Larry,

When you see malformations and oddities on fruit that has set early in the season while nights are still cool, they are just a normal physiological issue usually caused by cool temperatures and are not anything to be concerned about. So, you will occasionally see an off-type or oddly shaped tomato form from flowers that pollinated and fertilized early in the season while nights were still cool.

Since Early Girl is one of the earlier tomatoes to form fruit and often does set fruit while nighttime temperatures are fairly low, it is not surprising you'd see a pointed end here and there, It does seem odd that every fruit on the plant is doing this and it makes me think that your Early Girls may not be Early Girls. Your description of them as being more lemon-shaped than round makes me think you may have some type of paste-type tomato similar to Roma.

So, did you start your own plants from seed and, if so, do you remember your seed source? If it was saved seed, you could have some cross-pollinated seed. If it was purchased seed or purchased plants, you could have cross-pollinated seed or seed that was mislabeled by the wholesaler or retailer. What other varieties have you planted? Are you seeing the lemon-shaped fruit on only one Early Girl plant or on several?

I occasionally see tomatoes, particularly those that have set under stressful conditions, that have one type of oddity are another. (My favorites are the ones that look like little noses growing on the fruit.) Sometimes a fruit that forms very early while it is still chilly will have an almost crescent shape to it, generally caused by the improper formation of one or more seed locules. However, since different blossoms bloom and set fruit at different times, it usually is just a fruit here or there---not a whole plant's worth.

The only common problem I can think of that often affects the blossom end of the fruit is blossom end rot, caused by issues with calcium uptake, and it generally presents as blackened, water-soaked looking tissue at the blossom end of the fruit, although every now and then you'll see a case of internal BER in which you find a blackened section inside a tomato that looks find from the outside.

Perhaps Jay or George or someone else who has grown tomatoes for some time now will have a better idea, but I'm just leaning toward mislabeled seed or plants.

Dawn

I have grown a tomato named Tip Top that looked like that. It is a small red tomato with a pointed bottom like a spinning top.

slowpoke - Check out Riesentraube on this page and see if your tomato looks like it.

Here is a link that might be useful: TGS - Riesentraube

Grandmom, the fruit does look very much like Riestraube, except the tip may be a little larger on some of them, but the tag says " early girl improved"

Dawn, I went, or waded out to the garden and check all of my tomatoes, only the early girl had the pointed ends. All 12 fruits were like that.

I have (1) Pompeii, started from seed from Renee's Garden (2) sunsugar (plants) from M&M greenhouse, (2) Brandywine, (plants) from Atwoods, (4) Parks Whopper, (plants) from M&M green house, (4) Big Beef (plants) from M&M green house, (2) Big Boy (plants) from Atwoods, (1) Early Girl Improved (plant) from Atwoods,(2) Cherokee Purple, (plant)
from Atwoods, (1) Prudens Purple, ( seed ) from Pinetree Gardens, (2) Burpee Seedless, (seed from Burpee's, (1) I just labled Pizza, (seed we got out of a tomato at Simple Simons Pizza shop).

I'm not sure all plants have tomatoes on them yet, very wet in the garden so I did look really good, but most do and look ok.

Got to go to church, be back soon, Larry

My first inclination was if it was bought as a plant a switched label. Some people have fun doing that. Sometimes if they switch a RL and a PL it is obvious. But if both are the same leaf type then harder. Do you by any chance remember what varieties Atwoods offered? Yes I've seen odd shapes like Dawn mentioned due to cool weather and stress. Last summer with the heat and record drought I had two different varieties that had pink and red fruit on the same vine. In both cases they should of been red and I had one pink on each vine. Although I had read about it. It was a first for me. Several asked why I didn't save seeds. I probably should have . Both were first fruits and wasn't sure what color the others would be when they ripened. So oddities can happen. Are they still green or turning color yet? When they ripen you can tell more also. Do they possibly look like a paste type? Jay

Since it is a purchased plant, I am inclined to agree with Jay that it is most likely that you purchased a plant with an incorrect label.

The second most likely thing is that your Early Girl is a Pompeii because Pompeii produces elongated fruit with a pointy end. Do you think there's any chance that happened?

I've linked the "paste tomato" section from the TGSC website below since many paste tomatoes fit your description of the fruit's appearance. Why don't you click on the link, look at the photos of paste tomatoes, and tell us if any of them looks like what you have?

