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Fixating on Tomatoes

W

wordwiz

Well, at least 60 of the 100 or so I have planted. The front three rows, all in great or at least semi-great soil are Better Boy, Red Delicious and Red Stuffer. This is the first year for me for these except the Delicious. But the BB is supposed to be just as productive.

A super producer tomato plant should yield 45 pounds of tomatoes under perfect conditions; a very good plant 35 pounds, again under excellent conditions. The average of lots of studies seems to be 15-18 pounds per plant, but not grown under perfect or even near-perfect conditions.

So my challenge to myself is to harvest at least 1200 pounds of ripe, edible tomatoes from the first two rows and hopefully 300 pounds from the Stuffers (they are hallow so weigh a lot less than normal toms).

I'm weaving the plants, cutting off leaves that are not real green, fertilizing with compost teas every other week. The ground can handle lots of rain, and I can water if a drought happens. But the main thing I cannot control is the temps. A couple of years ago we had a week of 100+ temps and three weeks of 92+ temps. A possibly great tomato crop became lousy compost.

1500 pounds of toms from 60 plants. As Casey Kasem said, keep your feet on the ground but keep reaching fro the stars. I've subscribed to the idea of "Shoot for the moon but be happy to hit the top of very tall trees."

Mike
 
If you're interested in growing hybrids, Better Boy is a fair producer but no where near as productive as Celebrity, for me anyways. Celebrity really performs for me and always requires a lot of support to hold up the weight of the loads of fruit.
 
SS,

I just germinated five (maybe by now, 6) Celebrity seeds. I've heard good things about them though such heavy production from a determinate is not all that common. Another one I want to try is Supersonic. This is one advantage of growing upstairs and in a GH - I try several types in the off-season to see which are keepers!

Mike
 
I would classify Celebrity as a semi-determinate. They're every bit as tall/large as any of my indeterminates, loaded and still growing.
 
SS,


One site listed it the same way.

I don't care, as long as it will grow in a bucket of water and produce 30 pounds of toms per plant! If it isn't too much trouble, can you track your production this year?

Mike
 
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