Harvest pics (was Fruitset!)

[feldon30]

Originally Posted by ddsack

But Photobucket is also quite flexible if a person studies all their options. When you upload your photos, you have a choice of various sizes that they can be saved as

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Image Options

avatar ( 100 x 75 ) 19" screen ( 1280 x 960 ) thumbnail ( 160 x 120 ) 21" screen ( 1600 x 1200 ) website, email ( 320 x 240 ) 22" screen ( 2048 x 1536 ) message board ( 640 x 480 ) 23" screen ( 2240 x 1680 ) 15" screen ( 800 x 600 ) 2 megabyte file size 17" screen ( 1024 x 768 )
1 megabyte file size

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When you create your account on my photo gallery, you will be able to fully administrate your own photo album, including adding image sizes that you want to be automatically generated when you upload images. I defaulted to 640 x 480, but when I post images here at TVille, I go in and create a special 500px image or smaller depending on my needs. You can set your gallery to generate whatever sizes you want. You can set different subgalleries to different sizes. You can also create several different sizes on a per-image basis, as well as re-crop, rotate, re-upload without screwing up your existing published image links, etc.

[TomatoDon]

I found some nice plants earlier and kept them inside, then we had a nice warm spell for a couple of weeks and they stayed out and really came on. Lots of people planted out last week, then the freeze came, and it wiped out the planting. I brought mine back inside and now that it's warm again they are happily sitting outside in the warm weather. I have trays of them ranging from cells to 4 inch pots, to half gallon containers. I have tons of blooms and lots of tiny tomatoes forming. A couple of the bush types have fruit the size of marbles and a little larger.

This has been an interesting year, and it really hasn't started yet. Suze helped me back in Jan/Feb select what I needed to build a seedling tray, and it works really good. Thanks Suze. Last year my germination was pitiful because it was my first real attempt and I didn't know how to do it. This year I had pretty good luck with it and have grown around 150 seedlings I guess, maybe 25 varieties. I also went over to Fusion's the other day and he has a yard full of babies and I picked up about 50, around 15-20 varieties I think it was. Funny...a member here called him while I was there. This man lives in North Carolina.

On top of that I found some really good plants at our favorite trio, Wal Mart, Lowe's, and HD. Lots had blossums when I got them. Found some nice large Brandywines this way, and I will not get into a discussion of what strain, is it a true strain, and how do I know. They are tomatoes and look good, the label said Brandywine, there was a reference to pink, the leaves are the right kind, so I took the chance and I'm sure they will taste just fine. Some are a foot tall and ready to go.

Then, I made a new discovery. This week I found a Co-Op carrying a "brand" I hadn't seen before. Chef Jeff. Really nice containers and labels, and I was amazed to find Green Zebra, Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, BoxCar Willie, Mortgage Lifter, more Brandywines, and maybe a dozen other varieties that we don't normally see around here.

My rule for planting out is to wait until around April 17, and if there is a good five day forecast (no night temps below 40) then I plant. Looks like that will be this week-end. I have around 200 ready to go. And gee...I was going to plant 36 this year?

I have 20 4 X 12 raised beds ready to plant, and about an acre disked five times and ready to plant also. The soil really worked up good and I'll hip up much of it, having small patches for different things. Hoping to do lots of corn and melons there, but plenty of tomatoes too. The tiller's ready, the tractor's ready, the weather's ready, the plants and seeds are ready, and I'm ready.

Happy planting! I already have dozens of baby tomatoes ...now grow babies grow!

Don
Friend of Fusion

[feldon30]

I would not buy any seedlings that have fruit or a lot of blossoms on them or are root-bound in their pots. The plant has given up trying to grow bigger and is now desperately trying to grow fruit. It may be difficult or impossible to coax the plant back to growing vegetatively which is what you want.

If you buy a seedling that has a few blossoms on it, I'd suggest pinching off all blossoms before planting, to get the plant to focus on growing roots first, then plant, then fruit.

Twenty 4 x 12 raised beds? You should be able to grow some serious tomatoes in that space. I hope everything goes the way you are planning.

You can find out more about Chef Jeff at the website. They are grown in Michigan and shipped down. They are very healthy, stocky plants, and they have about 60 different tomato and pepper varieties including Aunt Ruby's German Green, Cherokee Purple, Black Krim, Brandywine. It was unthinkable just a few years ago that there would be a national brand of interesting tomato variety seedlings available throughout the U.S.. Of course I'd like to see them expand their variety selection and drop others. Between Chef Jeff and some of the fantastic varieties the local nurseries are growing, I could honestly not grow ANY from seed and have many different kinds of great tomatoes.

What's that sound? Oh, it's a whimpering, hissing sound from my tomato seed box which has over 110 varieties of tomato and pepper seeds in it. So much for that idea.

[feldon30]

Originally Posted by ddsack

I was burned a couple of years ago when I lost many picture links from a travel board I participated on. The webmaster who was hosting the pictures (free to start with - later a small annual fee) had a disagreement with some of the board members and kicked them off the board and deleted their pictures. I was not one of them at that time, but it made me realize what thin ice you tread on when you rely on a private individual to be your host. I continued using the service for a time, but due to periodic disruption in services, eventually began to store my pictures on Photobucket. When I did not renew with my old host, I permanently lost all the existing photo links in my travel reports, some of which were in archives on different boards.

