suggested a simple process of merely putting the seedlings in a cold frame for a few days before planting them. This did not seem like a good solution for me, because by the time my plants were ready to go out, it was already pretty hot. The cold frame protects them from wind, rainstorms, and critters. And, they can stabilize temperatures so that plants don't have to deal with as much shocks in terms of temerature lows. In my situation the heat seemed to be the most difficult element, so putting them in a cold frame would have been detrimental.

The alternative is more time consuming. You gradually introduce them to the elements by putting them outside for short increments. How quickly you increase their challenges depends on how much time you are willing to spend moving flats of seedlings around all day. Pay special attention to water during the hardening off process. Here was my process:

day 1: put plants on covered front porch facing west for an hour in the late morning.
-they had to deal with outside temperature shifts and wind, but the wind was lessened by the walls of the porch. they did not have to deal with sunlight.
day 2: put plants on covered front porch facing west for a few hours in the late morning
-conditions same as day 1, but they have to deal with them longer
day 3: put plants on covered front porch facing west for several hours in the morning, then moving to the uncovered back porch facing east through the evening
-conditions same as day 1, but they have to deal with them longer (moving them to the east porch keeps them from being exposed to direct, unfiltered sunlight)
day 4: put plants on back porch facing east for one hour in the early morning, then move them to the front porch for the rest of the day (including the evening)
-they are getting the first taste of unfiltered sunlight and unfiltered wind. the early morning sun is gentler than the midday sun.
day 5: put plants on back porch facing east for a couple of hours in the early morning, then move them to the front porch for the rest of the day
-same as day 4, but increasing the time
day 6: put plants on back porch facing east for several hours during the day, closely watching them for wilt and sun scald.
-same as previous day, but adding the harsh midday sun.
day 7: put plants on back porch facing east all day and all night.
-adding the challenge of nighttime lows

Anytime the plants wilted or showed signs of sun scald, I immediately transferred them to gentler conditions and gave them extra water [and pulled back a little the next day - either repeating the step or even going back to the previous step. If anything, I wish I had been more careful. My tomatoes almost all survived the hardening off process, and my peppers handled it like champs. But three of my celery plants died, and two of them look like they will not last much longer. My actual process was usually much longer, because of days when the weather was too harsh or we were out of town.


Above, you can see my first hardened-off seedlings. Note the sun scald, particularly on the plant in the middle. I am happy to report that this damage did not deter the growth of this seedlings at all! These tomatoes (the romas) have been out for a couple of weeks and I can't even tell which ones had sun scald damage anymore - the new growth has completely overshadowed those leaves and all of the plants look equally healthy.

Ideally, you would not let the plants wilt or get sun scald. But it can be difficult to know how they will do. Had I started earlier in the season, this process on this exact timeline would probably be fine. By the time I started, even the first hour outside on the shaded porch made some of the plants wilt so it ended up much slower forme. It's easy to grow impatient (especially with the relatively time-consuming process of moving the trays of seedlings around) and difficult to guess what the plants are ready for. But although the peppers and celery only just recently went outside, I am proud to report that the tomatoes have really taken off since they were planted out!

And just as a note, it was fun to watch the plants get stronger - I could really tell that they were growing sturdier as the days went along!

Overall I was happy with the hardening off process. I will do the same thing next year, except I will be ready to start earlier and I will take it a little bit slower.

Up-potting my seedlings

I did not grow up in a household where we gardened. Although members of my family actually live on a farm even today, I consider myself an absolute beginner. My family's knowledge of gardening to not get passed down to me through blood, nor did I pick it up as I was growing up. I have no sense of when things should be planted, how much water they need, how much space they need, or even how to choose the best seedling when thinning plants out. So as I go along this experiment, I base everything on lots of research (and advice from people). Sometimes there is a lot of information and everything works great. Sometimes there isn't. Although overall, I was satisifed with my little seedlings, there came a point where they weren't growing. I wondered and wondered when it was time to up-pot, and how exaclty to up-pot them (move them to a larger pot) but when it got to that point, all my resources were vague or silent.


Above, you can see the celery, including a plant with its first true leaf. Several weeks later all of the celery had one true leaf, but they all remained the size of that little seedling picture above. By the way, thinning out the celery was really fun because when you nibble on the leaves that you've decided to yank, they have the flavor of celery!

Finally, my spouse, who did seem to pick up a little bit of gardening sense as he grew up, hinted that it was really time. So we bought these peat pots (in photos below). If you were doing a large-scale operation, these would be too expensive; but since I knew I would only need about 60, it worked for us. The benefit is that when the plants are ready to go outside, you can just put the pot straight in the ground with the plant in it. Less stress on the plant, and easier for the gardener!


Above, the newly-up-potted celery. See how it is pretty much the same size? Very VERY soon after being up-potted, they took off, steadily growing bigger and adding more leaves!


Above, the tomatoes, sorted by variety and marked since they looked the same at this point. I up-potted the best-looking ones (strongest, tallest, most leaves, greenest), keeping a few more than I intended to plant. I'm really glad I did that. In addition, I saved some of the ones in their cells in case a few of the up-potted ones didn't make it. I was also happy with that decision, though the seedlings in egg cells were harder to water in the new set-up.




