A Tale Of Two Tomatoes

Cindy decided to experiment with her tomatoes this year by trying a Grow Box for some of them, and planting others in several of the raised beds.

Grow Box

The Grow Box is basically a planter box that incorporates soil and fertilizer above a water reservoir.  Cindy bought three of them and put two in front of the garage door, where they will get maximum morning sunlight, and one on the west side of our 100 gallon water tank.

Then she started planting the tomatoes she had started from seed and been raising in the mini-greenhouse behind the garage.

Seedling Tomatoes Ready to Plant

And the tomatoes started to grow.

Garage Grow Boxes With Optional Supports

And grow.

All the seedlings, both those in the Grow Boxes and those in the raised beds were looking sturdy and healthy.  As part of the experiment, she planted pairs in different places, one of a pair in a grow box and one in a growing bag in a raised bed to see whether there was any noticeable difference in how they grew.  All the plants were started from seed at the same time, exposed to the same amount of sun in the mini-greenhouse and planted in the same soil in both the raised beds and the grow boxes.

So, approximately three weeks from planting the seedlings, there is indeed a noticeable difference in the pairs of plants.

These are the plants of the Purple Bumble Bee Tomato from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

Purple Bumble Bee in Raised Bed

Purple Bumble Bee in Grow Box

The plant in the raised bed is about 18 inches tall; the one in the grow box is approximately 32 inches tall and much bushier.  Same variety of plant, same soil.  The two possible differences are that the plant in the bag in the raised bed is on a drip watering system, while the one in the grow box has constant access to the water in the reservoir at the bottom of the box.  Cindy fertilized the one in the bag with her usual fertilizer, but used the nutrient patch cover that comes with the Grow Box.

Both plants are looking very healthy and already have blossoms forming, so in a few weeks we may have actual tomatoes from them to compare.

Let's Play "What's My Tomato?"

"Enter, Mystery Tomato, and sign in, please."

When we did the tomato grafting this Spring, the results were not quite as successful as we had hoped they would be; only one of the ten grafted plants survived.  See:  http://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2016/04/not-quite-as-successful-as-we-hoped.html.

The one tomato plant that did survive was supposed to be a Rose de Berne on Estamino root stock.
We were a little surprised when the surviving plant put on a huge growth spurt and began rambling all over that end of the raised bed.  It produced very large yellow flowers that attracted the attention of an industrious bumble bee and of the California Towhees, but as time went on, not much in the way of tomatoes appeared.

Grafted Plant on the Left

When tomatoes did begin to appear, they were small, clustered and yellow.  We kept waiting for them to ripen, but they stayed yellow.  When they began dropping off the vine, Cindy started picking them and determined that they were actually ripe.  They tasted all right, but were just small and yellow.

Mystery Tomatoes

The Rose de Berne tomato is described as a dark pink tomato weighing between 6 to 8 ounces with good, sweet flavor.  The plant right next to the mystery plant is from the same lot of seeds labeled "Rose de Berne" and appears to be an actual Rose de Berne plant and is certainly producing the big round dark pink tomatoes we expect from that plant.

Actual Rose de Berne Tomato

So then what is the mystery plant and how did we end up with it?  Was it a bad seed?  Did the seeds get mixed up?  I'm not buying the bad seed explanation because the mystery tomato produces clusters of small tomatoes, while the Rose de Berne produces a single tomato on a stem, not a clump.

Cindy doesn't remember ever ordering any seeds for tomato plants that produce small yellow tomatoes, although it's possible that the seeds got mixed up by the grower Cindy bought the seeds from.

Two possibilities are the Galena's tomato  http://www.tomatogrowers.com/GALINAS/productinfo/5882/ and the Garden Peach  http://www.tomatogrowers.com/GARDEN-PEACH/productinfo/5324/.

The yellow tomatoes do have a faint bit of fuzz on them like the Garden Peach, but not what I would call "abundant clusters" of fruit.

It may just remain a mystery.

Not Quite As Successful As We Hoped

Unfortunately, that's the verdict on this year's effort at grafting heirloom tomato plants to tomato root stock.

Cindy started the seeds several weeks ago, transporting them from the small greenhouse out behind the garage to inside the garage at night.  When the plants were big enough, she began the process of grafting them.

