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Growing Tomatoes

Joy of More Space - Agony of Less Sun

13 years ago

Last year I planted pretty tightly in raised beds. My plants were a mere 18 inches apart. I pruned every plant to a single vine. This year I have more space. I can give my plants a bit more room (24-30 inches apart) and prune less. IÂll likely prune everything to 2-3 vines.

I have two questions:

1) Is there anything on my list that simply must have more room than I am offering?

2) Six of these darlings will need to be planted in a spot that unfortunately only gets about 5 hours of sun. With such limited sun, might anyone have any thoughts on which plants might do better than others?

Thank you, Fred in Maine

zone 5b

Azoychka

Black from Tula

Black Zebra

Brandywine Sudduth

Brandywine Yellow

Caspian Pink

Champion

Cherokee Purple

EvaÂs Purple Ball

Pineapple

Isis Candy

Japanese Black Trifele

MariannaÂs Peace

Persimmon

RutgerÂs

Ananas Noire

Tiffen Mennonite

KelloggÂs Breakfast

Chocolate Cherry

PrudenÂs Purple

Black Krim

Moskovich

Black Cherry

Valencia

Jaune FlammÃ©e

Aunt RubyÂs German Green

Green Zebra

Stupice

Sioux

Paragon

Mortgage Lifter

Mexico

Goliath

Cosoluto Genevese

Big Beef

Applause

Striped German

Paragon

Roman Candle

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Comments (8)

daylilyfanatic4
13 years ago
I would plant the varieties that mature earliest in the least sun. EX. Stupice. I give my plants 24" and don't prune they are fine.
taz6122
13 years ago
Isn't Sioux determinate. I wouldn't prune a determinate. There may be others as well but I'm not that familiar with tomato varieties.
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wordwiz
13 years ago
Five hours of direct sunlight will provide about 33 mols per day, Tomatoes need 22 mols/day to thrive.

Mike
Fred_in_Maine
Original Author
13 years ago
Taz, Sioux is described as an indeterminate in all the most credible listings I've found (viz Dave's Garden, Tatiana's Tomato Base, etc) but you wouldn't think so watching it grow. Last year it just sat there as a smallish, stunted shrub stubbornly doing very little until the last siren song of the growing season. Then it suddenly exploded. Sure looked like and behaved like a determinate to me.

Daylily, your advice makes a lot of sense. Early maturing varieties in less sun. Thank you. You don't prune at 24 inch spacing? Wow! That is inspiring to hear. Hard for me to form a mental picture but it offers me much hope. Last year, one vine per 18 inches was an impenetrable jungle. I would love to envision such spacing (a little more in my plans) without pruning.
Fred_in_Maine
Original Author
13 years ago
Mike, what a unique and VERY cool answer to my quandary. I have no idea what a mol is but it sounds very scientific and precise. I always thought that 6 hours of sun was the minimum for tomatoes. My garden area in question only gets 5 hours. If you say I'm getting 33 mols and I only need 22 mols, I'm thrilled. Confused and befuddled but thrilled.
taz6122
13 years ago
Fred you are mistaken, Tatiana's Tomatobase lists it as determinate.
http://tatianastomatobase.com/w/index.php?title=Category:Determinate_Tomatoes&from=Morkovnyi
taz6122
13 years ago
BUMP!
wordwiz
13 years ago
Fred,

The theory is based on Daily Light Integral - the total amount of light that a plant gets in a day. Sort of like using a rain gauge to determine not how hard it is raining but how rain we get from a shower. But in this case, it is the amount of PAR light, light in the 400-700 nm range.

This link provides the amount of light needed for various greenhouse plants. This is to grow to maturity, not seedlings.

On Page 4 of this page the formula for calculating moles (or mols) per day is provided. I've measured bright sunlight in summer with my meter and I get about 110,000 - 120,000 lux. Going with 100,000 lux, that's about 9300 foot candles. Multiply that by .000718 gives you 6.67 mols per hour.

This is the scientific aspect but the anecdotal part is that I had tomato plants growing in my GH this winter that did nothing except get very leggy until I started getting about five hours of direct light a day. Even then, it was filtered a bit by plastic. But I had hundreds of blooms and now have bunches and bunches of toms. Eaten some, some are almost ready to eat and others will not be ripe for a month or more!

Mike

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