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: TGSC Paste Tomatoes

Dawn, I have a Pompeii and it does not look anything like the one that is labeled Early Girl. The Pompeii is sort of a long tomato, the others are round with a tip on the bottm. I an leaning toward the switched lable idea now, mainly because all 12 fruits on that plant look the same. They also look very much like the Riestraube.

Jay, all the fruits are green and the largest is approx. 2 to 2.5" in dia.

This seed thing can get a little strange. Last year I was given some peppers that I thought were the best I had ever eaten. I ask my wife to save some seeds from one of them to have to plant for this year. I now have 8 of the wonderful pepper plants that have what looks like banana
pepers rather than the big stockie peppers we ate last year.

Larry

Larry, They may look a lot like Riesentraube, but they aren't Riesentraube if they are 2-2.5" because Riesentraube produces 1" slightly elongated cherry type with a small pointed end. Also, if it was Riesentraube, it would be producing multi-flora blossom clusters with dozens of blossoms per cluster. You normally get fruit set in clusters of 20 to 40 (or more) tomatoes per cluster. Technically Riesentraube translates from German as "giant grape" I think, but I always think of it as a "giant cluster of grapes". It is one of the most gorgeous tomato plants I've ever grown just because of the enormous number of blossoms and fruit on one plant.

Since it is likely you have a mislabeled plant, you may never know what it is.

Dawn

Dawn, Jay, and others, thank you very much for your help.

This is a great site with lots of good people. I hope to learn a lot here, thanks again.

Larry

I've had the problem too of inadvertently buying mislabeled plants. One time, in my "newbieness" I ended up with a bunch of unwanted cherry tomatoes. This was at a reputable nursery too!

I have also just about given up buying from places like Lowes, Atwoods or Walmart, especially if the plants look picked over. I did buy a couple of pepper plants today from Lowes because the flats had just been put out, but I still reached farther back in the flat where I figured the plants hadn't been messed with. Nowadays, I am more inclined to start my own seeds for that very reason, and from companies I know.

My first thought on Larry's Early Girl was it might be an Oxheart. Maybe not, but it may not be early, if it's not an EG, no matter what it is. But hopefully it will still be useful and tasty.

Larry, I am raising some sausage tomatoes from some seeds I bought from Territorial seeds last year, for paste tomatoes. They are probaly not your wannabe EG, but I am wondering if anyone has grown them before. From the description on the website Dawn linked, I didn't exactly like the description. I bought them for novelty, but not sure how they are going to taste, even in pasta sauces. Have any of you ever grown them?

Also, I've not very familiar with paste tomatoes. What would you recommend as the very best paste tomatoe out there in paste tomatoe world? It's not too late to get some started for fall tomatoes.

And, I have a lot of peat pots left over from last year. What do y'all use for a potting soil medium?
I have a need to know, lol! I want this to be the "Summer of the Tomatoe"!
By the way Larry, I hope you get some really nice Early Girls. Maybe your gurl will straighten out and behave, and do what she's supposed to. Keep us informed.

Oh, and one last question. My son lives in Blanchard, a little south of OKC. He may have to move shortly and would like to know what really good tomatoes he could grow in containers so that he could take them with him, and what size containers would he need to be roomy enough to grow adaquate tomatoes?

Thank you in advice for any suggestions. He could buy ready started tomatoes down there from nurseries to give him a head start,

BTW, that was a cute comment about my tree birds wearing diapers. Would that they could, lol!

Shekanahh

Larry, you are welcome. We all learn a lot here and it is fun to discuss gardening.

Shekannah, If Larry had an oxheart and it was blooming and producing this early here in our climate, I'd have a heart attack and fall over. Oxhearts don't like our heat and don't produce well here. I'm lucky if I get 3 fruit per plant from an oxheart, so I seldom plant them here.

For your son, the variety of tomato to put into a container depends on the size of the container. You can grow just about any determinate in a 5-gallon container with careful attention to watering in the summer months, but will need larger containers (10-gallons or more) for indeterminates. I like to use 20-gallon and larger container for indeterminates.

As far as variety recommendations, if he is going to buy the plants, he'll be restricted by what the nurseries offer, so I'd just look for healthy determinates.

