@@christinecrowley7132store bought cherry tomatoes are pretty good as long as you don't refrigerate them but homegrown cherry tomatoes are so much better!!
I bought Brandywines from you and the plant and fruit are huge! I planted 9 plants. They love northern Maine weather. No bugs, no blight, no mildew, just beautiful hardball and some softball size fruit 😋 pulled my first one and had in a salad
My past mistake was ordering tomatoes from a catalogue because they looked cool without researching if they tasted good. My current mistake is lack of diversity. You made recent post of you favorite variety of each tomato, so I added that info to my planted guide and won't make the same mistake next year! The future mistake I hope to avoid is not putting tall enough (8ft-ish) stakes in from the get go. I sprained my foot during peak 'pop off' season and couldn't get into the garden because of the uneven ground for three weeks. Pruning that jungle would have been much easier if i had put in the stakes for single stemming earlier in the year!
Some of the things that you had mentioned (such as pruning and not using so much fertilizer) I had been doing all along and it always worked out well for me!! Some people would advise me to pinch off suckers and to fertilize every two weeks throughout the season but I never followed through on that advice!! I never pinch off suckers but instead I prune off the bottoms and the extra side shoots!! As for the fertilizing, I do it twice during the season which I think is plenty!! I didn't know that leaving the flower stems on your tomatoes extended the shelf life!! Thank you for that tip!!
Luke, I just had a great idea and NO ONE is doing this. Can you make a video where you go over all the different types of tomatoes including some of the less well known ones and tell us about them? Maybe this could be part of a video series where you do the same with peppers, cucumbers, etc.
I bought Giant Crimson seeds from you and absolutely love that tomato. Planted a few others too and have been pleased with them but the Giant Crimson is my favorite.
thanks as always I learned a lot from you today. I have a funny question so a couple years ago I started my own compost bin in a giant sterile light container. This past year when I planted in my pots, I added some of that rich soil in and what is weird is that it all the flowers that I planted I have tomato plants giant healthy tomato plants growing in my flowers, I have potato plants growing in my flowers and weirdest of all I have cantaloupes growing in my flowers. All of these are in containers have you ever heard of this before.
Home compost bins cannot get hot enough for long enough to sterilize and kill seed germination. That’s why veggies grew, because that was put in your compost bin. That’s also why it’s important to not put weeds that have gone to seed in your home compost bin - they will grow.
In some of your past videos, you’ve talked about your core gardening method and how infrequently you water your garden. Do you not use core gardening for you tomatoes?
That was another great episode Luke 🍅. I really did high intensity and tomatoes were single stemmed, suckers pruned, leaves a foot off the ground. They looked great until the beginning of August - then BOOM…BLIGHT came on aggressively. My bad, definitely got lazy with the baking soda spray. I have to do this starting when, here in Michigan? I do have like 6 varieties and tons of tomatoes, but that blight always gets the best of my plants. 😢 Keep the videos coming, we look forward to seeing them 👍
Thank you Luke I really needed this right now, I’ve had a really sad summer of no tomatoes lots of disease. Early spring I had quite a few tomatoes, I even sent you one. (Hope you liked it) I really really needed this right now, this was a great encouragement. 🙏🏽Thank you so much. God bless, keep growing 🥬🍅 ❌⭕️♥️🙏🏽
I think my biggest mistake this year was not planting my tomatoes deep enough and not watering deeply. I got a lot of tomato plants with shallow roots, and that did not help. Thanks for the info, Luke!
Thanks for the vid. Q: How about top pruning as summer comes to an end? Here in Northern PA (Zone 5) I wonder if topping out indeterminate tomatoes around Aug 1st because any new blossoms even if they do set fruit will never have enough time to grow or ripen. Make sense.
i am so thrilled my tomato plants started blossoming again after the heat let up a bit even my bell pepper plants are starting to flower. I was about to give up on them.
