Whats the Most Rewarding Plant Youve Grown?

[Meadowlark]

... Have you ever tried hand pollination?

That isn't the problem...the problem is the fruit will not set, won't stay even if pollinated because of the temps.

One good thing though is as being indeterminate once your temps cool down later in the summer you should still get good pollination on the new growth. I use 8ft stakes and they're always much taller.

My technique is to cover a "limb" on a mature plant in late June early July and it will take root. Discard the mature plant and that new plant then has enough vigor to bloom and set fruit again in Sept. if temps are right. Works sometimes and sometimes not but when it works the second crop is great.

 

[smitty55]

That isn't the problem...the problem is the fruit will not set, won't stay even if pollinated because of the temps.


My technique is to cover a "limb" on a mature plant in late June early July and it will take root. Discard the mature plant and that new plant then has enough vigor to bloom and set fruit again in Sept. if temps are right. Works sometimes and sometimes not but when it works the second crop is great.

By limb do you mean sucker? They will readily root. I remove all suckers as I only want tomatoes growing off the main vine, besides the sucker would never be able to support the weight of these fruit as over a pound is normal and some are over 2lb. Suckers also diminish air flow through the plants, not a good thing as they are susceptible to early blight and I do everything to try and prevent that as much as I can.

 

[Meadowlark]

By limb do you mean sucker?

No, actually one of the main lower branches...just cover with dirt and it makes a good strong new plant.

 

[gary350]

Not here. Tomatoes stop setting fruit when temps hit 95 deg F and above. That happens here in early June. You have to start early or miss the window entirely and wait until fall. I figure I might have another week or two to get some started, but it gets marginal every day that passes now.

Plant your tomatoes on the east side of a shade tree so tomatoes get full shade at 11am until dark. My laser thermometer shows plant leaf temperature can be 30°f hotter than the air temperature in full sun. My tomatoes do good with 5 hours of early morning cool sun then bright shade until dark. 2nd week of July our air temp is 98° to 100° every day no rain dry as desert tomato production drops 90% but we still get some ripe tomatoes. Grow new plants from seeds every 2 months to replace old plants. When plants are 6 ft tall pull them up you will have nice tomatoes on the 4 ft tall plants and the 2 ft tall plants.

 

[gary350]

The most rewording 50 years ago was tomatoes. A few years later most rewarding was beans & corn. After that melons were most rewording. Every time I learn to grow something new it became the most rewarding. Next peppers were most rewording. Years ago when I was learning to grow potatoes and had a good crop and never knew why, potatoes was very rewording. When I learned to grow 25 lbs. of sweet potatoes from 1 plant that was rewarding but we don't like sweet potatoes so I gave them away. My 2 largest crops of carrots was 20 years ago and this year, we are already tired of eating carrots. Celery was rewarding first time I grew it we do not have to buy celery anymore. Squash & cucumbers attract 1000s of stink bugs so I planted 75 cucumber plant to harvest about 900 cucumber in 10 day then pull up all the plants it was very rewarding not to have stick bugs in the garden 1 month sooner than normal. Every time I learn something new it is very rewording, about 35 lbs. of ripe tomatoes from each plant was rewarding when the kids were growing up but now we don't eat many tomatoes the 2 of us. Last year I learn 6" Dutch cabbage is a 65 day crop much sooner than 8" cabbage that is 120 day crop it was very rewarding to have cabbage in the garden for 4 months Oct to Jan. Gardening is a learning experience that gets better and better. I have about 4000 carrots in the garden that need to be harvested 1st week of May, I don't think I will ever plant carrots again we have eaten so many carrots we don't want anymore carrots. LOL. It was very rewarding to learn Red color carrots have about 5 times more flavor that orange carrots. If I grow carrots again they will be RED.

 

[Meadowlark]

Plant your tomatoes on the east side of a shade tree so tomatoes get full shade at 11am until dark.

Actually, I do much better than that...my summer plants are deliberately located next to a shed which blocks all afternoon sun. That isn't what causes the fruit set problem, however. It is caused by high nighttime temps, temps exceeding 75 deg. I haven't found a way to cool off the plants at night.

There is zero fruit set from sometime around late June to mid-September here. Then in mid-Sept, we sometimes get lucky, and a front knocks the nighttime temps back below 75 deg. If you have plants in bloom at that time, you get rewarded.

It takes 20 to 30 days following fruit set to get ripe tomatoes. We start getting ripe tomatoes again late Oct. to early Nov. and until frosts.

 

[gary350]

Actually, I do much better than that...my summer plants are deliberately located next to a shed which blocks all afternoon sun. That isn't what causes the fruit set problem, however. It is caused by high nighttime temps, temps exceeding 75 deg. I haven't found a way to cool off the plants at night.

There is zero fruit set from sometime around late June to mid-September here. Then in mid-Sept, we sometimes get lucky, and a front knocks the nighttime temps back below 75 deg. If you have plants in bloom at that time, you get rewarded.

It takes 20 to 30 days following fruit set to get ripe tomatoes. We start getting ripe tomatoes again late Oct. to early Nov. and until frosts.

About 30 minutes before dark look at your tomato plant leaves on a very hot day see if they look wilted. Once it gets dark plants leaves naturally come back to life in about 4 to 6 hrs. If I spray my tomato plants with a very fine cool water spray about 7:30 pm leaves come back to life in about 30 minutes. This is very helpful for my tomato plants to stop looking wilted. I learned this in college biology class 50 years ago. This helps my plants grow a few more tomatoes its better than no tomatoes at all. My father use to spray water on his tomato plants 30 minutes before dark, he said, plants like it but I don't know why.

 

[johncrady32]

Blueberries have been the most rewarding for me—once established, they come back every year with minimal effort and fresh-picked berries are hard to beat.