Saturday, June 21, 2014

2014 Grow List of Early Tomatoes

This year I started my seedlings in Ziploc bags on April 8th, then I transplanted them into 2" starter cells, but I had a few problems this year. The Blush, Big Isis Candy F2, and Mini Cherokee Purple F2 all dried out, so I restarted them in Ziploc bags on May 3rd. Next, the EB Stone Seed Starter Mix I used stayed too wet, and most of the other seedlings rotted. I was able to recover the following:
  • 3 Mini Cherokee Purple
  • 3 Big Isis Candy
  • a Black and Red Boar
  • a Spudakee

These were repotted in Miracle Gro Seed Starting Mix. They're now about 2-4" tall. 

Since the weather was warming up, with typical highs in the mid-60s to mid-70s, I decided to cheat and buy starters from the farmers market and Sky Nursery. These are the tomato plants I picked:

Cherry Tomatoes
  • Sungold (1 gal.) - Farmers Market
  • Sun Sugar (1 gal.) - MJD Dist. Garden Center
  • Matt's Wild Cherry (4" pot) - Farmers Market
  • Isis Candy (4" pot) - Sky Nursery
  • Black Cherry (4" pot) - Sky Nursery
  • Chadwick (4" pot) - Farmers Market

Black Tomatoes
  • Cherokee Purple (3 plants from 4" pots) - Farmers Market
  • Paul Robeson (2 plants from 4" pots) - Sky Nursery
  • Japanese Trifele Black (4" pot) - Farmers Market

Other
  • Jet Star F1 (1 gal.) - Sky Nursery
  • Green Zebra (4" pot) - Farmers Market
  • Moskvich (4" pot) - Farmers Market

I usually put black plastic on the ground 5-6 weeks before I plant out the tomatoes, but I was really disorganized this year and just put the black plastic over the beds when I planted the starts. I also have PVC hoops over my tomato beds and usually put clear plastic over them to keep them warmer, but since our highs have been in the mid-60s to mid-70s, with lows in the low-50s, I've kept them uncovered and just put 2L bottles full of water beside each plant to keep them warmer at night. The plants were about 8-12" tall when I planted them on June 2nd and June 4th using Mycorrhizal Fungi and EB Stone Tomato and Vegetable Food, and many had flowers on them while the Sungold and Jet Star already had fruit.

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