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On top of Brush Mountain, Pa.

This is not about an old girlfriend of mine. It is about tomatoes and growing a big one. In growing big tomatoes, everything matters but, in the end, only size matters. If you don't believe me on that one, ask around. When an old girlfriend of a friend of mine dumped him, she said, "Size Matters!" Anyway, I would ask you is what you think really matters the most when going for big. Is it the seed variety, the soil, the weather and plant protection, how you water, plant disease, organic versus chemical nutrients, pruning or is it something else? When you pay attention to your plants, what one thing do you feel you really need to get right. What one thing are you paying the most attention to? What are you the most diligent about. For me, I pay attention to all of these things but my biggest problem is keeping up with pruning plants properly. I sometimes cut off what I should not have or fail to cut off what should have been removed, My problem is pruning correctly. What do you feel you should be paying more attention to?

1/31/2020 10:49:07 AM

France

Soil, soil, soil and climat.
Keeping a balanced soil with a nice structure and plenty of micro life is, in my opinion, VERY important to get the best of your plant. Climat is also essential but it s harder to control it. Heat waves or cold spells , under a greenhouse, it's a little better and safer but not when it's hot.

1/31/2020 12:01:03 PM

Grittyville, WA

Wish I knew where to kiss a them.
Try your best... thats my only advice.
But I will share some thoughts:

When observing cherry tomatoes last year... the largest were low on the plants usually the first few on the truss not necessarily the first one on the truss though. Shaded ones in more organic soil were bigger than unshaded ones in the more mineral soil. If that applies to giant tomatoes, idk. I think porks advice is all golden try to figure out growth rate rather than overfertilizing and dont follow ANY of the advice about getting them to ripen. For example dont use red plastic. Longer the time its green = bigger. Research what causes ripening... and do the opposite.

1/31/2020 11:07:53 PM

Central NY

I’m going with marv on this one...the pruning...I had a plan to tag the plants that had a chosen fruit to let the missus know which ones we weren’t allowing anymore veg growth on...I tagged 5 plants I think..turned out to be the 5 biggest....I was really searching for gold on the other plants but feel pretty confident if I just chose the right blossom and shut the plant down of new veg growth we could of had a few more monsters hanging....I also learned not to be afraid of going with a fast growing giant single...I’ve seen some enormous singles on these Domingos that get very big very quick but I always pulled them because they were a “single”...we’ll try a giant single or two this season...(uuugh...still months to go here)

2/4/2020 7:17:22 PM

On top of Brush Mountain, Pa.

This has to be a historical moment!! Porkchop and I agreed on something. Could this be a new trend of some kind of a fluke? Probably the latter.

2/5/2020 9:36:48 AM

Central NY

Lol marv...we always agree when you are being positive, encouraging and helpful...

2/5/2020 12:28:50 PM

On top of Brush Mountain, Pa.

Are you saying there is a Good Marv and a Bad Marv? When I really piss off my wife she tells me she wants the Good Marv to come back. I tell her that she has to take the bad news with the good news and just deal with it. Some times we all have to hear things we don't really want to hear. What doesn't kill us does make us stronger.

2/5/2020 1:37:39 PM

Central NY

yikes...I try not to piss off lambchop at all!!!....it’s good news or no news with her!!...(...and umm...she does all the weeding....just sayin...more flies with honey....)

2/5/2020 1:45:29 PM