Setting Up For the Operation

First she matches up tomato and root plant with stems that are approximately the same width, then slices off the top of one tomato and one root plant; she keeps the tomato top and discards the top of the root plant.  She also cuts off most of the leaves of the tomato top so that the plant will put most of its energy into healing the graft instead of producing more leaves.

Then she makes the grafting cuts with a razor blade in both stems and clips both halves together.

Trimming the Tops

Grafted Plants

The plants go into a dark space overnight with a plastic bin over the top of the tray to keep the humidity up and the plants moist.

Humid Environment

Inspected By Miss Mia

After that they go into dim light in the garage for a couple of days and continue to grow.

At least that was the plan.

After a couple of days, all but one of the plants had keeled over and it was clear they had not survived.

Lone Survivor

And the winner is.... Rose de Berne on Estamino root stock.

Fortunately, Cindy still has quite a few ungrafted tomato plants, so it doesn't all depend on this one plant and we should still have plenty of tomatoes this summer.

More Tomato Roots

It may seem that we're obsessed with the root systems of the tomato plants we grafted last Spring, but we've been very curious about the effect of the grafting on the root systems.

Healthy Plants

The vines were very healthy and vigorous and produced a good crop of tomatoes.  As far as I know, we didn't have any of the grafted plants succumb to bacterial wilt this year.

These roots are from one of the Stupice plants.

And this is one heck of a vigorous stem.

Yes, They Really Are Tomato Vines

And now it's goodbye to the tomatoes for this season.

Grafted Tomato Plants

Last March Cindy grafted some of her tomato seedlings onto tomato root stock (see:  Dr. Cindy and Dr. Kay Operate), to give the tomato plants a better chance to fend off Fusarium Wilt and other fungus and bacterial diseases that attack tomato plants.

Last year's experiment with one Box Car Willie tomato plant was a success, so of course this year Cindy decided to try several different varieties of tomato: Box Car Willie, Stupice and Sioux and several different root stocks.  The Sioux plant and one of the Box Car Willies didn't survive for long, and Cindy hasn't pulled out the Stupice plants yet, but the other two grafted Box Cars and the control did very well.  All three were planted in the same bed and all three produced tomatoes, although we didn't keep track of which plant produced the most fruit this year.

Since the tomatoes are now at the end of their productive season, Cindy tore the Box Car Willie plants out yesterday, so we were able to compare the root systems of all three of those plants.

A Tale of Three Box Cars

From left to right in this picture, the control plant is on the left, the middle plant was grafted onto RST-04-106 rootstock from Tomato Growers Supply Company, and the plant on the right was grafted onto Estamino F-1 rootstock from Natural Gardening Company.

The main stem and subsidiary stems on the Estamino rootstock plant were larger than those on the RST-04-106 and about twice the size of the stems on the control plant.

Estamino and Control Plant Roots 

Estamino plant roots on the left and control plant roots on the right.

I have a feeling that next year there will be more grafting.

Tomato Report

The tomatoes are up and loaded with ripening tomatoes.

As with last year's crop, the plants that had been grafted onto tomato root stock that is resistant to bacterial wilt diseases are out-performing the ungrafted plants all the way around; they're taller, bushier and are producing larger tomatoes.   We lost three of the plants we had grafted in March (see: Dr. Cindy and Dr. Kay Operate), but the rest of the grafted plants are doing well.

Cindy pulled out the ungrafted Sioux plant a couple of weeks ago because it was rapidly succumbing to disease.  Now the Kewalo tomato is also showing some signs of blight, although it is supposed to be resistant to both nematodes and bacterial wilt.

Kewalo Tomato Plant

However, the rest of the plants look like they're going to produce plenty of tomatoes this summer.

Boxcar Willie Experiment Update

Cindy's experiment with grafting a Boxcar Willie tomato plant onto some disease-resistant tomato root stock is still proceeding, and we're now able to see some significant differences between the grafted Boxcar Willie and the ungrafted plant.  (For a description of the experiment, see http://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2014/04/box-car-willie-tomato-experiment.html).

Two Boxcar Willie Plants, Grafted on the Left, Ungrafted on Right--July 1, 2014

Both plants are showing signs of serious stress; this has been a crappy year for tomatoes all the way around, not just for us but for most of the other vegetable gardeners Cindy knows, but the grafted plant is the clear winner of this experiment.

