Opalka plants - toss or keep?

12 years ago

In February I wrote a post asking for sources of Opalka plants. Although I got great responses, I decided to give growing from seed a try. Well, the day of reckoning has come. The plants look pretty depressing to me, and I have to decide if I want to plant them out in a couple of weeks or just get some other starts from the nursery. I have limited space, so if you guys think I can't expect good yields from plants this stressed, I'll toss them.

I'm attaching pictures from the beginning of April and from today. For comparison (to make myself feel better), I'm also attaching picture of a Cherokee Purple plant that has experienced the same growing conditions. The plants continue to grow and produce healthy looking leaves, but almost immediately the leaf stems start to contort. Lower leaves have been yellowing, then drying and falling off. I have potted them up twice and root growth is very good.

All plants have been fertilized 3 times at 3 week intervals with fish & seaweed fertilizer. I gage moisture by sticking my finger down into the pots and water when I can feel very little moisture. All Opalka plants have had edema.

Let me know what other stats would be helpful. Of course I'm interested in anything I can do to improve the plants, but I mostly want to know if it's worth planting them out in their current state.

Thanks!

Nathalie

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Comments (11)

NathalieSea
Original Author
12 years ago
Opalka plant at the beginning of April:
NathalieSea
Original Author
12 years ago
Saddest Opalka today:
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NathalieSea
Original Author
12 years ago
Cherokee Purple grown in same conditions:
digdirt2
12 years ago
First you need to know that Opalka is always a wispy plant, feathery appearing plant in appearance. That is its nature. So it will never look like most other varieties and other than the yellowing, looks normal. Even when it is 6' tall it will still look wispy..

The yellowing of the lower leaves - and some little shows it is developing on the Cherokee too - is cased by over-watering 99% of the time. That can be caused by too often, too much, the plant being rootbound in the pot, or poorly draining media.

Dave
NathalieSea
Original Author
12 years ago
Alright, thanks Dave! I read all about Opalka being pathetic-looking plants, but I couldn't believe this bad was normal. They are in Black Gold seedling mix. The plants are definitely not root bound, but I have been worried about watering. The twisting and yellowing started when I transplanted them to peat pots, which dried out very quickly. Now that they are in plastic pots, maybe I'm not letting them dry out long enough...
arley_gw
12 years ago
My Opalkas last year were indifferent seedlings, but once planted out became the most productive plants in the whole garden. Just pinch off the cotyledons and any dead foliage on the bottom and plant them deep.
Ohiofem 6a/5b Southwest Ohio
12 years ago
I grew opalkas from seeds two years in a row. They were wispy and weak looking like that at planting out but grew into 6-feet tall healthy (but wispy) plants. Most of my other tomatoes grown from seed looked better. Unfortunately, even at 6-feet tall, they were never very productive. I probably got no more than 6 full size tomatoes from each plant. Most other people seem to get good production from them, but I didn't, and I won't try again.
zzackey
12 years ago
My sweet golds did that. Are they weak too?
carolyn137
12 years ago
I've been unable to get online b'c of a DSL problem, and I don't know if it's permanent right now either.

All to say that I am the original source of Opalka, link to Tania's site below and I don't even understand some of the comments being made about it.

There was a recent thread here about it and I also linked to Google IMAGES in that thread.

I've grown it many times,usually for new seed stock for my SSE listings, and it's very productive, of course being a paste variety low on seeds, for those who save seeds.

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Opalka
zucchini
12 years ago
One of my favourite paste tomatoes...
digdirt2
12 years ago
My sweet golds did that. Are they weak too?

Wispy doesn't mean "weak". I need to be clear about that. It is just a plant appearance thing. And production for me has always been quite good.

So your Sweet Gold did what? Turn yellow from over-watering? Or appear wispy? Or what?

I have never grown it but I none of the reviews I have read about it describe it as wispy in appearance. Non of the photos of the plant I saw on Google Images appear wispy. Rather it appears to be a huge strong plant.

Dave