The Compact Indeterminate Tomato

Judith - there is an "Add new comment" link at the bottom (Add child page Printer-friendly version Add new comment). But this comment will have an easier button to find...

One of the cuttings already failed - that's OK, I didn't expect that one to work. A couple of my pineapple sage cuttings have also failed. Once one/both of these root, may plug it in that spot in my herb garden to grow for a few weeks.

Huh, interesting, Judith. I've had fairly good luck with the Park Starts blocks, and did use rooting hormone, too. That one little cutting was dubious, anyway. The idea is that the sponges will go into an AG basket once they take...

Hm. May change my mind. For one of them, anyway.

Hm. Even if starting in just-water may have been a better idea in general, switching to just-water probably wasn't. To root these in just-water, I would have used a much bigger cutting. Lost one more sprig, and not looking good for the remaining one, either.

Finally getting somewhere, but I think starting over from seed would still be wiser.

Oh, FWIW, I gave both my parents compact indeterminate tomatoes this spring. Dad's Jet Star midsize closed down, last tomatoes harvested a couple weeks ago. Last I saw it, it still looked fairly beachball shaped and sized, yet yielded well.

But my mother's, a Husky cherry tomato, is still going great guns. Unlike nearly every other tomato plant in the Northeastern US, it's riotously healthy, pure deep green, not a blemish anywhere. It's still covered with cherries. Mom picks a half dozen every couple days. And even at this age, having grown indeterminately since planted outside in a pot for Mother's Day (early May), the thing's still only waist high - including the pot.

I'm vastly impressed by this thing's disease resistance. I've never seen a tomato in CT look that good this late in the year. Late blight is nothing unusual - it was just early and epidemic this year. But by late September, most tomato plants look half dead, most years. But hers looks vibrant, perfect.

I'm half tempted to steal a sprig of that to try growing in a mini. Pity I don't like cherry tomatoes that much. And she wants to try the tea garden next indoors.

The Jet Star tomato is growing well enough, but its leaves look kinda shabby. Today I should replace the liquids. This one's a pure FloraMato grow (~20-22 EC at this point). I figure skipping any vegetative phase nutes is a good idea, if I want the plant dwarfed anyway. That might or might not have anything to do with the leaves. There's no hiding from late blight fungus anywhere at the moment... and I do smoke, so tobacco mosaic is a possibility... but it doesn't look ill enough to do anything drastic.

I hope it's not late blight, too, though since it's been epidemic outdoors still, it's pretty likely. The pictures above don't show the very yellow leaves I've already cut off...

The fungicide spraying was a real drag, but it did eek a bit more harvest out of my toms this summer... Most of them, anyway. But for an indoor tom, if it's really ill, the right answer is to kill it, clean thoroughly, and start over.

The Jet Star tomato is looking mighty spindly to me. The Deluxe is already at full height, and I had to cut off all the buds... I'll see how it looks next week, but I'm thinking this plant is not growing well.

I'm torn. This plant still has no flowers. Maybe 2 more buds than last week. New growth tips aplenty, but they don't have buds. It's definitely getting enough dark now. Tried enriching with Flora Bloom for a stronger "bloom now" signal. Continually cropping the thing to fit within available lit cubic. The plant doesn't look at all like my father's nicely compact Jet star tomato, that inspired this attempt.

Anybody think it's worthwhile to try another week on Flora 3-part nutes only? In tap water, since I'm out of rain.

In truth, this tomato plant would already be tossed if not for two things:

1. It's a pain to clean the AG Deluxe.
2. Undecided what to grow next.

Usually after a failed garden, I grow lettuce, because it'll succeed. But that would make 3 AG's and an outrider growing lettuce... which we would eat easily enough. Boring but practical. Tomatoes are a never-again. Peppers are slow and not very productive. Bambino eggplant are quicker, and produce a small crop fairly regularly. Could try cucumber, but that's such a small space. Cantaloupe would be unproductive at best. But interesting.

Has anybody ever heard of a successful cantaloupe grow?

Well... found another few buds. They're still not close to flowering or anything radical. But the plant and laziness on my part and lack of rainwater on hand, earned another week's reprieve. 9.5 weeks isn't very old for a tomato plant. I guess. And it may be that night light suppresses bud formation at a developmental stage that isn't visible for a week+... Anyway, still hacking the plant back to fit in lit cubic. Often.

EC running 2.0-2.4 (it drinks a lot, so the EC rises as the water level falls). pH was low - 5.x today, so raised to 6.x with a bit of pH up. Gave up on getting the timer to be reliable, so I turn on/off the bottom light manually - only gets ~8 hours a day of that.