Tomato plants..

[BJClark]

okay, so over the summer we planted some 6 tomato plants in our garden, after the summer season ended and they quit blooming and producing, we cleared the garden tilling over the dried plants.

We discussed planting some winter veggies, but just hadn't gotten around to it, but now we have some 16 tomato plants that have come up and are about 2 ft high right now..

 

[Seb]

Down here we have two tomato growing seasons per year, with one of them just started recently.

Can you do that in your part of Florida or does it get too cold?

Edit: answered my own question - Tomatoes In The Florida Garden Looks like you have two seasons also: Feb-Apr and Aug-Sept.

 

[TimV]

Hi Bobbi

1: You shouldn't keep them because the parents were hybrids and the seedlings won't produce well.

2: You shouldn't keep them because red mites and a few other things live on the old plants and this time of year they're at a population high. The new plants will be VERY bug infested. You should allow a few months between planting most crops, with the crop absent, including leaves etc.. With tomatoes it's doubly important!! By taking the old plants away you break the cycle of population build up.

Best
Tim

 

[Seb]

Tim,

I'm always amazed by your horticultural wisdom.

Could you fly down here and help me figure out my lawn problems?

 

[BJClark]

TimV;

2: You shouldn't keep them because red mites and a few other things live on the old plants and this time of year they're at a population high. The new plants will be VERY bug infested. You should allow a few months between planting most crops, with the crop absent, including leaves etc.. With tomatoes it's doubly important!! By taking the old plants away you break the cycle of population build up.

I will keep an eye out thus far I haven't noticed any, but we've been having rain the past few days..

what is wrong w/ hybrids? most tomato's are hybrids.

 

[Grymir]

I'm not a strict garden vegetarian. I just let some volunteers grow to see what they do. When I was in Texas, I could get away with such things, because alot of plants will overwinter just fine. Even here in Iowa, my Petunias have not died yet, even though all my other plants bit the big one in the freeze. As for the bugs, just use some pyrethrins and you'll be o.k.

The stuff about hybrids, are your plants hybrids? Hybrid plants don't produce the same offspring, with flowers, you never know what you'll get. With veggies, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. But you won't know if you don't grow.

Also, do you get a killing freeze where you live? I couldn't find that info on your about me page.

 

[BJClark]

Grymir;

The stuff about hybrids, are your plants hybrids? Hybrid plants don't produce the same offspring, with flowers, you never know what you'll get. With veggies, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. But you won't know if you don't grow.

Well, we had two different types of Tomato plants, some beef eaters and some vine ripe..both of which did fairly well over the summer.

Also, do you get a killing freeze where you live? I couldn't find that info on your about me page.

Killing freeze? such as what?

I've been known to put a blanket over my rose bushes some winters, but at the moment even those are still in bloom, with some new buds on them.

One of which is really pretty, I had a yellow rose bush planted out front, and my husband decided to uproot a tree near it, uprooting the rose bush in the process, so we went out and bought a red rose bush and planted it there, now I get some really beautiful yellow roses w/ red tips..the other is in the back yard, small red roses, still blooming as well..

 

[Grymir]

Killing freeze is when it get below 32 degrees and kills all the annuals. Except the strong ones that can take a light freeze. I walk out in the morning and my morning glories, coleus, tomatoes, and zinnas are all brown and sickly looking. Dead and lifeless. No more pretty zinna flowers, no more pretty coleus leaves, and my pretty blue morning glories ceased blooming. 'E's passed on! This flower is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the tree 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-MORNING GLORY!!

 

[BJClark]

Grymir;

Killing freeze is when it get below 32 degrees and kills all the annuals.

No, not to often, does it get that cold here, but with all this 'global warming' going on you never know..

 

[TimV]

You breed tomato plants for several different characteristics, including disease resistance. So if the seeds of those tomatoes come up, you might have a tomato that is fine for the salad, but gets, say, the mildew fungus easily, and any build up of insects like thrips or white fly, arthropods like mites, various nematoda, various fungus causes problems to the crop you plant after, especially if it's the same crop.

So, people who have to have success because they make their living growing things don't let those seedlings live. But it's not illegal, or an ecclesiastically censurable action, so I suppose one could follow one's conscience. As long as the neighbor doesn't have a garden that will suffer for....oh, well, that's taking it too far.

PS Tim, things like fungus and nematodes aren't killed with pyrethroids. You need systemic pesticides which will poison the fruit for human consumption. That's why you break their cycles. Not that I'm binding your conscience or anything ;-)

 

[Grymir]

I'm not feeling bound, but I don't have those problems either!