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Growing Tomatoes

brandywine&green zebra

17 years ago

Can I grow them in big pots? And can I use almost straight compost and aged horse manure? I have alfalfa meal and organic rose food too. And I have peat moss available. What do you think. I am in PNW and have a south facing cement patio. The starts I have are about 2 feet tall for brandywines, and about 12 in. on green zebras.

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Comments (7)

reginald_317
17 years ago
And can I use almost straight compost and aged horse manure?...

charleney, sure but my experience with GZ has been that it is very susceptible to BER. It is a very good tom. Hopefully yours will not get BER.

Reg
diablo1713
17 years ago
i grew my brandywine in a 15 gallon container, the plant itself grew nice and tall - taller than the 6 ft stake i had set up for it, but overall there were a lot of falling blossoms and i ended up with only about a half dozen fruit by the seasons end on it. In a similar set up - Mortgage Lifter fruited much more and didnt have the blossom drop problem. I grew the "lucinda" plant not a green zebra - it's a local hybrid from the Baia Nicchia company here in the Bay Area and they've crossed a green zebra and a silvery fir tree to create determinate bush green zebra types. That plant did excellent in the container and produced about 50 fruit on a smaller 4 ft high determinate bush. My neighbor's green zebra plant grew in the ground fine but he doesn't stake his tomatoes like I do and had a lot of dropped fruit overall.
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I've have about narrowed my list down. These are the tomatoes I am growing. Approx 4000 I will only be planting two of each in my garden the rest will be sold at the Midlands plant and flower show in Columbia. Abe Lincoln reg leaf Ammana Orange Amish Gold Amish Paste Ananas Noire Andrew Rahart's Jumbo Anna Russian Arkasas Traveler Akansas Marvel Aunt Ruby's Green Azoychka Banana Legs Basinga Beefsteak Black Cherry Black from Tula Black Krim Blondkopfchen Blue Ridge Mt Box Car Willie Brandy Wine Suddath Strain Chadwick Cherry Cherokee Chocolate Cherokee Purple Copia Costoluto Genovese Creole Cuostralee Dad's Barber Paste Dad's Sunset Dagma's Perfection Dr Carolyn Dr Wyches Yellow Druzba Earl of Edgecombe Eva Purple Ball Evergreen Flame (Hillbilly) German Johnson German Red Strawberry Gold Medal Golden Pineapple Green Grape Henderson's Pink Ponderosa Ildi Isis Candy Kellog's Breakfast Kentucky Beefsteak Lemony Lillians Yellow Little Lucky Luck Cross Lumpy Red Manyel Marianna's Peace Max's large Green Nepal Old German Orange Strawberry Orange Russian Paul Robeson Peppermint Persimon Prudens Purple Russo Sicilian Toggeta Rutgers Sandul Moldavan Soldacki Spears Tenn Green Sun Gold Super Choice Super Snow White Tappy's Finest Uncle Mark Bagby Wapsipinicon White Beauty White Tomesol Wild Cherry Williams Stripe Winsall Wolfords Wonder Yellow Ruffled Zogola
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Hey TerMater, I am foaming at the mouth over your offer. But I am in W-S, and the 2 hour drive is not wise with these gas prices. My son eats tomatoes like apples...and he is a growing boy wearing a size 9 mens shoe at 11 years old. One reason I am going to start gardening is the high prices of food, but also so this manboy in my house will have an abundant supply. He also wants to be a zoologist, and I told him that he has to learn how to take care of a plant before he can take care of an animal. And then the stray dog showed up this winter... Anyway, good luck finding homes for your plants...
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FYI, Green Zebra is technically not an heirloom. It's an open pollinated variety developed by plant breeder Tom Wagner. This doesn't affect its taste, by any means. But credit should go where credit is due. Tom would not agree with you. He's stated here at GW and other places that to him an heirloom is something that is treasured and if one treasures Green Zebra then by his definition it's an heirloom, as are all the varieties he's created. And of course that's yet another definition of an heirloom, ahem, that' we've been discussing elsewhere. Carolyn
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barrie2m_(6a, central PA)
17 years ago
Both are INDT growth habit plants that tend to grow quite tall. Green Zebras tend to produce abundant foliage which make them top-heavy even before they start producing fruit. They just wouldn't be my choices for pot growing.
kubotabx2200
17 years ago
I would think you might need to supplement it with calcium with a bit of magnesium i.e. bone meal if you are getting blossom end rot. Manure just doesn't have it. But bone meal is cheap.
ckm3
17 years ago
I've grown both in 18 gal. containers: GZ does better in nr of fruit, but certainly is BER prone... Just have to keep the watering very even. The Brandy's did not produce near as well as same/same in a raised bed nearby. I'm doing both this year, both in raised beds!
andreajoy
17 years ago
i might be wrong...but the soil mix you're suggesting sounds a little nitrogen rich.

brandywine is very nitrogen sensitive...and it sounds from these posts that the green zebra is as well...so you might end up with big green plants and no fruit.

i would probably keep the alfalfa meal out of there completely...
baytomatoguy
16 years ago
About Lucinda --

Although it was derived from a cross between Green Zebra and Silvery Fir Tree, we released it only after it was true-breeding (after six generations of selection, and after seeing uniformity in the F6 plants). We fixed most of the Green Zebra fruit traits and most of the Silvery Fir Tree vegetative traits in "Lucinda", although Lucinda is not quite as determinate as Silvery Fir Tree.

If you save seeds from this variety, it will breed true.

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