Direct Seeded 100 frost free day tomato

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Those days with large swings in temperature indicate clear skies, so subtract about 8 degrees of radiant cooling at night, and add a bunch of solar heating to the soil during the day.

I checked my colder field where I planted about 6000 seeds. It looks like some of them have germinated. I suppose it's time to add another row, next time it's dry enough to get into the garden.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I love it when the weather cooperates so beautifully with frost/cold tolerance testing.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

Having direct seeded all of my tomatoes this year (other than the wilds or semi-wilds) haphazardly and in grex style i guess i am unofficially participating in a similar project. Perhaps i will use Joseph's method of selecting for those that grow best and fast and chop out the slow ones.

[SteveB]

I have an abundance of older seed and some that I kept way too much of. I intend on making a bed in the coming weeks and sprinkling them around with no prejudice. I will cull hard looking for quick development. Then save some seed from the last standing crop. I have no intention here other than the longest surviving and thriving plants. First frost is generally the second week of OCT. I'm looking at survivors beyond first frost.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

While I'm not aiming for frost tolerance i've inadvertantly joined the group trialling and testing direct seeded tomatoes. Anything that does well is really all im after. I may have to thin them out when they get bigger if they turn out to be overcrowded, but for now they are in three short rows and are starting to make an appearance. It's been a rather cool and rainy spring so perhaps that will give an advantage to those that can germinate better under those conditions.

This is my first year direct seeding tomatoes. Anyone ever do it before?

[philagardener]

May 27, 2017 13:02:42 GMT -5 keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) said:

This is my first year direct seeding tomatoes. Anyone ever do it before?

They do it all the time! 

I've had many that look so good I can't bear to weed them out - often turn out to be cherry tomatoes, which I find are often more robust growers, and bear deeper into the Fall, than most large heirloom varieties.

[reed]

I was just looking at some earlier that I couldn't bring myself to weed out. Mine too are typically current and various current crosses but these are growing where our large slicing tomatoes were last year. They look better than my transplants so I decided to keep them.

Lots of the current / cherry types in another area of the garden. I generally some seeds from them just in case but haven't actually planted any in years.

[imgrimmer]

May 27, 2017 13:02:42 GMT -5 keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) said:

Anyone ever do it before?

I sow last autumn seeds of plants which selfseeded before. So far 2 seedlings survived of the prefrost germination others are emerging now. There are fewer seedlings then last year.

[Earl]

Based on past performance and 2017 results....yeah my Anmore Dewdrop is loaded BUT besides my fruited dwarfs...I'm guessing Buckbee's New Fifty Day will be right behind Earl's First Early followed by Cold Set and dwarfs like NBD and Rainbow (dwarf bi-color) which I have in a pot and is my first time growing, exceptionally stout, short and early...this was from Dean....the NBD goes way back to Spud Leaf Willy's trading days of which I was privileged to have been a part of....many did not make it but here is MY list of a partial grow:

X 42 Days-red salad transplanted 5/11

X Abu Rawan-grown in Iraq, 70's FIRST ONES UP, PLANTED INTO RED CUP ALREADY!

X Ace 55-red 6-12 oz tart flavor, sweet undertone, productive, resists V and FW from Michigan

X Adventure-red medium slicer, not much info on this one.

X African Togo-3 oz. pink

Agatha-red salad from Ukraine failed

Alacrity-red 4-8 oz Canadian failed

Alaska-red round salad Canada/Russia failed

X Alaska Fancy-Det-SD or IN depends the source, red plum

X Amos Coli-red, elongated, plum, oval paste, canner, cooking, family heirloom (Tatiana's)

XAnahu-Produced by Hawaiian tomato breeder Dr. Jim Gilbert, who named the Anahu variety after one of his students who died in the Korean war. This is a very productive determinate variety that produces 5-8 oz., round, red fruit.

Backfield-SD red slicer-small, transplant later date

Basket Vee- 8 1/2-9 oz beefsteak type that is crack free-market

X Beaverlodge 48-211B-Farthest North x Fargo Yellow Pear = BES 52-03 (BES 52-03 x Bounty) Canada 1971

X Beaverlodge 6808 Slicer-red salad, Beaverlodge Research Center, Alberta, Canada

X Beaverlodge Slicer-red early Alberta Canada

Bellstar-red plum Ontario Canada AKA Bellestar-failure

X Bison[/font]-red Yeager of North Dakota 1937
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

coming soon

*Black Sea Man-Russian origin, 4-8 oz. dark fruit

Bloody Butcher-early red saladette

Boetz-red plum Siberia

Bonito Ojo-red, 2.5 inch

Bradley-SD, a short stake type of plant with heavy foliage cover. The fruits are pink with green shoulders average in the eight to twelve ounce
range and have excellent fresh market qualities. Although they exhibit Fusarium wilt resistance, they can crack. Released in 1961 by Dr. Joe McFerran of the University of Arkansas. Received via Tomato Depot traveling trade box in 2012.

