Tomatoes Not Growing

[CMV]

As far as most garden veggies go....I can very rarely tell the difference between a squash, cucumber, bean, tomato, ear of of corn, or eggplant from my garden vs one bought in the store. Melons....what I but at the store are typically better since I rarely have luck with watermelon, cantaloupe, or honeydew. Exception is occasionally store-bought looks great but has no taste, but in general I notice little actual difference. Peppers I notice a difference - I think my garden ones are a lot smaller, but definitely more flavor even for mild ones like basic green bell peppers. Jalepeno, Habanero, etc - even more difference and mine are much better. But for example a cherry tomato I walk out and grab right off the vine from my patio compared to one I get in a big container from Costco....to me they're the same or maybe mine is very slightly better in some way. But if I paid myself HALF of min wage for tending to my tomatoes, I'm way ahead financially just getting the Costco ones.

I do my gardening projects (1) for something to do, (2) I think it is a good exercise and developing a skill in case I ever have to rely on doing it to put food on the table/preserve it for later, & (3) it makes me eat a lot healthier for at least pat of the year - covered up with all the veggies I worked hard to grow, not going to let them go to waste, so eat tons of organic veggies all summer, and the winter squash for months after.

Last time I canned beans, I was real proud of 50-some quarts & pints I put up. Then a few days later in WM and noticed canned beans were like 40¢....so not worth all that work. I like knowing if I needed to, I could grow and can a metric crap-ton of beans. But I choose to only grow as many as I'm willing to deal with/eat. I have enough stored food in my "preps" I'm perfectly content growing small amounts of stuff just to do it, but having seeds & canning supplies on hand just in case. Tomatoes even worse than beans as far as effort vs cost of just buying canned. Look at the giant cans of whole peeled tomatoes at Sam's or Costco....real hard to see how cheap those are then do it yourself.....

I just do real small scale, but honestly I have no idea how farmers can make a profit. Equipment, land, taxes, seeds, fertilizer, fuel, workers...everything so expensive yet a bushel of anything is very little $. If WM/Aldi/Lidl/Costco/etc are selling canned corn at 3¢ per ounce, how does a farmer have 200 AC of corn & make money that way? What do farmers get - $4-$5 per bushel max? Dunno.....just seems like it would be very difficult to do a whole lot more than break even and 2 consecutive years of bad harvest would bankrupt you if you were making payments on land, tractors, etc....

We tried pumpkins, planted & harvested a lot. Of course not knowing what the heck we were doing lost/wasted a lot too. But when I tallied it all up, considering $0 for tractor + implements, $0 for my land, $0 for my labor, I still barely broke even when it was all said & done. It was so depressing taking excess pumpkins we didn't sell (ugly, ready too early, insects bored holes, just didn't sell for whatever reason) and feeding them to the pigs at the end of the season. The pigs were thrilled...me, not so much

 

[Oaktree]

Last time I canned beans, I was real proud of 50-some quarts & pints I put up. Then a few days later in WM and noticed canned beans were like 40¢....so not worth all that work. I like knowing if I needed to, I could grow and can a metric crap-ton of beans. But I choose to only grow as many as I'm willing to deal with/eat. I have enough stored food in my "preps" I'm perfectly content growing small amounts of stuff just to do it, but having seeds & canning supplies on hand just in case. Tomatoes even worse than beans as far as effort vs cost of just buying canned. Look at the giant cans of whole peeled tomatoes at Sam's or Costco....real hard to see how cheap those are then do it yourself.....

Much of the appeal of gardening (at least for me) is the freshness and the fact that you know what you're getting. Commercially canned vegetables are loaded with sodium, preservatives and who knows what else, while the ones you can yourself have only what you put into them. Maybe the appeal of really fresh food isn't appreciated by everyone, but I can sure tell the difference between what we pick and the week old stuff at the supermarket. That's the big appeal of gardening to me, not so much saving money.

We don't have Cosco around here, even the nearest BJs is almost a 2 hour drive away (and any potential savings would be eaten up and then some by travel expenses and membership costs...it's just the two of us). Yeah, canned stuff from Walmart or Shaw's is more convenient and maybe a little cheaper (and we use that stuff too) but the home grown stuff tastes so much better and doesn't have all the crap in it, fewer containers to throw away too.

 

[RalphVa]

Commercial stuff, particularly tree fruit, are sprayed, sprayed, sprayed. I'm sure they follow the rules on not picking after a certain # of hours or days after spraying. Yeah, bought stuff generally taste near the same, but your own tastes just a tad bit better. Particularly goes for small fruit. Really goes for English walnuts. Had some of my uncle's once. Really, really good!

Really don't like canned or frozen stuff unless it is commercially done. Just never has tasted right (e.g. not near as good as fresh). So, I don't bother with trying to preserve stuff any more. I'll give it away rather than preserve it if I cannot use it all.

Ralph

 

[Oaktree]

Yep fresh tomatoes and onions from the garden and corn cooked while still screaming are hard to beat for taste.

Never had any luck with onions. All leaves and no bulb. Dunno what I'm doing wrong, or if the soil here isn't what they like.

I'd like to grow peppers, but it's just too cold here. If I'm lucky I'll get a couple tiny ones just about the time we get frost. Even in a greenhouse they did OK one year, then nothin'.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I love Sweet Onions and just planted a bunch. No hope, but you never know.

Temps in the 30s c last week, now 6c and 3 tonight.

 

[mapper]

I've heard you need to rotate tomato, they don't do well i the same soil every year. Do you swap out your soil, rotate or have found that not to be the problem. I'm thinking of building one so am very interested in the tomatoes, peppers.

I normally use new potting mix each year, there is a local supplier near me that sells it by the yard. The used stuff gets rotated to the peppers then for flowers and herbs. I had problems with mosaic virus in my outdoor gardens, after 35 years it was getting hard to find anywhere that didn't have it in the soil. I sanitize the greenhouse and my pots every year before planting as well.
If you use PVC pipe for your greenhouse frame it needs to be painted before installing the plastic film, PVC releases a minute amount of chlorine which makes the film brittle within a few months. UV stabilized greenhouse film will last a long time on a metal or wood frame. Better yet is a double layer film with an inflation blower, some insulation and no wind flap.

 

[dragoneggs]

Never had any luck with onions. All leaves and no bulb. Dunno what I'm doing wrong, or if the soil here isn't what they like.

I'd like to grow peppers, but it's just too cold here. If I'm lucky I'll get a couple tiny ones just about the time we get frost. Even in a greenhouse they did OK one year, then nothin'.

Maybe you don't get enough warm days? Onions like the heat so don't plant them too early also like rich soil. Peppers we grow in pots inside our greenhouse... they love the heat and ours get huge every year. We make sure to use a lot of new soil mixed in the old for pots. In the garden, we add nutrients every fall after most things are harvested. Some things winter over like kale, Swiss chard, leeks, and sometimes carrots.

 

[mapper]

Yep fresh tomatoes and onions from the garden and corn cooked while still screaming are hard to beat for taste.

So spoiled by home grown, vine ripened tomatoes that we rarely by store bought, rather go without than endure the miserable tasteless excuses for tomatoes....

 

[Jstpssng]

Ditto here. I always laugh when I go into the grocery store and see all of the "vine ripened tomatoes" nice and uniform in color, with half a dozen on a bunch like grapes. It's amazing what you can do with a can of ethylene.

 

[Dftodd]

Wife sent me this, figured it would be a good spot to share.