Both Boxcars on July 20, 2014

These two pictures show the progress of the disease on the ungrafted Boxcar Willie plant on the right; in three weeks the ungrafted plant has wilted considerably, while the grafted plant on the left is still putting out flowers and producing tomatoes.

Fortunately, we have had big, juicy tomatoes from both plants, but it's clear the ungrafted plant is now done.

Boxcar  Willie Tomatoes

Not Good News

Not Winning First Prize This Year

More bad news about the tomato plants.  Two weeks ago Cindy ripped out the Sweet Seedless tomato plant because it was showing clear signs of some kind of bacterial wilt.

Yesterday, she also ripped out the First Prize tomato plant for the same reason.  As you can see from this photograph, the plant was showing many yellowing leaves and the whole plant had begun to droop over the protective panels.

It had plenty of tomatoes on the vines, but, since the plant was dying rapidly, there was no chance the tomatoes would be able to ripen before the plant collapsed completely.

When Cindy took the plant down, she cut a cross section from the biggest part of the stem, that clearly showed the progress of the fungal wilt, which gradually plugs the xylem tissue and eventually cuts off the supply of water to the plant.

Plant Cross Section

Without a microscopic analysis, we won't know whether this is  Fusarium Wilt or Verticillium Wilt, but in either case, it's not good news for the tomato plant.

Other Side of the Cross Section

Yellowing Leaves

After last year's experience with the Box Car Willie tomato plant that developed Fusarium Wilt, which led to the premature death of the plant, Cindy decided to conduct an experiment by grafting a Box Car Willie plant to disease-resistant root stock.

Although the ungrafted plant produced the first green tomato, that plant was the first to start showing signs of disease in the form of yellowing leaves at the base of the plant.

A few days later, the grafted Box Car Willie plant also started showing some yellowing of the lower leaves, and so did most of the other tomatoes.

Upon closer inspection, it appeared that most of the yellowing and leaf wilt was due to powdery mildew, probably caused by the high temperatures and very dry, Santa Ana winds we had a couple of weeks ago.  Cindy had put up cloth panels to protect the plants from the sun and heat, but not much could be done to protect them from the drying wind.

She has now removed the diseased leaves and sprayed the plants with neem oil, a fungicide that should prevent the spread of the powdery mildew spores.

The disease-resistant root stock on the grafted Box Car Willie plant should help it survive this, but we're still not sure about the ungrafted plant.

Do You Think We'll Have Enough?

Do you think we'll have enough tomatoes this year?

2014 Tomato Plants

These plants are in addition to the two Box Car Willie plants in one of the other raised beds, and to the Husky Cherry tomato plant in a grow bag beside Fortress Blueberry.

Husky Cherry Tomato

I think we're going to have PLENTY of tomatoes this season.  Good thing we really like tomatoes.

Box Car Willie Tomato Experiment

Last year one of the tomato plants we grew was a Box Car Willie, an indeterminate variety that was expected to produce a heavy crop of 6 to 10 ounce tomatoes.  We got 12.5 pounds of tomatoes from Box Car Willie, but the plant unfortunately developed Fusarium Wilt and had to be taken out.  Fusarium Wilt is caused by a fungus that invades the plants through the roots and eventually kills the plant.

Box Car Willie plants--Control on Left, Graft on Right

So this year Cindy decided to run an experiment by trying to graft a Box Car Willie plant onto some resistant tomato root stock in the hope that the root stock would make the plant better able to fend off the pathogens that cause Fusarium Wilt.  Both the root stock and the tomato plants were started from seed.

Once the plants were about a quarter inch in diameter, she used grafting tape to splice the two plants together and planted the grafted plant in potting soil.  The plan was to raise it in a carefully controlled environment and then plant it and an ungrafted Box Car Willie plant side by side in the same bed.

The plan went awry when we had to leave for a week shortly after the plants were grafted, and we had no idea whether the graft would take while we were gone.  But the grafted plant survived and actually looked pretty healthy when we returned.

In fact, the grafted plant, on the right in these pictures, is now taller and healthier looking than the ungrafted control Box Car Willie plant on the left.