If you're starting from seed, here's a few that have grown well in 5-gallon buckets for me:

New Big Dwarf
Sweet Baby Girl
Martino's Roma
Gold Ball
Jaune Flammee'

I grew Sausage a couple of years ago and was not especially impressed. This year, for paste types, I have San Marzano Redorta and Viva Italia in the spring garden, and have started seeds of Opalka, Polish Linguisa and Rio Grande for fall. There are lots of good paste tomatoes and there's not one I consider the very best, but I like San Marzano, San Marzano Redorta, Opalka, Polish Linguisa and Martino's Roma the best. Martino's Roma is an extremely heavy producer. I grow paste types more for Tim to use in making salsa and pico de gallo. For actual cooking, I use a blend of heirloom non-paste tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce and have found they make a sauce with a much fuller flavor than the standard paste varieties.

What kind of a potting soil medium are you wanting? One for seed-starting or one for growing regular plants because my answer will vary depending on the intended use of the medium. I hate peat pots and no longer use them.

You can grow virtually any determinate in 5-gallon buckets, but indeterminates required at least 10-gallon containers to produce well in our hot climate, and I prefer 20-gallon or larger containers.

If your son is going to start with purchased transplants, he'll be restricted to what the stores have in stock. Of those he's likely to find, these would do well in containers: Celebrity, Grape, Homestead, Husky Red, Husky Red Cherry, Porter or Better Bush.

If growing from seed, the options are limitless. Here's some that have grown well in containers for me:

Homestead 24
San Marzano Redorta
New Big Dwarf
Black Plum
Ildi
Bush Early Girl
Bush Champion
Marglobe
Porter or Porter Improved
Rutgers
Mortgage Lifter (large containers only)
Neves Azorean Red (large containers only)
Ramapo
Martino's Roma
Principe' Borghese
Viva Italia
Window Box Roma
Small Fry
Southern Night (black)
Black Plum
Green Grape
Lime Green Salad
Green Zebra
Russian Persimmon
Nebraska Wedding (large containers only)
Sun Gold or Sun Sugar (large containers only)
Ildi
Coyote
Livingston's Dwarf Stone
Livingston's Magnus (large containers only)
Livingston's Paragon (large containers only)
Cherokee Purple
Black Krim

This year in containers I have 30 plants consisting of the following varieties:

Homestead 24
San Marzano Redorta
New Big Dwarf
Sophie's Choice
Sioux
Black Plum
Viva Italia
Box Car Willie
Tropic
Ildi
Red Defender
Livingston's Gold Ball
Scarlet Red
Chocolate Stripes
Mountain Princess
Indian Stripe
Momotaro

The key to success with tomatoes in containers is to plant in a well-drained potting mix, keep them well watered (once or twice daily in hot weather), feed them regularly with a water-soluable fertilizer and mulch the to reduce soil splash.

Dawn

Ladies, I thought I might comment on the containers.

My daughter lives in a old horse barn that has a house built in one end of it, very rustic, and very nice. I made her some planters with storage totes inside with holes drilled in the bottom for drainage. All the outside is treated fence rails. The frame work is treated 2x4's.
they have swivel casters on all corners and the 1x6 rails came down to about 1/2" above the deck so you can't see the casters. I dont remember if I used the 10 gal. size or the 18 gal. size totes.

She uses them for flowers but they could be used for tomatoes. The wood shields the plastic from the U.V rays and makes the planter cooler.

She has been using them for a few years, they have weathered and match her rustic house very well. If anyone wanted to build something like that it would be very easy, just remember to put a tar-paper shield above the casters to keep the copper from bleeding out of the wood and rusting the casters.

Just thought I would throw that in.

Larry

Dawn....
I'm really glad you passed that info on about the Oxheart and the Sausage. I'd ordered both from Territorial Seeds last year, (supposed to be Livingston, I could be wrong). Anyways, I think I will rip them out and plant something better in their place since they are just now sprouting good.

I don't know what to use if not peat pots. But I did get a big bag of potting soil today at Lowe's to start some seeds in. Should I have purchased seed starting soil? I did last go round and it worked well. So, should I get some more before planting my new precious seeds?

I am passing that info onto my son, who LOVES good homegrown tomatoes, but is not much of a gardener. Tried one of those upside down thingi's last summer. A total flop, of course. But I think anyone could manage to have a few nice tomatoe plants following your basis instructions.

I would like to reorder on the paste tomatoe seeds. I used to know a company who would send seeds without charging for the postage, which is exhorbitant for just a few packages. I forgot the name of the company tho.