Dee

I guess I missed this part when I was responding to your post.

I can certainly understand your concern. I am able to separate emotions towards 1 topic from another topic. Even if I stopped posting today at Tomatoville, I would not "delete" anyone's galleries unless they posted inappropriate images or sent me threatening e-mails. I'm in this for the long haul. FeldonCentral.com has existed for 6 years and I now have a dozen websites hosted on this server and will probably expand in the future.

One thing you'll notice about my gallery is if you rearrange the categories or change the sequence of the images in your own gallery or subgalleries, it will not affect any images you have embedded or linked to in other websites. Also, if you want to re-upload a better copy of the same image, you can use the "Reupload" feature which will maintain all old links and image placement in other websites and on other forums.

I am all about giving people a PERMANENT place to store their photos and try to eliminate as much as possible broken links and broken images.

[duajones]

Brandywine has finally set fruit and its about time since its 5 ft tall now. Hit a couple more blossoms with my toothbrush yesterday, hopefully they will take as well

[feldon30]

Just for productivity out-of-the-gate, Jet Star has run away with the lead. There are about a dozen fruit set on it. My vertically stunted Cherokee Purple isn't too far behind though with about 10 fruit set. I don't know how much longer we can expect temperatures and humidity conducive to fruitset but I am getting nervous about some varieties. Ark Traveler and Cherokee Green are only now setting blossoms.

If the huge blossom clusters on Paul Robeson and Gary O'Sena kick in, then I will have a half dozen of each on their first trusses.

[FlipTX]

Anna Russian's the only one of my plants that hasn't set fruit. It's only just now putting out flowers. Arkansas Traveler isn't prolific so far, but it has four little toms on it.

I ended up pulling my Silvery Fir Tree plants. They were in the wettest part of the garden. Even being in raised beds, they drowned, and they weren't in that good a shape to start with.

[feldon30]

Yeah, my Anna Russian... she is being VERY shy.

Sorry about the SFTs. Maybe try next year in containers? I'm probably a few weeks away from my first ripe Sungolds. If I were growing SFT, it wouldn't be too far behind.

[duajones]

I am also a couple weeks from my first sungold which I am really looking forward to. Want to see what all the fuss is about

[FlipTX]

Yeah, I think I'll try SFT in containers next time. Maybe I'll do it for a fall planting.

My most prolific plant right now is Sugary. I stopped counting a while back at four dozen or so, and now it's easily twice that. I took off a lot of dead leaves from the bottom, but it still seems to be doing ok. The first ones should be coloring up any day now.

[feldon30]

Even with regular sprayings of Daconil, I've made a few trips to the garden with my Blight Bucket (thanks Suze for naming it!) to collect lower leaves with the telltale EB markings.

These huge blossom clusters on New Big Dwarf, Paul Robeson, Gary O'Sena, etc. are driving me nuts. I can't tell if they're set yet. Looks like a few might be setting on Earl's Faux.

Looks like pretty good temps over the next week, as far as low 60's at night, but up to 80 during the day. No prolonged high humidity or high temps just yet. It's nail-biting time. Who knows when the furnace will kick on and no more fruitset is possible.

[duajones]

With the damage my plants got from the recent cold snap, it has made it harder to read the leaves on my plants. I have been removing the dead foliage once the plant rids itself of them. The lower parts of the plants look pretty bad but they still seem fairly healthy overall.

[sirtanon]

While I haven't actually counted them for official count, I think I must have at least 25 fruit set on my various plants..

The winner for most set on one plant has got to be my Reisentraube.. which I would guess has about 5 or 6 set, but looks like it will be setting another 20 or so in the next couple days.

My green giant has a huge cluster of flowers that look like they might all set too. And then there's my Sleazy-A F2's.. both the dwarves and indeterminates have fruit set!

The winner for the largest fruit so far is an unknown leftover from my fall garden.. I can't remember what variety it is, but it has two fruit that are nearing well over golf ball size.

Now, if the weather will just continue to stay perfect!

[feldon30]

Never has so little been so well documented.

Sungold: 32
Husky Red Cherry: 15
Cherokee Purple: 14
Jet Star: 14
Brandywine OTV: 13
Kimberly: 5
Gary O'Sena: 4
Gregori's Altai: 4
Brandy Boy: 2
New Big Dwarf: 2

Brad's Black Heart, Burracker's Favorite, Paul Robeson, Red Penna each have 1.

Anna Russian, Arkansas Traveler, Black Cherry, Cherokee Green 1 + 2, Gary O'Sena #2, Tidwell German, Tom's Yellow Wonder, and Wes each have 0.

It's important to note that Black Cherry was the smallest seedling I put out and it now has 2 flower trusses. Also, Kimberly came down with Septoria Leaf Spot and I had to pinch off 2/3rds of the plant's leaves. Even so, it has 2 big flower trusses so who knows.

[duajones]

Sungold- 1 plant-roughly 40 or so
Cherokee Purple- 1 plant-20
Black Krim- 1 plant- 8
Azoychka- 1 plant-14
Brandywine- 1 plant- 1 tomato
Bush Early Girl- 4 plants-26 to 35
Big Beef- 4 plants- 14 to 21
New Big Dwarf- 3 plants- 2,6 and 8
Jet Star-4 plants- 15 to 20
Bush Celebrity- 1 plant-13