Four Days Later

So far they are both growing very well, putting on several inches of new growth just in the four days that elapsed between these two pictures.

My only reservation about this experiment is that if both these plants survive, we're going to be up to our kneecaps in Box Car Willie tomatoes, in addition to all the tomatoes from all the other varieties of tomato she's planted.

We'll keep you posted about the experiment as it progresses.

Tomatoes Up!

The tomatoes under the grow lights in Cindy's office are up and look to me like they are thriving.  That's a good thing, and I hope that continues because they're my responsibility while she's in Indiana.  

Tomatoes

This year's varieties are Champion II, Husky Cherry, Sweet Seedless, Stupice, First Prize, Ace, Sioux, Brandywine and Boxcar Willie.  

She's also raising some root stock and planning to graft the Boxcar Willie on to it, hoping to avoid the fusarium wilt problems that plant had last year.  

Looks like we should have plenty of tomatoes again this year.  

Tomatoes 2013

Winter is the time when vegetable gardeners assess the results of last season's crop and begin poring over the mountain of seed catalogs that have begun showing up in the mailbox.

2013's tomato crop came from several different varieties of tomato plants and one very prolific tomatillo.

The 2013 tomato plants were:

Box Car Willie, described as an indeterminate, meaning that it continues to produce tomatoes throughout the season, and expected to produce a very heavy crop of good sized, smooth red tomatoes with delicious flavor, ranging from 6 to 10 ounces.  We got 12.5 pounds of tomatoes from Box Car Willie, in spite of the fusarium wilt that cut its season short.

Better Bush, an indeterminate tomato, described as "perfect for large containers or small gardens", with a yield of good-sized 8 ounce fruit with real tomato flavor.  Six pounds.

Champion II VFNT Hybrid, another indeterminate, described as "a luscious sandwich tomato, solid, meaty slices with just the right sweetness.  High yields of larger fruit, bigger than Early Girl and earlier than Better Boy."   Champion was the champion in our garden with a yield of 43.25 pounds.


Cherokee Chocolate, an indeterminate variety described as "a stabilized version of Cherokee Purple, this 10 to 16 ounce mahogany-colored variety has excellent flavor and beautiful large fruit."  The word "Chocolate" in the name, alas, refers to the color of the fruit and not the flavor.  13 pounds.

Early Girl VFF Hybrid, another indeterminate.  This tomato is an early slicing tomato, providing solid 4 to 6 oz fruit. The second most prolific bush with 30 pounds of tomatoes.

Siletz, a determinate variety, described as "deep red, full-flavored slicing tomatoes are 8 to 10 oz.  Developed by Dr. James Baggett of Oregon State University, these plants yield well even in cool weather.  Good acid taste and excellent interior fruit quality in a very early tomato."  13.75 pounds

Sweet Seedless, an indeterminate variety, described as a truly seedless tomato with a perfect balance of lively tomato flavor and juicy sweetness, weighing an average of 6 ounces.  14.25 pounds.

Riesentraube, a variety of small, oval grape style tomatoes.  Cindy just kept picking these off the enormous bush and didn't keep track of the totals, but it produced tomatoes for salads all season.

That meant a total of over 150 pounds of delicious tomatoes, a pretty good season.


All descriptions are from the 2013 catalog of the Tomato Growers Supply Company.

Aunt Cindy's Traveling Produce Stand

A Few Tomatoes

We knew when we scheduled our trip to Indiana last year that the tomatoes would all ripen just before we left, and of course that's exactly what they did.

Cindy did her best to gather them all and puree or freeze everything we couldn't eat, but it was still a LOT of tomatoes.  She gave some to neighbors, but forgot that she had already given them some of her tomato plants, all of which were producing as prolifically as ours were.

So we still had a lot of tomatoes on our hands as we were packing for the trip.

I said we should just take them with us, so we found a plastic box with a good tight lid, Cindy wrapped them carefully and we packed them in our checked luggage.   When we got to Indiana, we opened that suitcase with some trepidation, thinking we might have clothes soaked in tomato juice, but everything was fine and we all enjoyed the tomatoes.

Cindy At An Indiana Produce Stand

So this year, with a trip to Indiana scheduled for August, she knew she could take some of the tomato crop with her to share with her dad, and she packed some of the green beans in, too.