Larry,

Your daughter's planters sound nice.

If I ever make any plant containers out of storage totes, I'll probably make Earthbox-type self-watering containers that have a watering reservoir like those made by Raybo on the tomato forum who calls his Earthtainers.

Shekannah,

You know me.....I just "had to" try oxheart types here even though I read that they don't produce well in the heat. And, even though I was surrounded by gardeners all my life from the time I was a tiny tot, I had never known anyone who grew oxhearts in Texas, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. Well, of course the oxhearts didn't produce well....hardly any fruit at all and it was very, very late. Lesson learned. : )

You never know about 'Sausage'. Everyone's taste buds are different and everyone perceives tomato 'flavor' differently, which partially explains why some people rave about a particular tomato variety's flavor, and others can't stand it. So, you might find that you liked 'Sausage'. I'd leave at least one in the ground and see if I like the taste/texture of them. It probably is not any 'worse' than any other paste-type that's out there.

The problem with peat pots is that they wick moisture out of the soil that is within the peat pot, thus pulling it away from the roots of the plant you're trying to grow. Also, even after planted into the ground, they continue the moisture wicking. Even if I buy a plant in a peat pot, I moisten the pot by soaking it in water and pull it off the plant and discard it before planting.

For seed starting, I usually use 72-cell nursery flats (purchased in quantity from a greenhouse supply store) and then transplant up into small paper cups. If the plants are to be grown on until they get substantially larger, I'll eventually transplant them into larger paper, styrofoam or plastic cups with drainage holes poked in them. I usually buy my cups at Sam's or CostCo in very, very large quantities. My husband doesn't even bat an eye when I put a package of hundreds of cups into the basket at Sam's or CostCo. (He's not a gardener, but he's a very supportive spouse.....and, at work, he gets asked a lot of gardening questions, and he's been around me long enough that he usually can answer those questions then and there without calling me. LOL)

You have to be careful about purchasing potting soil for seed starting. Some brands work fairly well but others do not work well at all. Many of them are too heavy and have very poor drainage and are not sterile so disease issues like damping off are common when they are used. Sterile seed-starting mixes are preferred but they are not always easy to find. A lot of people on the tomato forum, and some on this forum, have had a lot of trouble this year with certain Miracle Grow formulations. I normally mix my own for seed starting, or purchase something like Pro-Mix, Jiffy Mix or Metro Mix. Sometimes, when potting up into cups, if I am too busy to assemble all the ingredients to mix up a home-made batch, I'll purchase and use the regular Miracle Grow potting soil in the larger cups, but never, ever the Moisture Control one or the Organic Choice one because I've seen too many anecdotal reports of problems with those two. For me, the spring seed-starting time often overlaps the winter wildfire season when I'm super-busy, so how much time I can give my seed-starting efforts is severely limited in a bad fire year. This was a very bad fire year, so I just used MG.

Those upside down tomato things are just the equivalent of 'snake oil' in my opinion, but there's no telling how many people have fallen for the hype and purchased them.

I "hedge my bets" by growing tomatoes both in the ground and in containers. The in-the-ground garden is about 100 feet from the container garden and there is a building between the two. In most years, the in-the-ground plants grow better, but this year the container plants are doing much better than the in-the-ground plants which have been set back severely by the excess rain. I also tinkered with my container soil mix a little, and added some bone meal, dried blood and green sand, which I don't necessarily do every year. So far the results have been great....rapid growth, very healthy plants, lots of flowers and fruit on the container-grown plants. However, the first ripe tomatoes (except for the few February-planted container plants specifically grown to give the first tomatoes) have come from the in-ground plants. All the plants, in the ground and in containers, get Espoma Tomato-Tone fertilizer at the time they are planted, but this year I've been using up the last of last year's bags. The fall tomatoes will be planted using the new formulation of Espoma Tomato-Tone and that will be my first chance to see how the new formulation works.

It has finally dried out/warmed up enough here that the in-ground plants are recovering from the excessively wet soil and their color and growth have improved significantly the last 2-3 weeks, but they are much farther behind where they normally would be in early June. I usually start harvesting tomatoes around Memorial Day but this year most of the harvest probably won't begin until late June, although a few have already ripened and others are at the breaker stage.

Happy to pass the tips along.....I could "talk tomatoes" all day long.

Dawn