2026 tomatoes are growing

 This year I am not renting a plot.  I decided to grow as many plants as I could in my backyard - all in the ground.  Because of last year's disastrous results, I planned more carefully!  Or at least, differently.

I sowed on March 12.   This year I decided to use a probiotic approach to thwart off disease.  The products I chose were (1) Hydroguard, a liquid that contains beneficial Bacillus spores, and (2) Mykos, which is a mycorhizzial funus in powder form.  Therefore, I did not add Daconil which is an anti-fungal treatment I have used in previous years.   Following germination, I added Hydroguard to the additional rounds of water when growing the seedlings.  

For transplant, the Mykos is applied by dusting the roots in the powder.   Although I've used Cowpots for several years for the first transplant stage, I always noticed that after a week or two they starting growing slimy pink-orange colonies on the outside of the pots.  Who knows what that was.  This year I just used plastic 4" square pots that come attached together in a 6x3 grid.  My thinking is that the Cowpots might be bringing in bad bacteria.  I brushed the seedling roots in some Mykos powder on a plate then planted in the transplant pots. Transplant soil was a mix of MiracleGrow mostiure control potting soil, leftover seedling started mix and a bit of peat moss.   Transplant was done around April 1-ish.   

Finally, I got the plants in the ground on April 16/17.   No buckets this year! (Except for one, see below.).  Fortunately, my neighbor removed some overhanging trees and now there's more sunlight in my old garden plot again.   I also tilled up two little separated patches of yard to squeeze in a few more plants.   So, I planted 18 in my big patch against the fence, and two little groups of 4 more each.   But one plant in the big patch died due to an ant colony! Never saw that before.  I even put in a replacement plant and they killed that too!  So:  17+4+4 = 25 plants in the ground.   Finally, I threw a few unneeded plants onto my compost heap, then discovered a week later some were still alive!  So I jumbled four of them into one old bucket.  

By 5/17/26 all the in-ground plants are thriving, about 2.5-3 feet tall.   Some of them in the big patch have some curling leaves but no discoloration (yet).     The list of varieties will be in the next post.

2025 thoughts

 2025 has been a weird year.  Including for my gardening.

I sowed about 20 varieties but got a late start, and due to communication errors on my part with my farm rental plot landlords I planted late too.  Did not sow indoors till March 25.  Did not get plants in the farm plot ground till almost May.   I planted about 20 plants at the farm, had 4 in buckets in backyard, and I put a half dozen extra plants in my backyard garden last, and did almost nothing to care for them.

This was way too late - should have been in ground before April 15.  Why does this matter?  For a few reasons .  1. the plants didn't have time to establish well before the warm weather really set in, and a lot of the plants looked fine for the first few weeks, but were hammered by wilt before they got nice and big.  I think having a better root establishment early would have helped.  2.  Consistent rain made for nice plant growth but prob contributed to fungal growth too.  3.  I spread wood chip mulch around the plant becasue it was free there, but I read later that that can spread fungus sometimes.  4.  Fruit set was a couple weeks late.

But mainly the wilt was terrible.  By July, about half the plants at the farm were dying off and were so stunted that they were done for.  They did not make enough leaf growth to shelter the fruit, so the fruit that they tried to make were few, sunscalded, and small.  Then, the heat came in July, and fruit set stopped.  By the third week in July - which is usually the peak of production - it was pathetic.   I'm not sure I picked more tomatoes than the number of plants!  

Some things to fight wilt next year:  1.  Put more anti-fungal in the mix when transplanting to larger pots.  2.  Maybe the cowpots I use are vectors for fungus or bateria that cause wilt.  Hard to know,  I do know that after a few weeks they start to grow colonies of bacteria on the outside - pinkish looking colonies.  Try different pots?  3.  Try adding a beneficial bacteria to the mix.  I did this once before.  4.  Don't use wood chip mulch.  5.  Start everything earlier so plants have time to grow bigger before they get stressed by more heat. 

2023 wrap-up

This year I had about 6 containers and planted about 14 plants in the yard.  My calcium tests showed mainly that calcium had little effect on end rot, but I think the watering regimen was probably the most important.  Basically if there is too much or too little, it's bad for end rot.   I think the containers exaggerate this here in Tennessee: they get so hot, come June, they dry out quickly,   Oh well.  Anyway I learned that calcium application doesn't rescue end rot in the containers.