Brookpact-red Canadian slicer

Buckbee's New Fifty Day-red salad pre-1930 2-6 oz

Burbank Slicing-red slicer 1915

Bush Beefsteak-

Bush Goliath-red, 6-8 oz.

Bushy Chabarovsky-pink det/dwarf Russia

Buzau 22-red, 3-4 oz Romania

Cabot-red salad from Nova Scotia.Developed in the 70's at the Agriculture Canada station in Kentville.

Campbell 22-( and any others)

Canabec Rose-pink slicer, Doucet variety Quebec Canada 1976

Canabec Rouge-red slicer, Doucet variety Quebec Canada 1967

Canabec Super-pink slicer, Doucet variety Quebec Canada 1975

Canary Rose-pink plum,

Caro Rich-Caro Rich is an improved “Caro Red”, developed by E.C. Tigchelaar and M.L. Tomes at Purdue University in Indiana. It was released in 1973. Said to have 5-10 times more beta- carotene than most tomatoes, but less lycopene.

Cold Set-red Ontario Canada Fireball x wild-fruited Filipino No. 2 (pink selection)

Cyril's Choice-dwarf, English origin, red rugose leaved salad

Czech Bush-

Dad's Mug? (unfound)

Dansk Export-red, 2-4 oz.

Ditmarsher[/font]-pink oval cherry

(Doucet's Quebec) Early Market-red bush Quebec Canada

(Doucet's) Q-1121-red Quebec 1978

Dwarf Stone-red, 1-3oz.

Earliana-bright red smooth 1900 Stokes/ Pennsylvania

Earliana (Schell's)-see above

Earlicrop-Alberta 1953

Earlinorth-Alberta 1953

Early Chatham-red Yeager Michigan 1943

Early Girl (de-hybridized) red, 5-6 oz

Read more: tomatodepot.proboards.com/thread/6371/determinates-hoophouse-growout-northern-michigan#ixzz4k23XGKRK

[imgrimmer]

Two of my volunteers are in bloom now. That is only a little bit later them the greenhouse ones.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Jun 19, 2017 8:17:54 GMT -5 William said:

It takes awhile in my garden for flowers to translate into fruit. Maybe it is a bee interest thing!

I typically take a vibrator, and walk through the early tomato patch, touching it to each flower cluster. I feel like it helps with earlier fruit-set.

[steev]

Bumblebees are apparently very important to Solanums, which makes sense; honeybees (not from the Americas), not so much.

Joseph: have you tried walking through your farmer's market with your vibrator?

[reed]

That is so interesting that others have bumblebees on their tomatoes, I rarely see it except in late fall when it is too late for a fruit to develop anyway. I think that is because tomatoes keep blooming pretty much up till frost when there isn't much else to interest them. They hang on the flowers and do a little buzzzz/wiggle routine, wish they would do it all season but I guess other flowers are more interesting.

I do see an occasional honeybee but mostly a lot of little sweat bee type critters and hover flies. I didn't know there were so many kinds of the little bees till I started closely watching tomato flowers. I think they should be good pollinators, they explore any little split at the base of the anther cone as well as crawling inside if it is open enough.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

I dont think we have many bumblebees around here anymore. At least i don't see that many. Very rarely. So i think my tomatoes are dependent on alternative pollinators. I saw a small black micro bee on the S. Peruvianum flower the other day Ceratina? Leaf cutter bee? I think these are the same micro bees that may visit the native sunflowers nearby. Actually a wild sunflower i left growing next to the wild tomato patch (it hasn't bloomed yet) but maybe it will attract more pollinators that like small yellow flowers in the near future.

Oddly the one bumblebee I've seen this year came and tried to buzz two pea flowers. It got frustrated and left. Though it prompted me to request some germplasm from the jic of a pea variety that might have open keels and thus would lend itself to higher rates of outcrossing by insects.

LA1996 is setting two fruits which have slight anthocyanins lines on them. Should be exciting.

I think the big Pennelli hybrid is also setting fruit. So that is exciting as well. There are some brown marks on those flowers on the very end of the cone so i wonder if they have been visited by micro bees..

The small black bee i saw was similar to the top photos but a little smaller:

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

Saw a small bumble bee working the S. peruvianum flowers this morning! I think it is the same type that likes sunflowers. It also worked at least one flower of the pennellii hybrid after the S. peruvianum. Though the pennellii hybrid was not as interesting to it. Perhaps it's flower color is not quite as bright, but almost and also not as many clusters of flowers. It took a few looks at the flower right next to the S. peruvianum which was some sort of mostly domestic partly wild plant (my label got sunbleached) and it didn't even touch those. I think it's because those flowers are just too pale a yellow color so they look dead. It is therefore my opinion that bright yellow flowers on tomatoes are more critical to attracting pollinators.