There's nothing like fresh, home-grown tomatoes and green beans.

Box Car Willie

Box Car Willie

One of the varieties of tomato plants Cindy put in this year was the Box Car Willie tomato plant, which she chose mainly on account of its interesting name.  Who wouldn't love Box Car Willie?

The plant was described in the catalogue as an "indeterminate", meaning that it would keep producing tomatoes throughout the season, and was expected to produce "a very heavy crop of good sized, smooth red tomatoes with delicious flavor, ranging from 6 to 10 ounces."

The plant did indeed produce a good crop of delicious tomatoes, but unfortunately very early began to show signs of Verticillium Wilt or Fusarium Wilt, fungi that cause the leaves to turn yellow, then brown and eventually kill the plant.  Unfortunately, the fungus survives as microsclerotia in the soil and will reoccur in any plant that is susceptible to it.  

Signs of Wilt

So now Cindy will probably have to solarize the soil in that raised bed this winter to kill off the fungus before she can plant any more tomatoes in that bed.  One advantage of using the raised bed system is that each bed is a self-contained unit and the fungus should not spread to any of the other beds.

Too bad about Box Car Willie, but we did get some delicious tomatoes from it.

But We Got Some Tomatoes!

Tomatogeddon

Tomatoes & Tomatillos

As predicted, we are now up to our kneecaps in ripe tomatoes.  Cindy harvested 16 pounds of tomatoes the other day and another 15 pounds yesterday.  She's already had to start pureeing some of them and creating tomato sauce to freeze.

Soon she'll haul out the canner and start putting up lemon tomatoes.

Tomatillos?  Yes, we've got those, too.  Lots of those, most of which went into a tomatillo salsa yesterday.  The kitchen smells like tomatoes almost all the time now.

Tomatillos

We're eating tomatoes at just about every meal, in almost every dish imaginable, and then we'll have the sauces and canned tomatoes all winter, too.

Tomatoes and Geraniums

Tomato Season Begins

Tomatoes

Our tomatoes are beginning to ripen; we had the first BLT for lunch the other day, and it looks like it will be the first of many of them this season.

In fact, there seem to be so many of them that we'll probably be up to our kneecaps in tomatoes before too long.

So far we've had some of the Siletz and the Sweet Seedless tomatoes, and even three of the mystery tomatoes from the surprise plant that popped up among the roses in the front yard.  We still don't know what variety of tomato it was, or how it got there, but they were very sweet with good tomato flavor.  It's looking like those three were the only ones we'll get from that plant, but we saved some of the seeds for next year.

Good thing we love tomaotes.

Cindy Tomatoseed

Lou's Seeds Sprouting

Cindy grew up in Indiana, an area of the country that celebrates its connection to the legendary Johnny Appleseed, who popularized the spread of apple trees throughout the mid-West.

Maybe she's been influenced by that example; she seems determined to do the same with heirloom tomato varieties, sprouting the seeds and then giving the extra plants to friends and neighbors.

She also gave her dad some of the seeds.  He had set them up in his laundry room and sprouted them, but Cindy helped him set up a grow light system to give them an extra boost.

By the time we returned from our week long road trip to the wedding in North Carolina, the seedlings had grown a lot.  They were on a capillary mat to insure they had enough water, and they did just fine.

He  planted them outside before another recent trip and now is worried that cooler nights might have set them back a bit, but it has warmed up since and they should be fine.

Cindy Tomatoseed

Aunt Cindy's Traveling Tomato Wagon

Tomato Wagon

Cindy has been carefully raising the tomatoes for this year's crop, sprouting the seeds and keeping the seedlings under grow lights in her office for most of the last month.  Later she moved them outside to "harden off" before they can be transplanted, and then she planted them before we left for Indiana.

However, as usual, all the seeds she planted actually sprouted, so she had to find good homes for the ones she didn't have room for.

So her little red wagon was pressed into service to deliver the plants to a couple of the neighbors who also love tomatoes.

Siletz, Cherokee Chocolate, Grape Riesenstraube, Brandwine, Early Girl, Champion and Boxcar Willie.

Who wouldn't love a tomato called Boxcar Willie?