Very helpful post thanks .. I took delivery on some of your Giant Crimson seeds in July and planted one the day i got them It's about 20 inches tall now and starting to show flower buds it's in the hoop house so she'll have plenty of time to produce a few ...Thanks
Very helpful video, I just started sowing my red centiflor tomatoe from MIgardener indoors, I figured I have at least 3 or 4 months til our first frost why not lol, never thought to grow fall tomatoes before can't wait to try them 😁
You are so right about the nitrogen. I have new beds and used about 1/4 composted organic cow manure. The tomato plants grew like crazy and are so dark green- production is okay but I think it’ll be better next year.
Do you use alfalfa pellets on your garden? I've been hearing alot about it but I wonder about the herbicides they use on alfalfa which can include roundup ready.
I genuinely have a small addiction to growing different varieties of tomatoes but mostly because I want to find my favorite ones for my climate. I’m also looking for disease and *somewhat* pest resistant types as well. It’s been a tall order and frankly not many have been making the cut here in the brutal heat and humidity of the south in the summer. I had a variety that I planted in early March that never did produce a single tomato! 🤷🏻♀️😱Not planting that one again! It’s not suited for this heat at all.
You will have to find heat tolerant variety, search the web for recommendation. But experience is also key. Using the right grow mix and keeping them disease free. I used to grow in South Florida, in addition to all the above problems, the soil have root knot nematodes which parasitize the roots and steal nutrients from the plant. So I grow with fresh potting mix (not potting soil) in containers elevated from the native soil, such as in grow bags and Earthbox. I also had to use organic fungicide and bt spray. The other thing you should look at is buying 40% shade cloth. Millennial gardender have videos on how big a difference it made. Timing is also important, I did not grow tomatoes during the hottest months, which are the most humid and highest pest pressure.
I stopped fertilizing my tomatoes that I have growing in containers around the Fourth of July and I still have flowering on my champagne bubbles. They are almost taller than my furring strips that are stuck down in my five gallon buckets.
Does your garden bed have a bottom, or is it open to the ground underneath? My beds are open to native soil, so I buried my indeterminate tomatoes *deep* and they are doing the best of all my tomatoes this year!
Next year, I need a better staking method for my container grown tomatoes. I am also going to be more mindful about fertility and back off the nitrogen. I did prune well, with all the rain we had this year pruning has saved the plants from blight and other fungal diseases.
Question: I am growing the giant crimson but all of the fruit is about the size of a small plum…is that the normal size or am I doing something incorrectly?
I finally grew a couple Giant Crimsons this year. Last year they failed. All I can say is - not a fan. Was not as productive as other varieties I had in my garden. I'm glad you were able to save it and it was a great experiment. But I won't be growing them anymore.
If you don't care about letting them die by the frost then you can leave them. But if the plant is still producing fruits and the cold is coming, it might not be enough time for the plant to ripen all the fruits it's trying to produce, so pruning the diseases leaves and extra suckers is a good way to force the plant to concentrate on growing and ripening the existing fruits. Also it's good to remove diseased plants and trash them by the end of the season to reduce the amount of lingering fungal diseases that they carry.
What do you do when you love fresh homegrown tomatoes and you have a mild allergy to them? Lol I eat them in moderation and my migraines will tell me when I've had too much. What is your favorite low acid tomatoe variety?
Does anyone know how long it usually takes migardener to fulfill a seed order? I ordered two weeks ago and never got an email saying my order was sent or anything. Is that normal?
I am over my tomatoes this year. Lots of Romas, all green. Last year, no issues. About ready to pull them all and chock it up to too much nitrogen in the soil. I even put a pumpkin in the soil last year after Halloween. It did not do wonders. Sigh! I am in Michigan, close to MSU.
My tomatoes got out of hand during a four day rain!!! Now it's a forest.... I think it will do ok. But i should of just went out there and pruned like crazy. Next year I'll try better.... I say this every year. 😅😅
Anyone losing tomatoes to squirrels just now or this week due to the heatwave in the Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana areas? Harvest your big tomatoes now!
