Most indestructable with flavor?

[attml]

Thanks again for the replies!

Feldon / Tracy,

Per your questions, I use Miracle Grow Tomato food which is 18-18-21 and I some times use Neptunes Harvest Fish Fertilizer which is 2-4-1. I usually add a little to a watering can every couple of weeks during the season and add just a very little once I get to fruit set.

Bill,

I grew Indian Stripe, Cherokee Purple, Spudakee and JDs Special C Tex last summer and I liked the flavor of all of them but unfortunately they took a hit as the season went on last year. I grew 3 of them in pots and they definitely held on a little longer than the stuff I had in the ground. I would like to try the Gary O' Sena!

Has anyone ever use some thing like these? http://www.arbico-organics.com/produ...rus-punctillum or http://gardeningzone.com/collections...r-mite-control

Mark

[chastom]

wow,everyone seems to be jumping on the chemical bandwagon,i would stop using miracle junk and switch to an organic program ... there is a better way
Your soil will be healthier and so will your plants.

miracle junk is to high in nitrogen and and will tend to start off great but can latter burn up the crop .

just my 2 cents

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by chastom

wow,everyone seems to be jumping on the chemical bandwagon,i would stop using miracle junk and switch to an organic program ... there is a better way
Your soil will be healthier and so will your plants.

miracle junk is to high in nitrogen and and will tend to start off great but can latter burn up the crop .

just my 2 cents

There are as many here at Tville that grow organic as don't. Plenty of places it has been listed that spider mites are easily controlled by predatory mites widely available for both large commercial growers and gardeners. AND the only downfall of predatory mites is that they are too effective, sometimes eating every spider mite then starving. LOL

But I think the reason this topic keeps coming up is that people don't want to pay the high price of predatory mites for just 3 or 4 tomato plants. It's fine if you grow a whole lot of tomatoes and/or other veggies, but too expensive if you are growing just a few.

[Patihum]

What do the root systems on your plants look like when you pull them in the fall? Too many times if you're fertilizing directly in the hole you're planting in(with something like Miracle Grow) the roots don't spread out looking for nutrients they just stay put. Resulting in a meager root system that can't support the plant throughout the growing system.

[b54red]

I work compost, some composted manure when I can get it, cottonseed meal and alfalfa pellets into my raised beds before planting and then use Miracle Grow as a supplement later in the season when the plants start needing a bit of a boost. I have found it particularly helpful to give plants a boost when they are in the blooming stage. I have far less blossom drop and a much higher percentage of fruit set.

I much prefer amending my soil with organics but it is not a religion with me. I have very healthy soil full of earthworms and have no desire to mess that up and the use of Miracle Grow as a supplement has not affected the earthworm population so I must not be using too much.

As to predatory spider mites the instructions say that in a few weeks they will have the mites under control. I have never had a few weeks. Once they get started it is only a matter of days before the plants suffer irrevocable damage in our heat. I have even pulled and bagged plants with mites in an effort to stop the spread but within a couple of days almost every tomato will be infected. I effectively stopped spider mites the last two years with the concoction I used and those are the only 2 years I have been able to stop them once they arrive in numbers. A nice rainy summer is the best preventative but that brings its own host of problems down here.

[feldon30]

I use whatever works best to make the soil and plants healthy with the best possible taste.

For me, that means using lots of compost, adding lots of shredded leaves and other organic material. And with the availability of so many good fertilizers like GardenTone, TomatoTone, Microlife, etc. I see no reason to use MiracleGro which is a byproduct of refining crude oil.

Does that mean I am an organic nut?

[chalstonsc]

Fungal is an understatement in my area and the toughest I've found are Royal Hillbilly and Gruntovyi Gribovskiy 1180

[dice]

Attracting birds that eat insects would help with the bugs.
A hummingbird garden: http://www.worldofhummingbirds.com/garden.php

[Urbanfarmer]

I used to think that the reason we never saw blight was because we grew hydroponically and therefore avoided infection from soil. But last year we moved, and for the first time in my career, I had serious problems with blight.....and then stink bugs.

I believe the blight came from a transplant I was gifted from a friend. I can only say this because I've never had it before, and we always start from seed. This was an exception, and it bit me.

I suppose it's possible the blight was vectored in with the stink bugs. Boy, did they ruin alot of tomatoes. That also was a first.

To get back to your question......the variety that fared the best against the blight was a Champion hybrid. Not the best tomato around, but at least it made it to the plate longer than anything else. The heirlooms got pounded.

[b54red]

Mark I have no idea what is actually killing your plants. You could have soil born problems like fusarium which show up when the soil warms up and when you get a nice bit of rain to spread it. You could be having just foliage diseases which can be slowed significantly by the use of Daconil and keeping the plants reasonably pruned so they have decent air flow. Your plants could be wiped out by TSWV which is really tricky to diagnose unless you are familiar with it. I still like the quote "A tomato plant is just looking for an excuse to die". Every spot is different and every year the plants will behave differently. That is one of the things that makes growing tomatoes such a joy and so frustrating.

[attml]

Thanks again for all of the replies! I believe I am definitely having a combination of issues. I am thinking about doing a large raised bed this year and having a large load of the leafgro delivered instead of using the soil I have used for the last couple of seasons. I think last year's extremely mild winter contributed to my bug and disease problem. It has been much more seasonably cold this year so hopefully that will help my situation some! I will try to use Daconil and neem oil as well. I am also going to try some of the varieties mentioned and throw in a few VFFNT hybrids to see how they fare compared to my OP varieties. I am also planting basil and marigolds and am going to possibly try cedar wood chips as a mulch. Hopefully the combination can only help!

Mark

[frogsleap farm]

Originally Posted by swamper

I'd recommend sungold f1 ahead of others I've grown for a durable plant that pumps out flavorful tomatoes. next on the list would be mountain magic f1. i've also had good experience with valencia if an open pollinated orange tomato suits you.

this year i'm trying mountain merit and iron lady.

another technique that helps with disease is to plant an area in hairy vetch mid to late summer. Let it grow back in spring and mow or weed whack a narrow row where you will plant. the living vetch mulch between rows worked well for me. If i had the space, I'd do that every year.

I second the recommendations of Mountain Merit and Iron Lady. If diseases are a primary cause of the problem, these two have the best combination of mulitple disease resistance on the market.