Last Summers tomatoes

[adimice]

Last Summers tomatoes were great. I grow only Goliath, and some Romas for sauce. A trellis system works well for me. Five wires down and back with dead men at the row end. I spray with fungicide once a week from planting and the next 7 weeks. Trellis allows for easy pruning, keeps fruit off the grounds, and good air movement. I use liquid soluble fertilizer thru a drip system. A sold 7000 lbs of tomatoes off of 250 plants, right off our place. We grow all our own transplants from seed.

 

[farmer steve]

looks good. where are you located? welcome to AS by the way.

 

[adimice]

looks good. where are you located? welcome to AS by the way.

Eleven miles south of Lexington Va. ( Home of VMI) Southern Shenandoah valley.

 

[adimice]

Looks great!

What varieties do you like?

My wife and I have had 3 produce stands at different times and different locals. I not trying to be mister know it all, but we've grown a bunch of varieties. Nothing compares to Goliath. They're big, heavy producers, if you feed them, water'em, prune during the growing season, and they have to be staked or supported somehow. I've gotten 30 lbs per plant.

 

[tbow388]

Pretty tomatoes. We had 400 this year and averaged 20lbs per plant.

 

[Dalmatian90]

That's a lotta maters!

 

[colson04]

Wow...that is quite the setup. Looks real similar to how some of the local vineyards grow their grapes.

so...how/when/what do you prune off of your tomato plants? We've always had a small garden at the house, but I've never been taught to prune a tomato plant. Do you do it to increase yield per plant, or does it increase the size of the fruit on the plant?

 

[adimice]

Wow...that is quite the setup. Looks real similar to how some of the local vineyards grow their grapes.

so...how/when/what do you prune off of your tomato plants? We've always had a small garden at the house, but I've never been taught to prune a tomato plant. Do you do it to increase yield per plant, or does it increase the size of the fruit on the plant?

We had a vineyard in Northern Ca. Anderson Valley, Mendocino County, the town of Philo. 6 1/2 acs of pinot noir. Thats where we used this trellis system. The variety I grow will make 5 clumps of tomatoes, I start prunning early by cutting the bottom 4 suckers, and continue to prune all summer. Tucking the vines into the wires and eliminating sucker growth. The top wire is about 5 ft high, and I prune everything above that. As you said it increases mostly the size, the variety is a heavy producer and those 5 clumps will really get big. It's labor intensive but, it's not work if you like what your doing.

 

[colson04]

So...by suckers do you mean any branches coming off the main stem?

Sorry to sound like a newb, but I've only ever had a hobby garden, no formal training by anyone on care of vegetable plants. We always let the plant grow as is and whatever we harvested is what we got. This year I noticed that I had a lot of small tomatoes and I'm interested in learning the right techniques to get fewer but larger fruits.

 

[adimice]

So...by suckers do you mean any branches coming off the main stem?

Sorry to sound like a newb, but I've only ever had a hobby garden, no formal training by anyone on care of vegetable plants. We always let the plant grow as is and whatever we harvested is what we got. This year I noticed that I had a lot of small tomatoes and I'm interested in learning the right techniques to get fewer but larger fruits.

The plant will have 1 main trunk coming out of the ground, prune the first 4 lowest shoots off. There needs to be main branching off the trunk to provide shade. You need to leave the big main branching, but you'll see a sucker growing out of the crotch or Y where the main branches come off the trunk. Every one of these suckers will flower and make a mess of small tomatoes. It's the suckers coming out of the Y that need to be pruned. There are 2 types off tomatoes, indeterminate and determinate. The indeterminate will keep growing till a frost. The determinate type form more of a bush that lay on the ground, low and compact. If the plants are allowed to lay on the ground, you'll get a lot of rot, that's why a use a trellis, but those wire baskets aren't bad, but heavy producers like Goliath will really fill up a wire basket. You got to keep them off the ground. Going back to the first lower pruning, after you get rid of the first 4, let the plant grow for a couple weeks before you start more pruning. If you want more info, I'll be glad to help. I like growing tomatoes !!

 

[nenicu]

Hello. I like your sistem. Thinking to try this myself. What variety of Goliath do you plant? Thank you.