Good luck.

Dave

Well then, it makes a lot of senses to keep and grow what has been satisfactory, whether it is heirloom, OP or from store bought fruits. I am going to plant half a dozen variety from store bought fruits for the first and second time around.

But I will start mine 3 months from now.

Seysonn

One of the many things I love about growing tomatoes from seed. They are just so resilient. Darn cute too =)

Just about ready to transplant.

I have the first 4 transplanted. 3ea. into 18 gallon tubs, one into a 6 gallon pot.

Sounds good to me, 3 in 18 gallon. That is 6 gallon soil / root space per plants. The only challenge will be to manage the top growth. Need to have some good support system and perhaps some pruning along the way, to keep the things under control.

Seysonn

I rechecked what I did. I put 2 plants into one 18 gallon tub, then 1 ea. into 2 different 6 gallon pots.

The surviving plant from the first batch of supermarket tomato seeds is not doing well. I will try to post some pics

Pic #2

I would go with one tomato in at LEAST an 18 gallon tub.
I grow in containers larger than 18 gallons and in the spring when I dump out the previous soil to start over I find the plant was or was on its way to being root bound.

I would suppose the size/type of plant has a lot to do with it. A dwarf plant would be fine at 2 plants in an 18 gallon container. An everglades however would have to be 1 in an 18 gallon tub.

I have 4 of the 8 seedlings planted and these are the backup plants. I have to prep a place to plant them.

My wife came up with a supermarket tomato that had sprouted seeds inside. I was able to salvage 2 of them so we'll see how they do.

This is 2 of the first 4 to be planted. They are in an 18 gallon tub.

The only problem I would anticipate with 2 plants in that tub is crowded out top, as they look too close, to me. Unless they are dwarfs, you are going to do a lot of pruning. I would NOT be concerned with the root system. So it really boils down to top management.

Seysonn

I will train them in opposite directions on chain link fence. It worked before.

They are getting bigger.

garf,

They look very vigorous and healthy.
Are they about 8 weeks old at this point? (from sprouting, i.e).

I will have about 4 varieties from store bought for 2015. But mine are Heirloom or OP. Except one , which is a "mini Roma" looking. The package labels them "cherry". But obviously they are not.

Seysonn

I estimate around 45 days since planting. I didn't record planting date.

Here is the latest pic of the plants in the 18 gallon tub. They look more like small trees than vines.

Second pic.

The pair of surviving plants from the seeds that sprouted in my wifes tomato are growing extremely well and have been transplanted into larger containers. If they continue to do well, I will post pics of them later.
This is an older pic.

This is a later pic of one of the latest pair. More pics will go in the thread "supermarket tomatoes III".

I actually hate it when this happens. This is a volunteer in tub 2. I can never bring myself to destroy a volunteer. If they want to live enough to defy the odds, I let them live. It does mess up my plan. (what little plan I have) Now I need more large pots.

Latest pic of Batch 2 tub 1.

These are the same plants from batch 2 as pictured in the tub 1. This is what happens when you don't plant them and let them get root bound.

I need some more containers. I have 2 plants in 6 gallon pots but they are lagging the others. I can't find more 18 gallon recycling tubs and most others last about a year under our sun then disintegrate. How big does a pot need to be to do well with 1 plant each. I am thinking 10 gallon size.

If you use a good quality potting mix most indeterminates will do ok in 10 gallons with careful attention to feeding and watering. But 15 gallons is even better as it allows for a bit less care.

I have done determinates in 7 gallons but they do better in 10 gallons. It is much easier to maintain consistent soil moisture levels in larger containers. When you can do that it is much easier to prevent BER.

There are lots of discussions here about container sizes the search will pull up. Some will use 5 gallon buckets but they require lots of careful monitoring and are much more prone to BER and other issues IME.

Dave

I finally removed the 4 plants from the small pot and put 2 in an area of the yard that was a mulch pile for about 30 years. I plan to put the other 2 there tommorrow. The last plants I placed in this spot were destroyed by a Whitefly disease. I am going to try some sticky traps.

This post was edited by garf on Fri, Jan 9, 15 at 15:36

I have a lot of blooms and one baby on the twins in the 18 gallon tub.

The 4 plants in the small pot have been removed and 2 have been planted in a mound in the back yard that was a 30 year old mulch pile. The remaining 2 plants have been placed in 2 small pots for now.

My total as of now is 7 babies. I also have the start of some sort of trouble that could spell big problems unless I stop it now.

The 2 plants removed from the small pot and planted in the mound in the back yard have 2 small buds each despite being very small.

Here is the latest pic of the twins in the 18 gallon tub. It's getting a little thick in there. I may need to do some pruning. A lot of babies there too.

This is from batch 2, pot #1. It is a 6 gallon pot and is smaller than the ones in the 18 gallon tub. It has 1 baby and several blooms.

This pic is from batch 2, pot 2. Also a 6 gallon pot and is larger than the plant in pot 1, but smaller than the twins in the 18 gallon tub. There are several medium size tomatoes and several babies, plus a lot of blooms.

The first 2 tomatoes from the 18 gallon tub have a bad case of blossom end rot. I just examined the whole lot today. They are the only bad ones. Very disheartening.

The 2 plants in tub 1 (18 gallon) have so much foliage that they are sucking all the water I give them in a single day. It should be time to add fertilizer. The plants in the 6 gallon pots both have tomatoes. The volunteer in tub 2 (18 gallon) has a group of 5 babies. The 2 plants I put into the mound in the back yard both have babies. This year so far everything is working. Amazing.

The twins in tub 1 from batch 2 aren't twins after all. One is producing tomatoes that are slightly elongated, like plumb tomatoes, but not as pronounced. The other plant's tomatoes are perfectly round. It should be interesting to see how they taste.

I have picked the first tomato from Batch #2. I will pick them at first blush for a while so no creatures get them. Maybe later I will let them vine ripen. It measures 2 1/2" across. It will be around 3 more days till it can be tasted.

The batch 2 plants are light colored and weak looking but have the most tomatoes on them. They also have a lot of Bacterial Spot.

As stated, the plants are light colored, weak looking, and prone to disease. The tearing point was when my tomato taster said that she prefers the tomatoes from batch 1 to batch 2. That will be the end of batch 2. It figures because batch 2 has 80% of the tomatoes. I have my work cut out for me next season.

Here is my one and only fused blossom tomato this season.

The last survivor of batch 2 has come back after severe trimming to eliminate disease.

I’m a
huge fan of mulching and spraying fungicide - last year I used copper, from
DAY 1, WEEKLY, and I didn’t have ANY type of problems.

Yeah . We know you are Daniel.
I did my first spray On May 1st. I am going to do the second application on 14th, when the rain stops. But it will there will be chances of rain starting May . Even then, the forecast is calling for 10 to 20% chance of rain for the following week. But I,ll do it any way. Our rains are very gentle and drizzly, Nothing like back East when it rains, it pours.
I have fully mulched : : BLACK PLASTIC.

Sey

Sey wrote: > Yeah . We know you are Daniel.

I’m sure, you – and a few others – know that, but the ONLY reason I
mentioned it, is because I’m afraid that garf_gw is not aware of the importance of mulching and spraying.

And "A picture is worth a thousand words…" I put 2 pictures; 2 types of mulching.

Btw sey, I see you TOO spray and mulch - which I think it's good.

The plant is doing fairly well. I am keeping it well watered and fertilized. I had 1 tomato set and several blooms started to grow and stopped. It's weird.