Might start tomatoes today, but step one is rearrange everything under the lights to make a place. Such a problem, being forced to play with plants

sallyg said:Rita, are we planting tomatoes tomorrow?

Plan on starting my seed sowing by planting my two small cellpack trays of eggplant today. Then in the next few days will do tomotoes and peppers.

I might get started on some other plants soon. But for right now all I care about is my tomatoes. My favorite vegetable/fruit to grow by a mile.

Adding Supersteak and San Marzano to my tomatoes growing. They'll be a week or two behind the others maybe but no big deal.

These are the Tomatoes I started today. I get them through Rutgers University which has been breeding to get back to the original Jersey Tomatoes.
My new one for this year is Scarlet Sunrise.
https://breeding.rutgers.edu/s...
The others are.
Rutgers 250 tomato
Ramapo F1 Hybrid tomato
Moreton F1 Hybrid tomato
KC-146 tomato
https://breeding.rutgers.edu/t...
Rutgers 250 is also new to me so I also planted some reg Rutgers Tomato seeds to see if I can tell the difference. I have been planting the Ramapo F1 for years now and it has been the best Tomatoes I have ever grown.

Hi! I got my tomatoes started this week. I'm growing large cherry tomatoes and bonny best vining tomatoes. Started the cherry tomato seeds on the 3rd and the bigger tomato seeds today, the 7th. Of the cherry tomato seeds I started on the 3rd.. one of them is already sprouting! I could not be more pleased, totally made my day.

I ordered tomato plants from a lady in Tennessee last year, and couldn't have been more pleased. I will order from her again this year. I haven't made my list yet, but everyone talks about the country taste, so I will be getting that one.

Has anyone tried Celebration which is supposed to be an improvement on Celebrity? I usually plant a couple of the Celebrity since even in bad years it always preforms well.

Hmm. What is supposed to be the improvement? Size/ flavor/ disease resistance? I tried Celebrity once and was not impressed.

The improvements are always overhyped from what I can tell, maybe disease resistance is better but flavor and yield is really up to growing conditions, some you can control and some you can't.

It is supposed to be more drought and disease resistant and have more production. I use Celebrity not because it is the best tasting but not bad at all. It does very well in containers compared to any others I have tried so I can do some on the patio as well as other types in the garden. And like I said even during a not great Tomato season it always produces.

I prefer big boy or better boy for my no fail tomato. I have tried celebrity several times and was not impressed. I think maybe the local weather conditions, etc. have a lot to do with production and taste. I tried one of those tomatoes called heat resistant last year, don't remember it's name, and it produced a beautiful, round red tomato. Thick skin, hard white core, and NO taste. I don't care if the tomatoes have cracks or blemishes, I want them to taste good. I grow mostly op and heirlooms, but I always plant a hybrid red tomato. Rutgers and marglobe do well here, too.

I've had no failure-resistant tomatoes ever, like I said it really all seems to depend on growing conditions.

I use Celebrity, as NJBob says, for me it tastes decent and is reliable enough. Maybe the MidAtlantic zone is a sweet spot for it. I saw it on a list of recommended varies decades ago from the extension service- of course there are a million good tomatoes out there and a 20 year old recommendation isn't at all 'current'

I'm happy to have new babies just emerged (indoors) from my two noids- one that I liked last year, the other been using several years

posted in the other thread too:

I've started preparing my tomato area, I'll plant herbs and flowers here in between the tomato plants too, but other vegetables are probably going to be mostly potted if possible, I could maybe extend this area a bit further, right now it's only sized to fit my tomato plants and anything that can be planted under/between them though. I plan to buy another 10-15 bags of compost or something like that to mix into the soil, but didn't want to load my car up with 1000 pounds of bags today. This is a decent start, I even took walnut shells that the squirrels absolutely flooded the shed with (think 3 or 4 inch layer of shells in a shed that's something like 8x15') and I'll mix those into the top few inches of soil along with the compost, maybe even some twigs and leaves, those will take years to degrade but that's the point, long term garden ecosystem.

I also have 3 bags of topsoil I'll spread once I get everything mixed in.

I'm starting my tomato seeds soon, now that I've cancelled my long European trip. I will definitely post what variety.

@repentantslide, I don't think you want to use black walnut shells anywhere near your plants. They contain a chemical called jugelone(sic?) that kills plants. I don't know how long this chemical could linger in the shells, but I would look that up if I were you.

I looked it up and from what I can find is that the tree itself is toxic to a select few plants (though this includes nightshade related vegetables like tomatoes), and there's a much lower concentration of juglone in the shells and fruits and leaves compared to the roots. Another point from wikipedia was that juglone toxicity isn't of much concern when the soil is well-aerated because there are aerobic bacteria that readily break down juglone in soil. These walnuts are mainly 2-4 years old (squirrels have stored them in the shed for years and didn't get to cleaning it out until recently because we never used the shed much), and from what I could gather, juglone is broken down in anywhere from 2 weeks to a few months. I'm going to take the risk because I feel like it's better to return what I can to the soil and also to save on mulch/compost/etc since my ultimate goal in life would be a self-sustaining personal vegetable/fruit farm.

I very much appreciate the heads up though! It was good info and something that will be useful in the future, now I know to make sure no walnut tree bits fall near my vegetable gardens. I may not put all of the walnuts in with the soil right now just to be safe, but I'm not too concerned for it after doing some research.

Hmm, it will be interesting to see how the walnut shells will do. Keep us posted!

Ed

repentatnslide- I didn't think about the juglone aspect (which you seem to have resolved) but I do also like your idea of getting chunky stuff into your soil.