How are your Fall Toms doing?

[Keiththibodeaux]

Originally Posted by tedln

Keith,

If you planted them out on August 15, when did you start the seed germinating? We still had a lot of 100 plus degree days after August 15. Anything I tried to plant just wilted and died in the heat. I couldn't plant anything and expect it to thrive until early September. I am harvesting some nice fall tomatoes, but not in the quantities I get most years. The only large tomatoes I have are Mortgage Lifters. They seem to produce size much faster than many other varieties. We have experienced a couple of light frosts so most of my plants have frost burn at the growing tiips. I'm hoping that will speed up the ripening process before we get our first hard freeze.

Ted

Ted, this is what they looked like on July 25th. http://www.tomatoville.com/showpost....&postcount=291.

They took the heat even as seedlings. I am definitely saving seeds on this one.

Okay,

My fall harvest has concluded. I picked a five gallon bucket of greenies yesterday and we had our first freeze last night. I didn't pick all of the green tomatoes and it is possible some of those buried deep within the plants will still ripen on the vines before our first hard freeze of the year.

I find it interesting that our first freeze arrives in late November most years and I start my seed for next years garden in mid December. That means I only have a couple of weeks each year that I am not growing tomatoes. With some fall planted lettuce and other leafy vegetables, I guess I have a year round garden. When we get our first snow fall, even the lettuce becomes dormant, but when the snow melts in a day or two; it will be growing again.

My wife wants me to build a large greenhouse, but I can't decide if I want to provide cooling for it in the summer and heat in the winter to keep the tomatoes from freezing. Maybe it will be one of my winter projects.

Ted

[Dewayne mater]

Ted

I may regret it, but, yesterday I only picked fruit that had entered, at least every so slightly, the blushing phase. I got down to 32 last night and am hoping that didn't kill them. Looks like that may be the temp again tonight, but today it is sunny and warming, as you know.

So far, sun gold still tastes great - though the skins are thicker now. Purple haze is prolific and has great taste and texture. I'd say both are excellent choices for a fall tomato.

Big beef - prolific, not all that big and they have tended to be mealy, dry and not that much gel/seeds. Will not grow in the fall again.

I've got one other variety (can't remember which of two it is here at my office) one growing since spring and another planted for fall. Both well loaded, some full sized but still green. Will report back after the first one of the fall ripens. It was great in the summer before the shut down.

So far, cherry and saladette size are the best fall bets, though, black and brown boar did great last year in the fall too.

[sirtanon]

My plants have just started flowering in the last 4 or 5 days (finally!) and it looks like one or two may have set. We're still getting highs in the 75 range and lows around 45 to 50, so I'm hopeful for some more continued flowering/setting.

[Neohippie]

My fall tomatoes didn't work out. I planted Cherokee Purple and Bloody Butcher transplants in July, and only one of each survived the record heat and drought of the summer. The ones that did survive are very stunted, and BB just started putting on fruit recently, now that we've gotten some fall rain. They're still only marble sized, and last night was our first frost, which didn't kill them but it means they probably won't ripen until it freezes hard enough to kill them. They're not even big enough to fry up yet.

I think fall tomatoes may be doable here, but only if this drought ever ends. This past summer hardly anything survivied, and the survivors weren't really worth all the water I used trying to keep them alive, because they still weren't able to make much of a crop. I'm afraid to calculate how much the peppers I kept going through the summer actually costed me factoring in the huge water bills we got over the summer keeping them alive!

If next summer is like last summer, I'm just going to let everything die by June and not waste so much water hoping I'll get something out of it. I've learned my lesson trying to fight Mother Nature. I even have some sweet potatoes re-sprouting now after I thought they were all dead, but they'll die soon from freezing anyway.

I plan on starting my spring tomatoes extra early this year and planting them out really early so I can get more of a crop before the heat hits. I've decided I should start trying to think like a northerner trying to get a jump on the spring planting season as early as possible, so I can get a good crop in during my short tomato growing season between February and May.

My Fourth Of July hybrids have been my best fall producers as well as my best spring producers of golf ball sized tomatoes. The Jaune Flammes were not far behind in fall production. Black Krim and Mortgage Lifter were very good fall producers also. The Black Krim again made medium sized fruit plentifully and the Mortgage Lifters made a lot of very large fall tomatoes. I don't know why I waited so long to try Mortgage Lifter. It will be in my garden every year in the future.

Ted

[Keiththibodeaux]

My unknown heirloom (possibly Rose) has really been outstanding in vigor, production and heat resistance. Low of 33 in the morning, and 5 more days of lows in the 30s along with probable frost may shut it down for this year, but all it has not been a bad fall crop for such a miserably hot droughty year.

[Dewayne mater]

My entire grow out this year was in earthtainers and consisted of 12 plants. I've discovered that earthtainers are MUCH more susceptible to frost. Yesterday, on November 28, it got down to 32 degrees for a couple of hours in the morning (first time ot hit 32). It appears that at least 9 of 12 and possibly 11 of 12 plants died in that couple of hours. My guess is that plants in the soil are warmed a few degrees by the soil that they sit in, whereas a tainer being all above ground cools off very quickly. Conversely, they warm up much more quickly in the spring and get growing much faster. I ended up picking a bunch of green tomatoes and we'll see where it goes from here on the 3 possible survivors and the ripening of greenies.

Dwyane,

Like you, I only had a few hours below freezing the other night, but it was long enough to kill most of my tomato plants growing in raised beds. I don't think it had anything to do with the soil temps though. Tomato plants seem to be very susceptible to low air temps below freezing. We also had a light frost about one week ago. It killed the growing tips and upper leaves on most of my plants, but the stems and branches were not effected. Most of the plants had started generating new growth to replace the damaged leaves when the last frost arrived and seemed to kill all of the leaves. The branches and stems still seem to be unaffected. I'm leaving a lot of fruit on the plants which were protected deep in the plants. If we have another week before the next frost, many of those fruit will probably ripen.

Ted

[Keiththibodeaux]

So far as damaging anything living, we escaped the frost this morning. We had the lightest frost, that you could still call a frost at all, just on a few blades of dead grass here and there.