True story! I mistreated my pumpkins and watermelons so badly, they flowered when they were about 4 inches tall...and yes, they died not long after that...😢😭
There is nothing that tastes like a home grown tomato!❤
Even better Home grown ketchup )
Agreed😊
One grown with care on the rooftop of a bistro might taste like homegrown...
Or a store bought cherry or grape tomatoe both have that taste.
@@christinecrowley7132store bought cherry tomatoes are pretty good as long as you don't refrigerate them but homegrown cherry tomatoes are so much better!!
I bought Brandywines from you and the plant and fruit are huge! I planted 9 plants. They love northern Maine weather. No bugs, no blight, no mildew, just beautiful hardball and some softball size fruit 😋 pulled my first one and had in a salad
My past mistake was ordering tomatoes from a catalogue because they looked cool without researching if they tasted good.
My current mistake is lack of diversity. You made recent post of you favorite variety of each tomato, so I added that info to my planted guide and won't make the same mistake next year!
The future mistake I hope to avoid is not putting tall enough (8ft-ish) stakes in from the get go. I sprained my foot during peak 'pop off' season and couldn't get into the garden because of the uneven ground for three weeks.
Pruning that jungle would have been much easier if i had put in the stakes for single stemming earlier in the year!
Some of the things that you had mentioned (such as pruning and not using so much fertilizer) I had been doing all along and it always worked out well for me!! Some people would advise me to pinch off suckers and to fertilize every two weeks throughout the season but I never followed through on that advice!! I never pinch off suckers but instead I prune off the bottoms and the extra side shoots!! As for the fertilizing, I do it twice during the season which I think is plenty!! I didn't know that leaving the flower stems on your tomatoes extended the shelf life!! Thank you for that tip!!
Luke, I just had a great idea and NO ONE is doing this. Can you make a video where you go over all the different types of tomatoes including some of the less well known ones and tell us about them? Maybe this could be part of a video series where you do the same with peppers, cucumbers, etc.
I bought Giant Crimson seeds from you and absolutely love that tomato. Planted a few others too and have been pleased with them but the Giant Crimson is my favorite.
Super fun to try at least 4 or 5 varieties every year. Lemon Boy, Black Krim, Sungold, and San Marzano have been great to me.
thanks as always I learned a lot from you today. I have a funny question so a couple years ago I started my own compost bin in a giant sterile light container. This past year when I planted in my pots, I added some of that rich soil in and what is weird is that it all the flowers that I planted I have tomato plants giant healthy tomato plants growing in my flowers, I have potato plants growing in my flowers and weirdest of all I have cantaloupes growing in my flowers. All of these are in containers have you ever heard of this before.
Home compost bins cannot get hot enough for long enough to sterilize and kill seed germination. That’s why veggies grew, because that was put in your compost bin. That’s also why it’s important to not put weeds that have gone to seed in your home compost bin - they will grow.
In some of your past videos, you’ve talked about your core gardening method and how infrequently you water your garden. Do you not use core gardening for you tomatoes?
That was another great episode Luke 🍅. I really did high intensity and tomatoes were single stemmed, suckers pruned, leaves a foot off the ground. They looked great until the beginning of August - then BOOM…BLIGHT came on aggressively. My bad, definitely got lazy with the baking soda spray. I have to do this starting when, here in Michigan? I do have like 6 varieties and tons of tomatoes, but that blight always gets the best of my plants. 😢 Keep the videos coming, we look forward to seeing them 👍
Thank you Luke I really needed this right now, I’ve had a really sad summer of no tomatoes lots of disease. Early spring I had quite a few tomatoes, I even sent you one. (Hope you liked it) I really really needed this right now, this was a great encouragement. 🙏🏽Thank you so much. God bless, keep growing 🥬🍅
❌⭕️♥️🙏🏽
Another awesome video! Thanks. Off to prune my tomatoes
Thanks Luke! I need to water mine more.
