How big is your garden and how many tomato plants?

[clemsonfor]

think I will try blanching and freezing this year.

 

[petra79]

Ours is approx. 60' x 175'. Has been farmed for many years. We'll have 60 some mater plants and lots of other stuff. Haven't got the electric fence up yet but the post are in and I have twine on the top with plastic grocery bags tied to it. Had deer tracks in it until the bags went up. Did the same thing last year and they never came in. Only 4' tall. Guess they don't like the bags. We usually always have a breeze blowing to keep the bags moving.

 

[lakngulf]

I do not know exact dimensions of my garden but this is it in the background


I grow lots of tomatoes, from seed each year in the greenhouse. We eat tomatoes almost every meal in season, give a bunch away, peel and freeze a ton, cook some with okra and freeze. My neighbors brag on the tomatoes every year, so I keep growing and giving. It pleases me to jump on my sea doo and deliver four or five bags of tomatoes to the lake neighbors. Better Boy, Celebrity, Brandywine and Sweet 100 cherrry tomatoes are my favorite.

Last few years I have had some kind of soil problems--plants get four feet tall, loaded with tomatoes, and then wilt away. I think Southern Bacterial wilt, common in humid, damp spots, but I am not sure. The only cure I have found is to grow in new topsoil each year. I have some old farm land about an hour away, with good top soil, so I bring in a few trailer loads each year. Also, grow in containers. Here are some of this year's crop:



Here is the area where I got the most recent loads of topsoil. I had so many good healthy plants that I decided to give a few a try at the farm land. Cattle panels for support, fits right in the the farm theme.



I hope to have five gallon bucket fulls to give away this year.

 

[DKCDKC]

My garden is about 20 ft by 40 ft - plus a 15 by 40 potato/onion patch. But the garden is actually smaller because I use raised beds - made with cinderblock and caps. Raised beds are simply easier to work, and used cinderblocks are pretty easy to come by cheap. I have one row on all the beds now, but will start adding another row next year - and possibly a third later. By the time I hit my late 70s I hope to have it pretty high so I don't have to bend to garden. I use rebar to keep the walls together.

This year I have about 10 tomato plants, some of the Big Boy type, and some heirloom, and several cherry varieties that my wife likes. Got some cukes, bell and sweet peppers, cantalope, squash and such. The spinach and kale put in a while back is bearing, and I'll replant them in the fall. We always put in two pumpkin plants and a watermelon, just for family tradition. Sometimes it actually bears.

My biggest issue is not putting in enough composted manure and/or fertilizer. Working on it.

 

[RandyBell]

Mine is 30 x 50, just finished putting in tomatoes, first time starting my own, zucchini and cucumbers. Still need to get the sweet corn and green beans in. I put about 8 ton of old cow manure on it this year, almost compost! I use 3 strands of electric fence to keep the deer and smaller critters out.

 

[dave1949]

Garden is about 20 x 40, plus two 5 x 10 raised beds near the house. The raised beds are used for salad fixings mostly. Leaf lettuces, radishes, carrots, onions, stir fry peas, etc. There is an asparagus bed, and rhubarb in the garden.

I will probably have four-six tomato plants this year. Last year I had several heritage tomato varieties that I raised from seed.

No squash or pumpkins this year after hosting a squash bug festival last summer. :laughing:

 

[keegs]

I can mine. I think I have 48 glass quart size jars. It gets us (just the two of us) through the year. I find the San Marzano plum tomato plants produce the best fruits and have larger yields... if you like plum tomatoes...

Found this piece about tending our other garden fascinating. Don't mean to change the subject but thought I'd share it anyway.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/m...icrobiome.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=magazine

 

[TCJatko]

Garden is about 20 x 40, plus two 5 x 10 raised beds near the house. The raised beds are used for salad fixings mostly. Leaf lettuces, radishes, carrots, onions, stir fry peas, etc. There is an asparagus bed, and rhubarb in the garden.

I will probably have four-six tomato plants this year. Last year I had several heritage tomato varieties that I raised from seed.

No squash or pumpkins this year after hosting a squash bug festival last summer. :laughing:

I've never had a problem with squash borers until the last 2 or so years. Have they finally moved into the area, or have they always been here?

 

[dave1949]

I've never had a problem with squash borers until the last 2 or so years. Have they finally moved into the area, or have they always been here?

I don't grow squash or pumpkins every year, but in the past, I never saw squash bugs. I had heritage Cinderella pumpkins last summer, no squash plants. The bugs seemed to build colonies in a 2-3 foot square area, I would see the leaves start to wilt and go down. I mashed hundreds by the handful where they were clustered on a wilting leaf.

They cluster on the bottom sides of the leaves, depending on temperature. Somebody here who grows commercial pumpkins said you can't effectively spray them without using a blower that will roll over the leaves and get spray on all sides. I could see that.

