Burpee Green Zebra Tomatoes 2/1/22

[Sher]

lynnee , many tomatoes are naturally lobed. I thought that was just the way they grew. They look great to me!

P.S. that is normal.  Take a look.

[lynnee]

Apr 11, 2022 21:05:17 GMT -5 Sher said:

lynnee , many tomatoes are naturally lobed. I thought that was just the way they grew. They look great to me!

P.S. that is normal.  Take a look.

Thanks, I feel better about it now!

[lynnee]

Day 76. Relocated the Green Zebras from the 24" Farm Plus to the 36" Farm 12 XL (recently vacated by the Mini Munch cucumber).

The GZs look okay, but not great. They took an extra beating during the transfer, because the water level indicator from the white Farm Plus bowl would NOT connect to the black Farm 12 socket. I had to shift the white Farm Plus deck to the black Farm bowl to complete the transfer. (The original plan was to drain the Farm Plus bowl, then transfer it together with the Farm Plus deck and tomatoes to the Farm 12 XL.)

I removed one big, unripe tomato, because it looked like it was considering blossom end rot. The plants had already been cut back to keep them inside the Farm Plus. We'll see whether they produce any new branches or blooms, now that they have more space. 24 ml AG nutes, 10 ml CalMag, 5 ml Koolbloom.

[Sher]

Fingers crossed, lynnee ! 

[Shawn]

[lynnee]

This is the suspicious tomato. The dark spots have enlarged a little since it came off the vine, and the central line has gone from white to dark. Hopefully the banana will encourage the tomato to ripen, although it is probably too green.



EDIT: A second tomato had to come off because of probable blossom end rot. I put it with the one above, to see what it will do.

[lynnee]

Finally, I figured out that the main reason NOT to grow indeterminate tomatoes in an AG, is that they are vines that need extra space. I think that I'll definitely be able to grow GZs successfully in the Farm 12XL--where they currently reside.

Professional growers keep indeterminate tomatoes to a single stem, which is probably a wise practice for indoor AG gardeners, too.  Indeterminate tomatoes keep producing tomatoes along the stem, so pruning the branches encourages the plants to concentrate on tomatoes rather than leaves.

I forgot to photograph the GZ garden before I pruned the plants yesterday (day 89). I did a radical pruning because the big GZ tomatoes on the plants were NOT ripening, and the leaves at the tops of the plants were spindly and unhealthy looking. (You can see from the photo that the leaves near the lights are not looking all that great.)  

The plants had produced many, many branches from the main stems, and only a few of the branches were even producing flowers. There was zero fruit set above the nonripening tomatoes, so the plants were probably overburdened with foliage and existing tomatoes.

The pruning may or may not harm the plants. I wanted to retain only growth from the main stems, but ended up with two stems on each plant. All four stems have produced tomatoes that are still developing without problems (fingers crossed).

[Shawn]

I wish I were able to grow tall pepper plants.  All mine are short and I can not figure out why. 

Look at those tomatoes.

[lynnee]

[Source] Shawn said:

I wish I were able to grow tall pepper plants.  All mine are short and I can not figure out why. 

 
Maybe your room temperature is outside the optimal range for peppers?  Or maybe your pepper varieties are just shorter ones?  I've noticed that my Mocha Swirls are quite a bit shorter than the poblanos and banana peppers that were started at the same time.  

The AG green peppers and jalapenos usually stop growing shortly betore they reach the lights in my 24" gardens, but it takes them quite a while to get that tall.  I think that removing the low-growing flowers and the early leaves that are no longer getting much light is supposed to encourage plants to stretch up, as is raising the lights.  Who knows?

[Shawn]

lynnee I purposely planted peppers that should grow up to 36" for the XL and sadly they are now where near that

[lynnee]

May 3, 2022 3:17:46 GMT -5 Shawn said:

lynnee I purposely planted peppers that should grow up to 36" for the XL and sadly they are now where near that

That's weird!

[lynnee]

The pruning did it! Today (Day 95) there was a ripening Green Zebra in the Farm 12XL!

It's about the maximum size for a GZ. You can tell that it's ripe or "breaking orange" by the yellow cast underlying the green. It also has a very slight "give" when you press it. The tomatoes look green when ripe--the on-the-vine photo makes it look far more yellow than it is.

It's more or less on schedule at 95 days from seed, given that things grow faster in AGs. If you add 30 days as a rule of thumb for time to transplanting, the harvest is supposed to be 78 days from transplanting.

I showed it to Ray just before he was going to bed, and he wanted to eat it right away. I made him wait until morning, when he'll enjoy it more and it will be a tad more ripe!

[Sher]

I get tickled at Ray's enthusiasm for your tomatoes, lynnee.

They look good! I am looking forward to hearing how they taste.

[lynnee]

May 8, 2022 1:03:52 GMT -5 Sher said:

I get tickled at Ray's enthusiasm for your tomatoes, lynnee.

They look good! I am looking forward to hearing how they taste.

Years ago, Ray found a stall (The Peach Farm) at a local farmer's market that sold nothing but varieties of heirloom tomatoes. He and the owner chatted a lot, and Ray became a tomato connoisseur of sorts. That's how he developed a taste for GZs. The Peach Farm used to sell a lot of its GZs to local high-end restaurants, and the remainder would sell out quickly at the farmer's markets. (All that changed with the pandemic.)

People love GZs or hate them, because they're quite acidic. I ate one, and that was it for me, so I don't know what they're supposed to taste like. I have grown GZs on the back patio in a raised garden that Ray said tasted right.

When I cut the AG GZ, only half had pulp and seeds, though that half looked perfect. Ray's verdict was that the GZ tasted like a mild, less acidic GZ, and that the half without seeds was pithy. (Sorry, I didn't think to take a photo of the cut tomato.)

I've been expecting to have to adjust nutrients to improve the flavor, but the first step was to grow GZs hydroponically in an AG at all!

[Sher]

Thanks for the update lynnee.

I loved the background info! I could almost see the stall and Ray and the owner chatting about all the tomatoes. Great mental picture!