I think my biggest mistake this year was not planting my tomatoes deep enough and not watering deeply. I got a lot of tomato plants with shallow roots, and that did not help.
Thanks for the info, Luke!
Thanks for the vid.
Q: How about top pruning as summer comes to an end?
Here in Northern PA (Zone 5) I wonder if topping out indeterminate tomatoes around Aug 1st because any new blossoms even if they do set fruit will never have enough time to grow or ripen.
Make sense.
Our 2 videos ago was about topping tomatoes :)
Liked the preview of the grown tomatoes the most 🍅 💚
i am so thrilled my tomato plants started blossoming again after the heat let up a bit even my bell pepper plants are starting to flower. I was about to give up on them.
Thanks for a very informative video!😊
Thanks Luke! We always learn from watching your videos 😊
Very helpful post thanks .. I took delivery on some of your Giant Crimson seeds in July and planted one the day i got them It's about 20 inches tall now and starting to show flower buds it's in the hoop house so she'll have plenty of time to produce a few ...Thanks
I"m growing more varieties this year.. it's a great idea and works.
Good advice.
Very helpful video, I just started sowing my red centiflor tomatoe from MIgardener indoors, I figured I have at least 3 or 4 months til our first frost why not lol, never thought to grow fall tomatoes before can't wait to try them 😁
Great video and very helpful. Is there an ideal time of day to prune them?
You are so right about the nitrogen. I have new beds and used about 1/4 composted organic cow manure. The tomato plants grew like crazy and are so dark green- production is okay but I think it’ll be better next year.
Do you use alfalfa pellets on your garden?
I've been hearing alot about it but I wonder about the herbicides they use on alfalfa which can include roundup ready.
Thanks. Do you have any videos on how not to have bitter tomatoes?
Great video! Great tips!
Thank you very nice
What about fertilizing with just P later in the season , something water soluble ???
Great job on the tomato 5 things that need to be done by garden hackers like MYSELF!! How about some help with asparagus?
Love tomatoes 🍅😋
My biggest tomato mistake is: Thinking I need to plant one of every variety known to man and promising myself every spring that I won't do that again.
Every summer my wife asks "why do you plant so many?" This is when we have a discussion about who to bless with our bounty.
😂😂😂😂
Yes I had 28 heirloom types last year. This year only 4 🤣❤️
Can you do a video on black cherries. What can be done with them, how to care for the tree.
Thank you.
I genuinely have a small addiction to growing different varieties of tomatoes but mostly because I want to find my favorite ones for my climate. I’m also looking for disease and *somewhat* pest resistant types as well. It’s been a tall order and frankly not many have been making the cut here in the brutal heat and humidity of the south in the summer. I had a variety that I planted in early March that never did produce a single tomato! 🤷🏻♀️😱Not planting that one again! It’s not suited for this heat at all.
I have the same issues. Very hot and humid, pests and disease. I got one roma tomato and a cherry type to fruit. The heat waves claimed everything.
You will have to find heat tolerant variety, search the web for recommendation. But experience is also key. Using the right grow mix and keeping them disease free. I used to grow in South Florida, in addition to all the above problems, the soil have root knot nematodes which parasitize the roots and steal nutrients from the plant. So I grow with fresh potting mix (not potting soil) in containers elevated from the native soil, such as in grow bags and Earthbox. I also had to use organic fungicide and bt spray.
The other thing you should look at is buying 40% shade cloth. Millennial gardender have videos on how big a difference it made. Timing is also important, I did not grow tomatoes during the hottest months, which are the most humid and highest pest pressure.
I stopped fertilizing my tomatoes that I have growing in containers around the Fourth of July and I still have flowering on my champagne bubbles. They are almost taller than my furring strips that are stuck down in my five gallon buckets.
I love growing tomato’s !
GROW BIG !
Can I ask you a question? I recently got a raised garden bed about 42 cm deep will that be sufficient for growing indeterminate tomatoes?
