Growing Tomatoes in Canada

9 years ago

Hi!

I've really been enjoying seeing everyone's tomato pictures. I'm in Calgary, AB so my season is WAY behind everyone here. Seeing all your beautiful, ripe tomatoes makes me a little jealous, but I know I have good things to come!

I am an apartment dweller and, fortunately, acquired a community garden plot this year for the first time. On my south facing balcony I'm growing an Early Girl (pretty sure it's turned out to be the determinate variety... sure doesn't want to grow tall anyways) and a Super Sweet 100. They both have baby tomatoes a plenty (much better than when I grew them on my old west facing balcony). At the community garden I have a yellow pear (I've since read some rather disappointing reviews on them, so we'll see what I think), a Roma variety and a Manitoba. They took awhile to get going, compared to the ones in pots, but are setting flowers like crazy now so I have high hopes.

I'm not sure that I'll get 5 and 6 foot tall plants like some people here (or taller)! I'll be happy if I get more than a handful of tomatoes throughout the season (I haven't been very successful in the past, but I don't give up easily).

Are there any other Canadian growers on this forum?

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Comments (5)

jen_3b_ab
9 years ago
I'm just a bit north of you in camrose ab, and my plants are about the same stage. I've got about 80-90 plants between my home container garden and my community plot. I'd say about 15-20 of them have small tomatoes, and the rest are full of flowers. It's only my second year with a garden so I may have bitten off a bit more than I can chew, but I'm having fun anyways. Hopefully the nice weather we are finally having will help.
User
Original Author
9 years ago
Just got back from my community garden and remembered to take some photos.

Manitoba

Roma III

Yellow Pear

Early Girl

Super Sweet 100

My balcony is pretty small so not a lot of room to move around and get better photos.
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Labradors
9 years ago
Hi, another Canuck here!

Your plants look great, very healthy, and loaded with flowers :)

Yellow Pear is a huge plant and might prefer a bigger container, but it will give you some fruit at least. Sweet 100 is a pretty big plant too, as you have already discovered :)

Next year, you might be interested in growing some varieties that are compact and do well in smaller containers.

I have grown Jagodka and Russian Cherry in 3 gallon containers, then there are the dwarfs that do well in 5 gallon pots. Lots to choose from there, and most have full-sized fruit! There are even some micro tomatoes that grow well in one-gallon containers. Red Robin is a good one! Here's a link to a fabulous site called Tania's Tomato Base where you can find info on tomato varieties AND order seeds if you wish: http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Red_Robin

Linda
User
Original Author
9 years ago
I have some seed for smaller varieties that I'm going to try next year. We moved last fall and all my gardening stuff was still packed away, so I forgot about those seeds and just bought whatever they had at the greenhouse. This is a big test year for me and I think next year I'll be more organized.

The Yellow Pear is definitely outgrowing everyone at the CG and I'll need to put some bigger stakes in soon (the garden coordinator is very concerned about people letting plants get "out of control").
Hrib
9 years ago
Your tomatoes look great! I'm in North Vancouver, these are my plants now. Gold nugget, sungold, early girl, cherry bomb, mountain magic, couple of Roma types, indigo apple (I think). I had a walk in poly tunnel over them so was able to start them in the middle of April. I definitely didn't give them a lot of space and don't prune much so they feel very crowded which probably won't be too great when it starts raining. There are some great commercial greenhouses in Alberta that pump out tomatoes 9-10 months out of the year