How garden bugs appear where they weren't before is a mystery to me. Sometimes I wonder if they come with the seeds. In Ohio I planted seed potatoes in ground that I'm sure never had potatoes, and no potatoes anywhere nearby. The Colorado potato beetles about ate the tops to the ground before I gave up and sprayed them.

 

[jinman]

When I spray Sevin in my pump-up sprayer, I end up spraying mostly upwards by turning the nozzle so it point upwards. I start down at the ground level and push the nozzle under the leaves and work my way up. I spray the stem going into the ground very well because bugs seem to thrive where the stem goes into the ground. finally, I just give the top of the plant a light "painting" of spray before moving to the next plant. Spraying of cucurbits and beans is work because you have to get under/behind those big leaves. Especially on beans and peas, I also do soap spraying for aphids. For tomatoes, I find very few pests except tomato horn worms and a general broadcast spraying of Sevin seems to control them.

I believe bugs often fly in during nighttime. They seem to migrate like birds, but move at night. I have pretty good luck with a soil insecticide (Bayer) early on and then Sevin during the main producing season. I pick and then spray Sevin so I have a 3-day window before picking again. I think preventative spraying before bugs arrive is very important. It's much easier to keep them away than kill them off when they are established.

 

[troutsqueezer]

I use blood meal, bone meal and Epsom Salts on my tomatoes

You should only use epsom salts if your soil has a magnesium deficiency. Most soils don't. Be careful with it. If you overuse it you will have the biggest, greenest tomato plants that have no fruit.

 

[sixdogs]

I've never had a problem with squash borers until the last 2 or so years. Have they finally moved into the area, or have they always been here?

They have always been there. We grew 8 acres of squash and specialty pumpkins north of Bangor, ME for years and solved it. First you have to rotate your crop and in the fall pick up ALL the old fruit and rip out as many vines as possible. Feed the pumpkins to someone's cows and burn the vines. That's where bacteria and bugs overwinter. If it's a cold fall or winter with no snow it won't matter because the cold temps kill lots of bugs and bacteria.

Second, grow pumpkins resistant to other diseases to have healthy plants. Grow the Howden and mini pumpkins along with buttercup squash and pie pumpkins or gourds. When I rotated ground and picked up the old fruit my problems--well, at least the pumpkin bug problems--were solved.

 

[keegs]

not a farmer but when I've had issues with broccoli cutworm I solve it by rotating and removing the spent plants after harvest.

 

[bigtiller]

Here is the area where I got the most recent loads of topsoil. I had so many good healthy plants that I decided to give a few a try at the farm land. Cattle panels for support, fits right in the the farm theme.



I hope to have five gallon bucket fulls to give away this year.

How does the horizontal tomato trellis work? Do you add another panel a few inches higher later in the season?

 

[TCJatko]

How does the horizontal tomato trellis work? Do you add another panel a few inches higher later in the season?

I think the idea is to just let the vines spread out over the cattle panels. It will keep them out of the dirt and less succeptible to disease.

 

[KenB2920]

So far I have 36 roma tomato plants in the ground. I have a few other tomato plants to throw in yet. So I'll be around 50 tomatoes. Mainly for canning. I don't know my exact dimensions off hand. I am also growing broccoli, a couple types of lettuce, onions, corn ( this is my first year. Wish me luck), a variety of peppers, water melon, cantaloupe, honeydew and a few other things.

 

[kebo]

I put out eight tomato plants at my parents house three weeks ago. That's all we have the time to deal with really, since I live about 75 miles from them and they are in their 80's. The plot is only about 4ft wide by about 22ft long, plenty of room for the 8 plants. Three are better boys, and five are beefsteaks. One better boy didn't make it (I put too much fertilizer on it to start with) so I just replanted it a week ago. Hoping for a nice bunch of tomatos around July 1st!!!

 

[dave1949]

I think the idea is to just let the vines spread out over the cattle panels. It will keep them out of the dirt and less succeptible to disease.

Keeping good air flow through the lower part of the plant would surely be a big advantage. Once they get trained through the panel, it could be less fussing around than stakes, and maybe the tomatoes don't get creases on them as with cages.

 

[dave1949]

So far I have 36 roma tomato plants in the ground. I have a few other tomato plants to throw in yet. So I'll be around 50 tomatoes. Mainly for canning. I don't know my exact dimensions off hand. I am also growing broccoli, a couple types of lettuce, onions, corn ( this is my first year. Wish me luck), a variety of peppers, water melon, cantaloupe, honeydew and a few other things.

Good luck with your corn! Once in a while I grow some sweet corn in the garden. I've found that it really responds well if you side dress high nitrogen fertilizer at the recommended stages--which are a little fuzzy in my memory, so I won't guess at what they are.

 

[KenB2920]

Good luck with your corn! Once in a while I grow some sweet corn in the garden. I've found that it really responds well if you side dress high nitrogen fertilizer at the recommended stages--which are a little fuzzy in my memory, so I won't guess at what they are.

Funny, I just spoke with a local farmer today. I asked for tips. His response was nitrogen nitrogen nitrogen