Does your garden bed have a bottom, or is it open to the ground underneath? My beds are open to native soil, so I buried my indeterminate tomatoes *deep* and they are doing the best of all my tomatoes this year!
@@drleucine my beds are opened so the native soil should help it to grow! Thanks for the tip
Next year, I need a better staking method for my container grown tomatoes. I am also going to be more mindful about fertility and back off the nitrogen. I did prune well, with all the rain we had this year pruning has saved the plants from blight and other fungal diseases.
Question: I am growing the giant crimson but all of the fruit is about the size of a small plum…is that the normal size or am I doing something incorrectly?
Be careful of sunburn when you remove too much foliage.
I finally grew a couple Giant Crimsons this year. Last year they failed. All I can say is - not a fan. Was not as productive as other varieties I had in my garden. I'm glad you were able to save it and it was a great experiment. But I won't be growing them anymore.
My tomatoes need pruning. Is it too late in the season for a serious pruning?
If you don't care about letting them die by the frost then you can leave them. But if the plant is still producing fruits and the cold is coming, it might not be enough time for the plant to ripen all the fruits it's trying to produce, so pruning the diseases leaves and extra suckers is a good way to force the plant to concentrate on growing and ripening the existing fruits.
Also it's good to remove diseased plants and trash them by the end of the season to reduce the amount of lingering fungal diseases that they carry.
The good thing about growing more than one variety is that pests tend to like one more than the other, so one becomes somewhat sacrificial.
What do you do when you love fresh homegrown tomatoes and you have a mild allergy to them? Lol I eat them in moderation and my migraines will tell me when I've had too much. What is your favorite low acid tomatoe variety?
Why are my heirloom pink brandywines not blooming? The plants are looking very healthy they are 5’ tall no blooms though
Does anyone know how long it usually takes migardener to fulfill a seed order? I ordered two weeks ago and never got an email saying my order was sent or anything. Is that normal?
Generally 3-5 business days. We are currently working on orders from the 8th-10th of August. We will get to your order soon I promise!
@@MIgardener thank you.
🍅
I am over my tomatoes this year. Lots of Romas, all green. Last year, no issues. About ready to pull them all and chock it up to too much nitrogen in the soil. I even put a pumpkin in the soil last year after Halloween. It did not do wonders. Sigh! I am in Michigan, close to MSU.
... every year I say I'm going to prune well, and every year I fail that resolution
I always pick my tomatoes when they just start to change color… they ripen within a day or so and there’s not as much critter damage!
although i was advised years ago Tomatoes ripen in the dark?
I don’t really understand what ‘watered two inches down’ means. You check the soil is moist two inches into the soil?
yes, just push your finger down into the ground, 2 inches is usually around the first knuckle.
My tomatoes got out of hand during a four day rain!!! Now it's a forest.... I think it will do ok. But i should of just went out there and pruned like crazy. Next year I'll try better.... I say this every year. 😅😅
🙌🏻
Use a package of seeds over three years. That way you have three seasons of different climate for comparison.
Anyone losing tomatoes to squirrels just now or this week due to the heatwave in the Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana areas? Harvest your big tomatoes now!
I fed my tomato plant round up and the threat of it dying produced a bushel of tomatoes!
I thought you were supposed to wipe your cutting tool between each cut? Is that only if you can see disease?
I will only eat tomatoes during garden season I never buy store bought tomatoes they are just so disappointing
Whatever happened to the giant crimson that you bought back from extinction ??
it's on sale on his website, it's sold out at the moment
My biggest mistake with growing tomatoes was planting all those jalapeño seeds 😢
The tomato police are in the building (comments section🧐)
Threatening my plants will make them grow better?! 🍅🪴🔫 “You better not be holding out on me!”
True story! I mistreated my pumpkins and watermelons so badly, they flowered when they were about 4 inches tall...and yes, they died not long after that...😢😭