Planting early varieties late!

Along with my regular planting of mid to late season varieties, I also will plant a large number of early varieties this year. Most of the early varieties are determinate and I don't expect them to survive the mid summer heat. I want to replace them with more early variety seedlings to produce as the weather cools into fall. Four varieties I want to plant late are Sophie's Choice, Applause, Bloody Butcher, Kimberly, and possibly try Stupice again as a fall tomato.

Any comments on how well those varieties will perform as late season tomatoes?

Ted

[sfmathews]

Ted I can only respond to Stupice, which I kept going thru the summer and it produced a large fall crop for me. Sorry, I can't speak to your other selections.
Susan

[brog]

Early girl produces all summer, into 1st frost for me in Atlanta. A must grow for me.

Originally Posted by brog

Early girl produces all summer, into 1st frost for me in Atlanta. A must grow for me.

Yes, some early varieties do produce from early spring into late fall, but not all do. I am growing a few varieties of early producers which do not produce into or through the hot summer. I will be replacing some of those varieties when they die with new seedlings which I hope will produce from late summer into late fall. I'm curious if some early varieties, like those I mentioned in my post; will do well when planted in late summer heat and produce until first frost. It's kind of reversing the process of growing from cool spring temps into mid summer heat and instead trying to grow them from mid summer into late fall.

Ted

[RinTinTin]

The big bugaboo with high heat is that many varieties will not set fruit when heat/humidity are high. If the plants are growing through that heat you should be fine, as long as it has cooled off to their comfort zone when they begin setting fruit. As long as you have healthy, mature plants when weather moderates, you should expect ripened fruit as long as you don't get a premature frost.

Originally Posted by RinTinTin

The big bugaboo with high heat is that many varieties will not set fruit when heat/humidity are high. If the plants are growing through that heat you should be fine, as long as it has cooled off to their comfort zone when they begin setting fruit. As long as you have healthy, mature plants when weather moderates, you should expect ripened fruit as long as you don't get a premature frost.

Our normal high temps peak in late August or early September with a steady average decline to first frost in Mid November. That gives me an average moderate temperature period of about seventy days in the fall. In that period, I wonder how the declining average daylight will affect growing tomatoes. Does a normal 60 day early spring variety become a 70 or 75 day fall variety with the shorter days?

I guess the only way to answer my question is to grow some in the fall and record the plant out and first harvest dates.

Ted

[brog]

Ted the only experience I`ve had is with early Girl. I know a good number of people do plant early varieties in early summer for a fall crop and have good luck with them. Bill Burkett( post here often) plants early varieties for a fall crop. He has been very helpful to me with good information on growing tomatoes. If you PM him he will respond with some good advice. Good Luck Bill

[brog]

Left off = bill burkett post AKA = b54red

[b54red]

Ted I have been growing fall tomatoes for many years and have tried a lot of different varieties. The biggest hurdle is to get enough plants to survive the plant out during mid summer. I usually figure I will lose most of the young plants to the extreme heat or diseases so I plant a lot and have a big number of seedlings ready to replace the ones that die. The plants need more watering and fertilizing than spring plants and spray, spray, spray. You also need to prune and limit the number of growth tips to encourage earlier and larger tomato growth.

It does seem reasonable that the early determinates would do great as fall tomatoes but I have found that I have much better luck with Indetermintes for fall tomatoes. I thought I had found the perfect fall tomato with Applause which was the earliest tomato I have ever grown. Instead of producing in less than 50 days like it has done for me in the spring it took almost 90 days for ripe fruit. I grew some other early hybrid determinates in the fall and most were disappointing.

Stupice on the other hand is a fantastic producer in the fall. Others that have done well in the fall for me are Big Beef, Druzba, Black Krim, 1st Prize, Carbon, BTD Pink, Linnies Oxheart, Indian Stripe, Marianna's Peace, Red Siberian and Jetsetter. The two that have been the most consistent big producers in the fall are Big Beef and Jetsetter.

Good information b54red! Thanks.

When yoiu say the indeterminate varieties like carbon, Indian Strip, and Black Krim do well as fall tomatoes, do you mean as summer plant outs or simply allowing the spring plant outs to start producing again after the summer heat has passed?

I will try Stupice and Jetsetter as summer plant outs since I am not planting them this year as spring plant outs. In the past, I've had good luck with the hybrid Goliath Bush and Goliath standard as summer plant outs. They had high production of high quality, large fruit until frost with a lot of picked green fruit to ripen into January. I usually plant them as large seedlings in the high heat of August. They sit in the soil without any growth until the heat moderates and then start growing and blooming rapidly.

Thanks for the information.

Ted

[b54red]

Ted, I was talking about planting them in mid summer. I usually start around the middle of July and continue planting til the end of August or first of September. I did have two Indian Stripe plants that were planted in late April that made a big come back in the fall.

Jetsetter is exceptional in it's ability to ripen fruit in cooler weather when many others have a hard time ripening. Stupice is another that will ripen when the temps are well below ideal.

In my earlier post I left off Eva Purple Ball which also did good in the fall last year.

I've never grown Goliath. Is it similar to Big Beef?

The Goliath plant is very similar to Big Beef. There are four or five hybrid Goliath varieties available including some early varieties. I prefer the bush variety which I grow on a trellis. Every branch on the bush variety bends down toward the soil from the trellis shielding the fruit from the hot sun. Without the shielding, I get a lot of sun scald. It is a heavy producer of large fruit. I would offer to send you some seed, but I think I used all I had last summer trying different methods to germinate the seeds in the soil. I germinated a lot of seed that way, but every seedling that popped out of the ground was eaten by a grasshopper passing through before they could put out their first true leaves.

Ted

[BlackestKrim]

Originally Posted by b54red

T The plants need more watering and fertilizing than spring plants and spray, spray, spray. You also need to prune and limit the number of growth tips to encourage earlier and larger tomato growth.

What do you spray to plants with to prevent disease? And how often?

I really want to prevent disease striking my plants this year. I assume a fungacide would help, but I'm not sure which one is best for tomatoes.

Originally Posted by BlackestKrim

What do you spray to plants with to prevent disease? And how often?

I really want to prevent disease striking my plants this year. I assume a fungacide would help, but I'm not sure which one is best for tomatoes.

Living in North Texas, we have very low humidity so my tomatoes rarely get fungal diseases. My squash and cucumbers almost always get powdery mildew. Daconil used as a preventative works well for me and it should work on tomatoes. After the fungal diseases have established themselves on a plant, they are hard to get rid of. Preventing them seems much more effective. I usually spray once per week in the late afternoon as the sun goes down. I want the water to be able to spread over the leaf surface to spread the fungicide evenly. If I spray in the daytime, the water sometimes evaporates before I get even distribution of the fungicide. I also sometimes add a non toxic insecticidal soap to the mix to aid in distribution as a wetting agent. It also helps to retain the fungicide on the leaf surface longer.

Ted

[darwinslair]

have there been any long-storage tomatoes bred to be short season? That might be nice, having a tomato that sets its fruit in september but not before. The storage ones are nice to be eating in December, but just dont have the taste of the others, so kind of a waste to have them producing in july and august.

Tom