Nick's Heirloom Cherry Toms in a Farm+ (TERMINATED)

[nick]

I’ll be posting a lot more about this in my other posts, but this morning I had time to sit down and really examine the Golden Harvest plant that looked so bad. I decided to terminate that plant and restart another elsewhere.

Meanwhile, I think the Heirloom Cherry plant actually looks fine right now.



However, I’m getting flowers on top and it seems a little early for that to me. Am I wrong?



Here’s a shot to give you all an idea of the current size of the plant. It’s about 30 days in right now.

[MaryL]

Given the size of the plant it wouldn’t seem to be too early, but vis a vis the 30 day mark I’m really not sure.

So I went back to my AG kit tomato garden to see and at 30 days it doesn’t look like I had flowers yet, but I didn’t take another picture until a month later when it had tons of flowers, so I’m afraid I can’t say when they arrived.

I also had a Yellow Canary tom garden, and they seemed to flower somewhere between 30 and 42 days.  But that’s not an AG kit seed.

I wouldn’t worry about the flowers, but if you want to be conservative perhaps you could do what Mike does with his peppers: he always picks off the first flowers to grow a stronger trunk and to get a bigger yield later. I don’t know if this is equally applicable to tomatoes, but it kinda makes sense that it would.

[nick]

Yesterday I removed several of the lower leaves in this plant at Mary’s suggestion.

Today I decided I’d relocate it to the center of the unit now that the struggling Golden Harvest plant is gone. It’s still shorter than I’d expect, but seems like it’s doing fine.



The flowering on top continues. I’m going to let it be.



I did make an interesting discovery when I relocated the plant. The open pod slot that it was in is barely dripping any water out when the pump is running.



I suppose that could have had an effect on its growth, right? I verified that it wasn’t due to deck warping so I’m wondering if a root or something is lodged. I’ll find out when I disassemble it down the road. Now it’s in a slot where the water is flowing freely, so hopefully it’ll like that a bit more.

[Shawn]

Nick, the deck does not have to be warped for this to happen although I would still check.  But make sure the unit is level by placing a level on the deck to check.  The tiniest bit can throw that off.

[MaryL]

Very interesting.  I've had that happen to me before too. But the last time it was definitely due to warping because I had put the deck of my Harvest in the dishwasher.

[nick]

This plant has really started to spread since I relocated it. It also seems to have recovered quite nicely from the early overfeeding. The older leaves that had spots from that seem to have “healed” and the new growth looks very good.

R&R for this one today and switched back to a 2:2:2 ratio of GH nutes, but this time at half the strength I was previously using. Lesson learned!





And what’s this? 🙂

[Shawn]

Very nice and what a surprise.

[MaryL]

Ohmygosh, that looks FANTASTIC!

[nick]

I still don’t know if this plant should be taller than it is, but it looks healthy and now has several tomatoes forming.

[cheddachasa]

Don’t worry about the height. I was led to believe I stunted them but here we are at 194 days:

[nick]

This plant is at Day 57 today. The height continues to grow at a snail’s pace, but it’s picking up. The plant seems to want to spread rather than grow up. It’s also extremely dense.

There are probably 10-15 tomatoes growing in that dense foliage right now.

R&R for this one today. Fed with GH Flora nutes in the 1:2:3 ratio.

[nick]

This week’s Heirloom Cherry update features adding 10ml of Mooch and finding lots of new toms.







Meanwhile today was an R&R day for the Golden Harvest plant. It’s at day 31 so it was fed with GH Flora nutes in a 2:2:2 ratio.

[nick]

Today was an R&R for the Heirloom Cherry plant. Fed with GH Flora in a 1:2:3 ratio. The plant seems to have hit its stride now.



All of the cluster it has developed so far continue to swell.



The Golden is also coming along quite nice in the neighboring unit.

[nick]

The Heirloom Cherry plant is now covered in fruit. Just about everywhere you look on the plant you can find a cluster of tomatoes.





The Golden Harvest was R&R’ed yesterday. Fed it with GH Flora nutes in a 2:2:2 ratio.

It’s growing steadily and has its first tomato on the vine.

[nick]

Well these plants were the ones that instigated The Big Prune incident today. I decided to move all the dead/brown/crunchy leaves since the AG tomato guide said I could. Now I’m really hoping I didn’t remove too many, but we’ll soon see.

The Heirloom Cherry plant is absolutely loaded and I’m starting to see the earliest tomatoes turn ripe.





Meanwhile the Golden Harvest is coming along nicely. It’s got several toms already (though I knocked two or three off today while pruning). If it grows as well as its neighbor I’m in for a real treat.

[Shawn]

Now that is a lot of tomatoes.

I have noticed with my pepper plants, when I prune off the old, darker and/or crispier leaves I tend to get a growth spurt or new buds and peppers.  I believe removing those leaves sends energy to new growth.  (That may be just in MY head, but hey if you wish it it may come true LOL )

[nick]

I removed a ton of leaves on the Heirloom Cherry and intend on starting something else in this unit before too long. This was the status of that plant last night.



I’ve had two harvests of about this size so far. Obviously a third will be ready soon.



Meanwhile the Golden Harvest is continuing its steady growth.



And I’ve got my first ripening tomato on that plant.

[Shawn]

WOW, look at all that red!  Way to Go

[Rialle]

wow those look fantastic! Can’t wait for mine to catch up.

[MaryL]

They’re all beautiful!  Really inspiring!