My yard is so shaded by grown trees now that there is almost no good space for growing tomatoes.  A few plants wound up being in full shade almost all day.  They grew less and some never even set fruit.

Although my 55a7 x pBTD F1(2019) cross was a failure to obtain atv/atv + gs/gs (due to their linkage), I planted a few F2s anyway mainly in case I got a new purple or other variety that seemed nice.  So one of them does not have atv, but is nice: it has gf/gf and gs/gs and is not y/y.  It looks and tastes great.  The striping looks good on the not-y/y background - very deep orangey red stripes vs the green .  I like this better than gs on the y/y "pink" background e.g. pBTD.  This F2 is likely y/+.     I saved seeds because I liked it so much.   My shorthand for the 55a7 x pBTD F1(2019) cross is "55p".   So I will call this  "55-Stripe" -  has a nice ring to it.

My littlest tomato of 2023

 From the variety Sweet Pea Currant. 8/12/23

More calcium tests to prevent end rot

 This year I am growing 7 FL plants and testing some calcium treatment to see if I can finally reduce end rot in the Flamme plants.

I have 4 in-ground and 3 in buckets.

Plan: Beginning on Monday May 22,  administer calcium nitrate weekly each Monday either to soil as liquid or foliar spray.    I found a bulletin with data claiming Ca spray reduced BER.

Spray: 15 mM calcium nitrate + tiny bit of dishwash detergent as wetting agent.   For 2 plants in ground and 1 in bucket.

Soil:  500 ml of 50 mM calcium nitrate applied to base of plant. 1 plant in-ground, 1 in bucket.

Control: 1 in ground , 1 in bucket.

Control and Spray test plants also receive 500 mls water at same time.

I did not spray a control of any sort on the Control or Soil plants.

May 27 2023 update

 It's Memorial Day weekend 2023.  All plants are growing pretty nicely with no signs of wilt or disease, but that is typical through May.  From my past years' notes, signs of disease, if any - usually sudden wilt - emerge in the first week of June.   

Aphids:  Some plants have pretty noticeable curling and slender leaves, particularly younger leaves, and particularly on FL but not exclusively.  For example, the two 55p plants are unaffected (these are F3 plants from a cross, so maybe still enjoying hybrid vigor).    One possible cause is aphids which were quite noticeable on the plants over the last couple weeks - followed by aphid mummies indicating parasitization and natural control.   

Interestingly, the enormous oak tree which overhangs much of the backyard is I think the source of aphids.  All of the plants, and my patio picnic table and chairs, are speckled with honeydew.  (ew).  

It's 2023

 I did not blog much in late 2021.  In 2022, I did not grow tomatoes at all, for the first time in many years.

As 2023 starts, I discovered some unfortunate news about my 55a7 x pBTD cross that I began a few years ago.  My goal here was to combine purple skin and green stripe.  In 2021, I collected seeds from F2 fruit, thinking that 1/16 would be atv/atv ; gs/gs , but at least some of the atv/atv that were not green stripe might also be gs/+ and thus worth breeding out to F3 in order to homozygose gs.   

Well.  This is a fine plan under the assumption that atv and gs are completely unlinked.  What are the odds?  Turns out they are tightly linked on chromosome 7.    I got the genome locations based on close markers from separate publications.   

Green stripe:   SNP marker SL2.50ch07_63842838

(Liu et al. New Phytologist, 2020.  GREEN STRIPE, encoding methylated TOMATO AGAMOUS-LIKE 1, regulates chloroplast development and Chl synthesis in fruit)

atv:  within SL2.50ch07: 60999091–61004074

Cao et al/. J Exp Botany 2017 -  A putative R3 MYB repressor is the candidate gene underlying atroviolacium, a locus for anthocyanin pigmentation in tomato fruit)

These are about 2.8 Mb apart, which I estimate to be about 4 cM based on the Tanksley map from 1992 (Genetics).

So - this means that the F1 was atv-+ / +-gs for chromosome 7.

For an F2 to be atv-gs / atv-gs , it would have to inherit two crossover chromosomes from the F1.  Odds of each are about 2%.  Odds of inheriting both are 1/2500.

What's also bad is that although I saved some F2 atv/atv seeds, these are about 98% likely to be homozygous wild type for gs - so they are not worth breeding out to get gs phenotype.

I suppose I could plant some F3 from the largest F2 purple fruit, just to see if I can a big size purple - gf line that is bigger than my old 46A2 line.  Try #18 maybe.