Above, the peppers. These are the Yolo Wonders, the rainbow bell peppers were still germinating! These also took off after up-potting - as you can see, they did not have their true leaves yet.

To up-pot them, I bought a new kind of seed starting mix that was closer to soil (the staff at our gardening center recommended that I continue to use seed starting mix since the seedlings were still so small). For some of the plants, I used a fork to dig out the soil pod from the egg carton. I worked the fork around the edge, loosening the soil pod, then lifted up. The problem was I had waited too long, and the roots were growing through the egg carton. I could hear the roots tearing as I lifted. Nearly all of the plants survived in spite of this abuse, but it was a lesson learned - if you are going to start seeds in egg cartons, be ready to up-pot pretty much as soon as they germinate! Or at least as soon as their embryonic leaves appear. After I couldn't handle the sound of the tearing roots anymore, I peeled the egg carton in layers (since it was so wet, this was relatively easy). The roots often didn't grow straight through the egg carton, but would grow through a layer and then snake around in between the egg carton before poking out.

I filled the new pots halfway with the seed starting mix (again, prepared with about equal parts warm water), then set the soil pod in the middle, then spooned more seed starting mixture around the edge. As you can see in the photos, I left space between the soil line and the top of the cup. With the celery, this was a good thing. With the tomatoes and peppers, this was a bad thing. Later on I learned it is best to bury the embryonic leaves when you up-pot or transplant tomatoes and peppers - you end up with a stronger plant because roots will begin to grow from where the embryonic leaves are. My tomatoes and peppers seem to be doing fine, but perhaps they would be stronger or further along if I had used that technique.

Lessons learned:
I don't regret starting the seeds in egg cartons - they were free, decent sized, and when I had seeds that weren't germinating very well I didn't have to feel like I wasted any resources. I wish that I had up-potted each individual cell as soon as the first true leaf appeared. I think some of my seeds were stunted by staying in the small cells too long.

In the future I would also like to get grow lights for my tomatoes. The peppers and celery seemed to do fine, but my tomatoes seem leggy, thin, weak, and lacking color compared to my expectations. We will see how they end up producing, but I suspect if I'm going to commit to starting seeds indoors, grow lights would give me much better results and would be well worth the investment. Based on what I paid for materials to start my seeds this year compared to what it would have cost to purchase transplants, grow lights would pay for themselves in one year.

Finally, I wish I'd known about burying the embryonic leaves. I did plant the tomatoes out last week (more on that to come!) and considered doing it then, but at that point the plant seemed too well developed. I don't know. I wish I had planted one that deeply for comparison, but it really seemed like a bad idea at that point.

All in all, I'm glad I started seeds indoors and though I made a couple of mistakes, I would consider this part a success!

Starting tomatoes and peppers

I took so many pictures of the seed-starting process the first time around, but in subsequent weeks when I started tomatoes and peppers, I took none. Oh well! The process looked the same!

For tomatoes and peppers, since I'd planned on buying transplants when I made my seed order, we picked out varieties that we knew we liked or that looked good when we were in gardening centers. I wanted to use open-pollinated varieties whenever that was an option.

For tomatoes, we purchased three types: first, an heirloom called "Italian roma," purchased because we knew romas were good for canning and it was an heirloom. The seed company, Botanical Interests, looked like it was in line with our priorities. Second, cherokee purple, also from Botanical Interests, purchased because we've eaten them before and loved them. Third, brandywine, purchased from Livingston seeds. There wasn't much info on the packet but surprisingly, this was the only seed company we could find that carried brandywine in the three stores we went to. We planned to plant out roughly 10 of the italian romas, 5 of the cherokee purples, and 5 of the brandywine, saving two spots for buying a couple of transplants at the farmers market (one cherry tomato, one that was a duplicate of one of our varieties so that we can compare quality. this will help us decide whether to start our own seeds again next year).

For peppers, we bought a packet from Botanical Interests of an heirloom called "Yolo Wonder" and a packet from Livingston seeds that contained five different varieties of bell peppers, all different colors.

Taking the last frost date as around May 15th for our county, we followed the direction on the seed packets for when to start them. Around March 1st we started a carton of Yolo Wonder peppers and a second carton of celery. Once again the celery (Utah Improved from Territorial) germinated excellently. The Yolo Wonder peppers were a little bit slower than what the packet said, and one of the cells failed to germinate.

Around March 15th we started three cartons worth of tomatoes, one of each variety. The romas germinated very well, but both the cherokee purple and the brandywine seemed to struggle. The germination was slower than what the packet predicted, and it was greatly staggered. At first it looked like my germination rates were around 20%, but then I began heating the small room they were in to 80 degrees and more began to sprout. Probably two weeks after the first seedlings appeared, more seedlings continued to appear.

Around April 15th I started my last two cartons: one for the Rainbow Bell peppers, and one for more tomatoes since I wasn't satisfied with the germination. These germination rates were similar for the tomatoes, but even worse for the rainbow bell peppers. For a long time it looked like I would only get four plants out of the 12 cells I planted! Very slowly, as weeks went by, I think all of the cells eventually germinated - even as late as June 1st, I was seeing additional seedlings poke through.

For tomatoes and peppers, I tried to thin each cell to one seedling pretty quickly - as soon as they had their first true leaves (first true leaves for peppers came in pairs, tomatoes came individually).