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Growing Tomatoes

Trying to figure out Determinate or Indeterminate

16 years ago

OK - I'm a rookie and here's my issue. I'm growing 4 Red Robin, 1 Window-Box Roma, and 1 dwarf cherry tomato plants on my balcony in containers ranging from 1-3 gallons. They are all determinate varieties.

Before I understood determinate vs. indeterminate, I thought all tomato plants would bear fruit throughout the season, which is what I wanted.

So...obviously I have determinate plants, what time span during the summer can I expect to be able to enjoy tomatoes? Will there only be a 2-week span or 2-months? Is there any way to delay a couple of the Red Robin plants, so my harvest can stagger through the summer??

Thanks for all the help so far.

-chris

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Comments (3)

hortist
16 years ago
I wouldnt try "delaying" a det. plant. The way you do that is with nutrition.

Some determinates produce all at once (many of the machine harvest varieties) while others like Mountain Pride and such produce flushes of set in a concentrated time frame and then stop.

This isnt the way to decide if something is det or indet. The way that is done is to count how many nodes (places leaves start on the stem) inbetween flowers. Det is 3 or less and indet is 4 (or more).
anney
16 years ago
murray8144

In order to extend your growing season, why don't you plant more seeds of your varieties directly outside in other containers right now so that when the ones you have now mature, your new ones will be getting ready to produce fruit. The Red Robins are supposed to produce fruit in about 50 days, so you won't have to go very long without fruit.

You can stagger or succession plant determinates you like over a period of time and have tomatoes most of the growing season.
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Hi, welcome to Gardenweb! It sounds like you are off to a good start. My 16" pots are a little over 9 gallons and a good minimum size for non-dwarf tomatoes. It sounds like you have 3 good main stems, so you probably don't want to go more than that. I would go ahead and prune. Personally I would not remove blossoms. It's a judgement call, but since it's a bit late in the season, you're in the PNW, and GZ is a full-size tomato, I would leave them. It's great weather for fruit set right now, and if you remove blossoms you delay fruit by 3 weeks. Since we don't have a long hot season we don't have the luxury to delay fruit that long when it's midway thru June. It's been my observation that flowers on a healthy plant, such as you describe, don't slow it's veg growth in any significant manner anyway. Keep us updated! Jenn
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Big Beef is a very popular variety and there are many current and past discussions here about it. Topic - Big Beef As for the differences between det. and indet, there is a good FAQ here that covers that. http://faq.gardenweb.com/discussions/2766765/what-is-the-difference-between-determinate-and-indeterminate-tomatoes Rutgers is available as in indeterminate and Celebrity is a semi-determinate but neither is commonly noted for fantastic taste as I think you'll discover once you taste Big Beef. But note that it will be a much larger plant than you are used to dealing with so plan accordingly. Dave
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digdirt2
16 years ago
I agree with anney - succession planting is the way to extend your eating season. Given your zone, I'd use plants not seeds but its your choice. All your varieties will "crop" at different times so you should have a good 6-8 weeks of "some" tomato to eat.

All your listed varieties are "dwarfs" not true determinates so I won't go into the potential problems with the size of your containers as that would get this discussion off course but the 1 gallon plants could easily be transplanted to larger containers. Transplanting usually sets a plant back a couple of weeks so it would delay the harvest on those plants and stretch your harvesting a bit. Good luck.

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