I may be inviting disaster with this post but...

[koshki]

I thought I'd share my results so far with this season's tomatoes. I've done a lot of things differently this year, and the results are remarkable.

I used the same Jiffy tomato peat plugs I've used in the past, but this time I hydrated them with water to which was added Plant Success mycorrhizae (sp). Covered in shade on the seedling mats, I had pretty good germination. Only two of 16 plugs failed, so I reseeded them and they both came up.

After reading about how to handle seedlings on this forum, I up-potted my seedlings sooner this year, when they only had the beginnings of their second true leaves. This was before I had a lot of roots poking out of the net around the plugs as I've had in the past. AND, I removed the net for the first time (duh!).

Then I set the plug at the bottom of a 2.5 quart nursery pot, much bigger than the 5" peat pots I've used in the past, and innoculated them with Plant Success again. I filled the pot way up the stem of each plant with seedling mix.

I started hardening them off, dragging them in and out of the garage for several days, but they were getting unwieldy, so I planted them in their individual containers. For the first time I am using Tapla's 5:1:1 mix instead of MG potting soil and compost. I had filled the pots a couple weeks before, and was very surprised that while the medium at the surface of the pots was dry, it was still quite damp at the bottom, even though I am using wicks. Again, I placed the plants nearly at the bottom of their next container. Oh my gosh, the roots on those babies! I fed them with Foliage Pro 3.1.2, innoculated them one last time and also gave them Actinovate and Epsom salts. A week or so later I purchased some Azomite and added that to the pots. Oh, and instead of two plants per container, I cut back to just one. The pots are 18x18x12 high...I'd estimate they're about 5 gallons, maybe? I have cages on each that are about 7' tall.

Since they've been planted out, I ordered some really nice weather. Although it's been hot during the day, it's been cool at night, and not much rain. The plants quickly began to bud, and I started tickling the blossoms with an electric toothbrush. About that time I also gave them some seaweed extract, and began spraying them with Daconil. Oh, and I stuck garlic cloves around the perimeter of the plants to keep the squirrels away.

The toothbrush really seems to be helping set more fruit than I've had in the past, but I have SO many more blossoms than before it's crazy!

Here's today's fruit count: 83 tomatoes on six plants. That's including the lackluster Bradley that only has 5 tomatoes on it, and doesn't include the Black Cherry. Because I love Black from Tula, but have had low yields in the past (4-5 tomatoes per plant), I planted two. This year they EACH have 18 tomatoes on them, with lots of buds that look like they're setting and lots more blossoms! And they haven't even reached the tops of the cages yet!

A couple fruit are getting big, have started to get shiny and lighter, so I know ripe tomatoes are not far off...I can't wait!

It's hard to say if any one thing has made the difference...probably everything is contributing, not the least of which is the weather. However, I'm taking careful notes this year so that I can repeat what I'm doing next year.

[PaulF]

Good for you. It sounds like a successful season coming your way.

[janezee]

Notes are very good. You never remember, even though you are so excited you believe you'll never forget.

Keep up the good work, and good luck. Welcome to the forum.

jane

[PA_Julia]

Koshki,

Fantastic to hear!!

I'm very pleased that you are using the toothbrush method and combined with a copious amount of blooms you can't go wrong.


Julia

[koshki]

Thanks everyone!

Gosh, I got to the end of my long post and forgot the reason I posted...to thank all of you for the wealth of information I've learned here! This is a great forum!